I shoot the first boy in the kneecap. The second I shoot as he reaches for a knife. I'm a bad aim. I get his shoulder instead of his eye socket. I slide into the shelter with my skinning knife, ready to finish the boys off as they howl in pain. Some- thing in me, the human part, has turned off, and it's only when I see Mustang's eyes that I stop. "Darrow," she says softly.
Even shivering, she is beautiful-the small, quick-smiling girl who brought me back to life. The bright-eyed soul who keeps Eo's song alive. I shudder with anger. If I had been ten minutes later in returning, this night could have broken me forever. I cannot bear another death. Espe- cially not Mustang's.
"Darrow, let them live," she says again, whis- pering it to me as Eo would whisper she loved me. It cuts to my core. I can't take the sound of her voice, the anger inside me.
My mouth doesn't work. My face is numb; I can't lose the grimace of rage that controls it. I drag the two boys out by their hair and kick them till Mustang joins us. I leave them moan- ing in the snow and return to help her dress. She feels so fragile as I pull her animal skins around her bony shoulders.
"Knife or snow," she asks the boys when she's dressed. She holds the knives heated in the fire in her trembling hands. She coughs. I know what she's thinking. Let them go and they kill us as we sleep. Neither will die from their wounds. The medBots would come if that were the case. Or maybe they won't for Oathbreakers.
They choose snow.
I'm glad. Mustang didn't want to use the knife. We tie them to a tree at the edge of the woods and light a signal fire so that some House will find them. Mustang insisted on coming along, coughing all the way, as if she were worried I wouldn't do as she asked. She was right to think that.
In the night, after Mustang has gone to sleep, I get up to go back and kill the Oathbreakers. If Jupiter or Mars finds them, then they will spill where we are and we will be taken.
"Don't, Darrow," she says as I pull back the caribou skin. I turn. Her face peers out from our blankets.
"We will have to move if they live," I say. "And you're already sick. You'll die."
We have warmth here. Shelter.
"Then we will move in the morning," she says. "I'm tougher than I look."
Sometimes that is true. This time it is not.
I wake in the morning to find that she shifted in the night to curl into me for warmth. Her body iS sO frail It trembles like a leaf in the wind. I smell her hair. She breathes softly. Salt tracks mark her face. I want Eo. I wish it were her hair, her warmth. But I don't push Mustang away. There's pain when I hold her, but it comes from the past, not from Mustang. She is something new, something hopeful. Like spring to my deep winter.
When morning comes, we move deeper into the woods and make a lean-to shelter against a rock face with fallen trees and packed snow. We never find out what happened to the Oathbreak- ers or our cave.
Mustang can barely sleep, she coughs so much. When she sleeps curled into me, I kiss the nape of her neck softly, softly so that she will not wake; though I secretly wish she would if just to know that Im here. Her skin is hot. I hum the Song of Persephone.
"I can never remember the words," she whis- pers to me. Her head lies in my lap tonight. "I wish I did." I have not sung since Lykos. My voice is raspy and raw. Slowly the song comes.
Listen, listen Remember the wane Of sun's fury and waving grain We fell and fell And danced along To croon a knell Of rights and wrongs
And
My son, my son Remember the burn When leaves were fire and seasons turned We fell and fell And sang a song To weave a cell Al autumn long
And Down in the vale Hear the reaper swing, the reaper swing the reaper swing Down in the vale Hear the reaper sing A tale of winter long
My girl, my girl Remember the chill When rains froze and snows aid kill We fell and fell And danced along Through icy hell To their winter song
My love, my love Remember the cries When winter died for spring skies They roared and roared But we grabbed our seed And sowed a song Against their greed
My son, my son Remember the chains When gold ruled with iron reins We roared and roared And twisted and screamed For ours, a vale of better dreams
And
Down in the vale
Hear the reaper swing, the reaper swing the reaper swing Down in the vale Hear the reaper sing A tale of winter done
"It is strange," she says. "What is?"
"Father told me that there would be riots be- cause of that song. That people would die. But it is such a soft melody." She coughs blood into a pelt. "We used to sing songs by the campfire, out in the country, where he kept us out of.. coughs again a... of the public .. ...eye. When ... my brother died ... Father never sang with me again."
She will soon die. It's only a matter of time. Her face is pale, her smiles feeble. There's only one thing I can do, since the medBots haven't come. I will have to leave her to seek out medicine. One of the Houses might have found some Or received injectables as a bounty. I'1l have to go soon, but I need to get her food first.
Someone follows me that day as I hunt alone in the winter woods. I wear my new white wolf- cloak. They are camouflaged as well, I do not see Whoever it is, but he is there. I pretend my bow- string needs fixing and steal a glance back. Noth- ing. Quiet. Snow. The sound of wind on brittle branches. They still follow as I move along.
I feel them behind me. It's like the ache in my body from my wound. I pretend to see a deer and pass quickly through a thicket only to scramble up a tall pine on the other side.
I hear a pop.
They pass beneath me. I feel it on my skin, in my bones. So I shake the branches under my legs. Gathered snow tumbles down. A distorted hol- low in the shape of a man forms in the snowfall. It is looking at me.
"Fitchner?" I call down. His bubblegum pops again.
"You may come down now, boyo," Fitchner barks up. He deactivates his ghostCloak and gravBoots and sinks into the snow. He's wear- ing a thin black thermal. My layered fatigues and stinking animal skins don't keep me half as warm.
It's been weeks since I last saw him. He looks tired.
Going to finish what Cassius started?" I ask as I hop down.
He looks me over and smirks. "You look horri- ble."
"You do too. The soft bed, warm food, and wine giving you trouble?" I point up. We can ust barely see Olympus between the skeletal branches of the winter trees.
He smiles. "Readout says you've lost twenty pounds."
"Baby fat," I tell him. "Cassius's ionSword carved it off." I pull up my bow and point it at him. I wonder if he's wearing a pulseShield. Itll stop anything short of pulseWeapons and ra- zors. Only recoilPlate can gird off those weapons and even then, not well. "I should shoot you." dare. I'm a Proctor, boyo.'" I shoot him in the thigh. Except the arrow loses velocity before it hits the invisible pulseShield, which flickers iridescent, and the arrow bounces to the ground. So they wear it at all times, even when they don't wear recoilArmor.
"You wouldn't
Well, that was petulant." He yawns.
PulseShield, gravBoots, ghostCloak, looks like he has a pulseFist too, and those famous razors. Snow melts as it touches his skin. He saw me in the tree, so I'm guessing his eyes have injected optics. Certainly thermal scopes and night vi- sion. He has a widget and an analyzerMod too. He knew my weight. Probably knows my white blood cell count. What about spectrum analysis?
He yawns again. "Little sleep these days on Olympus. Busy days."
"Who gave the Jackal the holo of me killing Ju- lian?" I ask.
"Well, you don't dally away time."
He did something just as I spoke, and the sound around us localizes. I can't hear anything beyond an invisible five-meter bubble. Didn't know they had toys like that.
"The Proctors gave it to the Jackal," he tells me. "Which ones?"
"Apollo. All of us. Doesn't matter."
I don't understand. "T assume it's because they favor the Jackal. Am I right?"
"As usual." His gum pops. "Unfortunately, youre just not allowed to win, and you were ining momentum. Sooo ..."
I ask him to explain. He says he j iust did. HiS eyes are ringed and tired despite the collagen and cosmetics he now wears to cover his fatigue. His stomach has grown. Arms are still skinny. Something worries him, and it isn't just his ap- pearance.
"Allowed to?" I echo. "Allowed to. No one can be allowed to win. I thought the gorydamn point was to carve our own ladder to the top. So if Im not allowed to win, that means the Jackal is." "Pegged it." He doesn't sound very happy.
"Then that doesn't make any lick of sense. It corrupts the entire thing," I say hotly. "You broke the rules."
The best of Gold is supposed to rise, yet they already have chosen a winner. Not only does this ruin the Institute, it ruins the Society. The fittest reign. That's what they say. Now they've betrayed their own principles by taking sides in a schoolyard fight. This is the Laurel all over again. Hypocrisy.
"So this kid is what? A predestined Alexander? A Caesar? A Genghis? A Wiggin?" I ask. "This is slagging nonsense."
"Adrius is the son of our dear ArchGovernor Augustus. That's all that matters."
"Yes, you've told me that, but why is he sup- posed to win? Simply because his father is im- portant?"
'Unfortunately, yes." "Be more specific."
He ighs. "The ArchGovernor has secretly threatened and bribed and cajoled all twelve of US tinl We came to agree upon the fact that his son should win. But we have to be careful in our cheating. The Drafters, my real bosses, watch every move from their palaces, ships, et cetera. They are very important people as well. And then there's the Board of Quality Control to worry about, and the Sovereign and Senators and all the other Governors themselves. Because, though there are many schools, any of them can watch you whenever they like."
"What? How?" He taps my wolf ring.
'Biometric nanoCam. Don't worry, it's show- ing them something else right now. I threw down a jamField, and anyway, there's a half-day