The metallic tang of old blood filled my mouth as I tried to swallow the bile rising in my throat. The palace hadn't fully collapsed, but the air was a thick, gray soup of pulverized limestone and steam that made my lungs scream with every breath. Alaric stood five feet away, his hand resting casually on the hilt of a sword that was still dripping red onto the debris-strewn floor, watching me like a hawk waits for a rabbit to twitch.
"They're waiting, Elowen," Alaric said, his voice a low, vibrating rasp. "The new masters. Tell them what they want to hear."
I looked past him to the three men standing in the doorway—emissaries from the Iron Coast, the very empire we were supposed to be hiding from. They weren't here to rescue us from the Council's fire. They were here to buy the wreckage, and Alaric was the one holding the gavel.
"I won't do it," I whispered, my knees shaking so hard I had to lean against a scorched drafting table. "You told me to build something they couldn't burn. You didn't say I was building it for them."
"You're building it for me," Alaric snapped. He stepped into my space, his presence a suffocating heat that made the ringing in my ears reach a deafening pitch. He grabbed my shoulder, his fingers digging into the tender muscle. "Look at them. If you don't give them the seismic thresholds for the floodgates, they'll take your sister instead. Is that what you want? To see her under a scalpel because you wanted to be a martyr?"
He's using my fear of losing her as a leash. He knows I'd rather burn the world than let them touch her, even after what she did.
"Is she even alive?" I asked, my voice cracking. "Or is that another one of your 'diversion protocols'?"
"She's as alive as you are. For now." Alaric turned me toward the emissaries. "Speak. Now."
The lead emissary, a man with a face like etched glass, stepped forward. "The Captain says you have the math to bypass the mountain's core. We need the numbers, Architect. We need to know where the stone is softest."
I could tell them the truth and give the Iron Coast the keys to our kingdom. Or I could lie and hope the structural failure I planted earlier finishes the job.
"The basalt is unstable at forty fathoms," I began, my heart hammering against the iron key still hanging around my neck. "You have to reinforce the primary arch with cold-rolled steel, or the whole ridge will slide into the sea."
"Steel is expensive," the emissary noted, his eyes narrowing. "The Captain said you could do it with stone."
"The Captain is a soldier, not an engineer," I hissed, flashing a glance at Alaric.
Alaric's grip tightened. He leaned down, his mouth inches from my ear, his stubble grazing my skin in a way that felt like a threat and a promise. "Don't play with them, Elowen. I told you what happens if the deal falls through. Give them the stone solution. Use the friction-lock method."
"The friction-lock will fail under a heavy load! It's a death trap!"
"Then make sure the load isn't heavy when we're standing on it," Alaric whispered, a dark, jagged humor in his voice.
He wants a trap. He isn't selling them a road; he's selling them a grave. But I'm the one who has to sign the blueprints.
"Fine," I said, my voice cold. I reached for a piece of charcoal, my hand trembling as I sketched the bridge supports. I drew the friction-lock, but I omitted the vital drainage channels. Without them, the first rain would turn the foundation into mud.
The emissaries huddled over the drawing, their greedy eyes scanning my father's stolen geometry. They didn't see the flaw. They only saw the shortcut.
"Impressive," the lead man said. "Captain, she's as gifted as you claimed. We'll take the girl and the plans."
"The plans go now," Alaric said, his voice turning into ice. "The girl stays with me until the first stone is laid. That was the agreement."
"The agreement changed when the palace started burning," the emissary replied, pulling a short, curved blade from his belt. "We don't leave the asset behind in a war zone."
Alaric didn't reach for his sword. He didn't move at all. He just looked at me, a strange, hollow expression on his face that made the nausea return with a vengeance.
"Run, Elowen," he said softly.
"What?"
"The floorboards I told you to start with? They aren't just for the boiler pipes."
He kicked the table over, shielding me as the emissaries lunged. The room exploded in a different way this time—not steam, but the roar of Alaric's own men breaching the walls from the outside. The guards I thought were dead, the ones Alaric had 'sacrificed,' came pouring through the windows like shadows.
I could run through the hole they made. Or I could grab the map Alaric dropped in the scuffle.
I dove for the vellum, my fingers brushing the charred paper just as a hand caught my ankle. It was the emissary. He yanked me back, his blade catching the hem of my dress.
"Alaric!" I screamed.
Alaric didn't look. He was occupied with two men at once, his sword a red arc in the gray light. He was a monster, a beautiful, terrifying machine of death, and I realized then that he had never intended for me to get away. He'd just intended to change who owned the cage.
I grabbed the map, but in doing so, I let the emissary see the key around my neck. He didn't want the paper anymore. He wanted the blood-seal.
He lunged for my throat, but a heavy shadow intercepted him. Alaric slammed the man into the wall, the sound of breaking bone echoing through the chamber. He didn't stop until the man was a heap of broken meat.
Alaric turned to me, his face splashed with red, his chest heaving. He looked at the map in my hand and then at the key around my neck.
"Give me the map, Elowen," he said, holding out a hand that was slick with blood.
"No. You lied about everything. You used me to kill the Council and now you're using me to bait the Iron Coast."
"I'm keeping you alive!" he roared, the sound shaking the very foundations of the room. "You think you can survive out there? You're a girl with a pen! They'll tear you apart for the ink in your veins!"
"Then let them!"
I backed away, toward the hole in the wall, the wind from the outside world whipping my matted hair. I looked at the man I had chosen, the man I still—god help me—wanted to stay with, and I saw the bars of the cage he had built for me.
"If you take one more step, I can't protect you," Alaric warned, his voice dropping to a deadly, quiet frequency.
"You never were protecting me," I said, my voice steady for the first time. "You were just protecting your investment."
I jumped.
I didn't hit a snowbank this time. I hit the roof of a moving carriage, the impact jarring my teeth and sending the map flying from my hands. I rolled to the edge, clutching the iron key as if it were my own heart, watching the palace recede into the smoke.
I looked down into the carriage through the open skylight.
My sister was sitting there, her face bruised but her eyes as sharp as ever, holding the map I had just dropped.
"Took you long enough," she said, tapping the seat beside her.