The Pledge (22 page)

“Who are you? Who are all these people down here?” I asked, now that Angelina was no longer around. “I mean, I get that they’re Outcasts, but how did you all end up together?”

Xander settled down behind a makeshift desk, a sturdy-looking wooden table with pockmarks and peeling varnish. On it, an odd assortment of colorful maps and charts were strewn haphazardly. We were in an office of sorts, another chamber carved into the ground around us. “They’re not all Outcasts, Charlie. Many of them have chosen to be here. Yes,
some have left their class, deciding they’d rather live freely among the Outcasts than adhere to the strict rules of society, but others . . . well, let’s just say that others are leading double lives.”

“What do you mean? Why would they want to live in two places at once?”

“This isn’t just an underground city, where people are free to come and go as they please, a place with no rules,” he explained, sitting forward, his elbows on his desk. “You still don’t get it, do you? These are people with strong beliefs. We’ve all come together because we have a common goal—a common enemy. You’re sitting in the headquarters of the resistance.”

He was watching me, and I knew he was waiting for my response, but my brain felt suddenly sluggish, and my thoughts were slow to process what I’d heard.

Finally Xander broke the silence. “Do you understand what I’m telling you, Charlie?
We
are the revolutionaries.” He grinned then, his teeth flashing white and his scar stretching taut. “And I’m their leader.”

His words dangled in the air. “What are you talking about?” I finally scoffed. This was some sort of elaborate hoax. But then I looked at him, really looked at him. And I noticed the sense of power he wore, radiating off him like heat, and I wondered why I hadn’t noticed
that
at the club. Maybe I’d been too preoccupied by his strange silver eyes. Or maybe I’d been too concerned with Max. Whatever it was, Xander waited for me to catch up. “You’re . . . you’re not joking, are you?”

He shook his head solemnly. “I’m really not.”

“How many of you are there?” I asked, still trying to make sense of everything he’d just told me, my head reeling with nebulous, unformulated questions.

He studied me as intently as I did him. “Here? Thousands. The underground city stretches for miles, we have access points hidden in every part of the Capitol, and we have nearly as many escape routes as we have soldiers willing to die for the cause.” He smiled at his boast, and then added, “Outside the Capitol, we have encampments in almost every major city in the country. We’re bigger than you realize. Bigger than the queen realizes.” His eyebrows drew together, his expression was grave. “I can’t fail, Charlie. I can’t let these people down. They’re counting on me.”

I didn’t know what to say.

It didn’t matter that his reasons seemed sound, or that he truly believed his cause was just. It didn’t matter that I thought Xander was a decent man trying to make a difference in this world.

He was a criminal. He was the leader of a rebel movement bent on destroying the very foundation of our country. If he succeeded, if by some inconceivable stretch of the imagination he was truly able to overthrow Queen Sabara, then the country would be thrown into chaos. Everything we believed in, everything we’d ever been taught, would become obsolete.

It had been tried before. And it had failed.

Without the kind of magic that only a queen was born with, we could never survive.

the queen

The queen waited in hushed anticipation. She did not appreciate the calm.

When, at last, the door to the chamber opened and Baxter strode inside, she breathed an imperceptible sigh of relief.

“Has he spoken?” she demanded to know. “Have you broken him yet?”

Baxter hesitated, not a good sign. “No, Your Majesty,” he apologized, ducking as low as his belly would allow. “Not yet. We believe we’re close, however.”

She weighed his statement, his sugared reassurance of triumph, against the very real possibility that they would kill the boy before securing his cooperation. At the moment she needed all the information she could get about the resistance; killing anyone who might have valuable information would be counterproductive.

“Bring him to me,” she finally stated.

Baxter raised his head. “Your Majesty?”

Her eyebrows lifted, and her lips tightened.

Baxter cleared his throat, clearly recalling his position. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

She watched as he clumsily exited the room, and she wondered how much longer he could possibly be of use to her. He’d outlived his predecessors by years, but he was beginning to cross lines now too, to question his queen, even if only in thought. That in itself was treasonous. Cause enough for a death sentence.

Maybe, she thought, the new queen would have room for a traitor like him among her ranks. A sly smile found its way to her lips as she ignored the ache in her bones.

If only they could find a
new
queen in time.

The boy had to be carried into the room. He was incapable of standing before his queen, and she questioned whether he would have stood even had he been able to.

She had first received word of the boy from her spies, an intricate network laid throughout the city. They were distributed among every walk of life: the Counsel class, vendors, servants, and even within the ranks of military personnel. They knew how to gather information, using rewards and the promise of glory to coax her subjects into turning on one another.

She knew that the boy himself was no threat to her, that he was a nobody. But he had information to offer, or so she’d been told.

She gave the signal, and he was released by the guards. He dropped in a heap at her feet, whimpering softly as he clutched his ribs. His eyes were swollen, mottled with dark
bruising, his lips gashed and bloodied. And these were just the injuries that were visible.

She did her best to sound gentle and reassuring. A difficult task, since her heart felt nothing for the boy.
“You’re a fool. You’ll tell us what we want to know if it kills you,” she uttered.

He didn’t look up, and she took that as an indication that his wits were still intact, since she’d spoken in the Royal tongue. She dismissed the alternative, that he was already too damaged, that he was no longer capable of responding to words in any language.

She tried again, this time in Englaise, in hopes of gaining an answer from him. “We don’t want to hurt you,” she lied. “We just want the girl.”

His head inched up cautiously. He opened his mouth to respond, but only an arid whisper escaped his mangled lips. His expression bore defeat.

Fury quivered through her. “Idiots! Give him water! You bring me a prisoner without preparing him properly?”

Baxter gave the signal, and a serving girl rushed out the door to fulfill their queen’s command. As she waited, the queen watched as her grandson entered the chamber, followed by his loyal guards. He looked smug, as always. And ineffective, as was to be expected of any male heir.

She was enraged that he’d slipped away from his guards yet again. He might only be male, but he was still a member of the royal family. There were rules to follow, precautions to take. It was bad enough he’d stooped to the ranks of the military.

She stopped herself from narrowing her gaze at him, reminding herself that personal matters were best handled
in private. An insubordinate grandson could be dealt with at another time.

Maxmillian knew his place, of course, and he waited silently at the back of the room as she attended to the matter at hand.

The boy drank greedily, water dribbling from his lips onto his bloodstained shirt. When he was too weary to swallow any more, the queen resumed questioning him. “We know you’ve been associating with a member of the resistance. I promise you that all of this ends if you’ll only give us her name.”

His head lolled unsteadily as he tried to meet his queen’s gaze. “I don’t know who you’re talking about,” he rasped.

A sliver of a smile settled over her thin lips. “Come now, boy, your denials are pointless. Our information is accurate, I assure you. If you’re not sure which friend we speak of, then name them all. We’ll find her ourselves.”

He shook his head; it wobbled from side to side. “I won’t. You’re asking me to implicate everyone. I can’t do that.”

The queen jumped up, towering over the boy’s crippled body. She was quivering now, as rage consumed her. Of course she was asking him to incriminate his friends! She
needed
to find the revolutionaries, to squash them before they could cause further damage to her country. She needed to stop them. She needed names!

“Tell me! I command you to tell me!” she shrieked, spittle foaming at the corners of her mouth. She held out her hand in front of her, pointing at the boy’s throat and then balling her crooked fingers into a fist. She was surprised by the sudden show of emotion, surprised that she was eliciting the use of magic, but she was unable to check herself in time.

She could feel the current of her own power tingling from the tips of her fingers and stretching toward him, wrapping around his throat like a taut ribbon of electrical wire.

The boy’s body went suddenly rigid, every muscle contracting as he struggled for air. His hands clawed at his neck as his eyes rolled back in his head. His fingers dug into his flesh as if they could excavate an opening through which he could breathe. He had no idea what he was up against.

His queen watched dispassionately, unimpressed by his display of self-preservation and momentarily exhilarated by her demonstration of power.

The boy was a fool. He would rather die than confess the names of his friends? He would sacrifice himself to protect those who stood against his queen? A fool
and
a collaborator.

At last, when she was sure he’d learned his lesson, she closed her eyes and dropped her hand, releasing him. She settled back against her throne as she struggled to hide her exhaustion.

The boy’s loud gasp filled the room, followed by a second and a third. Fresh blood seeped from the nail marks he’d left along the length of his own throat when he’d fought to break free from her invisible grip.

“Take him away,” she finally commanded, turning her head as if unable to look upon him any longer. “Tell them to get the information I require. At any cost.”

max

Max didn’t blink, but it took every ounce of resolve to remain still as he watched. He understood the need to maintain order, but he could never approve of the way in which his grandmother—
his queen
—went about her business. How could she justify this kind of torture?

Beside him, Claude and Zafir stood just as motionless. It would do none of them any good to interfere.

However, it wasn’t the boy who held Max’s attention as the queen took her throne once more, releasing the boy from her spell. It was she who he studied from beneath his lowered gaze.

She was still powerful; she’d just proven that, still as potent as ever. But a display like that used up valuable energy, and observing her, Max wasn’t sure it was energy she had to spare.

She was far too old for such shows of strength. Even if no one else noticed, he could see that she was fading right before their eyes.

Guards lifted the boy from his place on the ground, a man taking position on either side of him, and Max inwardly cringed
as he caught the barest glimpse of the boy’s ravaged face. Not for the first time in his life, he was grateful that he’d been born a male and that the duties of ruling Ludania would never fall on his shoulders.

As he was being dragged away, the boy raised his head, only slightly, but it was enough. He saw Max. And Max recognized him almost immediately, making his pulse hammer in warning. He knew how badly this could end.

If only they’d been alone, Max would have cautioned the boy, would have warned him to remain quiet, to keep his words to himself.

But they weren’t.

And the queen—along with everyone else in the room—heard the boy’s accusations as he realized where he’d seen Max before.

“Where’s Charlie?!” Aron screamed as he struggled against his guards, straining to break free from his captors, never even realizing that he’d just given the queen what she wanted: a name. “Is she here, you son of a bitch? What have you done with Charlie?”

xiii

“You can’t win,” I explained, even though I had no idea if what I spoke was the truth. But it made sense; he was talking about defeating an army.

“We can, and we will,” Xander insisted, his metallic eyes flashing. “Sabara has spent too much of her energy fighting us in inconsequential conflicts; she never even realized we were enlisting help from outside the borders. Now it’s too late. There are many queens who’d like to see Sabara’s rule end. We’re strong, Charlie, much stronger than she knows.”

I still didn’t understand, there was so much to process, and my mind was elsewhere, consumed by worries and fears. “How could you harm your own people? How could you attack the city like that?”

Xander’s face crumpled, and I felt his guard slip. I had no idea why he was so quick to reveal his secrets to me. “We were as careful as we could be, but violence can’t always be avoided. The places we bombed, the buildings we set on fire, were strategic for the most part. They were military installations and
checkpoints. We stayed as far as we could from the shelters and didn’t start striking the neighborhoods until well after the sirens should have cleared everyone out.”