Valley of Fires: A Conquered Earth Novel (The Conquered Earth Series) (31 page)

She dodged another punch, then shot a spinning kick toward his head. He blocked it, but the impact staggered him. Her punches came lightning fast. One connected, staggering the kid even more.

Avril closed in … and, surprisingly, so did
he.

He rammed into her as she approached, driving her back, then punched and caught her on the chin.

The hit was a good one, the world went a little darker, and she flipped up and back, resetting the fight before she lost her advantage.

The redhead smiled and moved for her again. Avril spat blood onto the dirt, felt the anger build, giving her power.

She dodged two jabs, then an elbow. His next punch she grabbed with her hands and twisted the kid’s wrist inward, pulling him off balance.

Her knee shot into his face, knocking him back.

She hit three more times. Another kick, two punches, both to the stomach, hard. It was all but over, but Avril still felt the pain from the one punch he’d managed to land, and the anger still boiled.

She flipped up and over him and wrapped her arms around his neck. When she landed, the impact sent the pirate crashing to the ground. Her foot found his stomach, her fists his face, her knees his solar plexus. The blows rained down. The kid resisted … until he lost consciousness.

Still, Avril lashed out, funneling all the anguish she’d been put through the last few weeks onto the pirate.

Her fist uncurled, making a wedge with her knuckles. Her next strike would be lethal. She aimed for the throat, felt the energy build …

A gunshot echoed sharply in the air. The sound jarred her from her battle lust.

Quade stood next to Tiberius, both guns drawn, both aimed at her.

Reality came crashing back. Avril felt her chest heaving in and out, felt the sweat, the heat from the sun, but she didn’t look down at her opponent, she just stared into the eyes of her father.

The look he gave back seemed filled with the exact same emotions.

“How do you feel?” he asked, studying her.

Avril said nothing, just kept breathing, her heart racing. She knew what he wanted to hear, but still some part resisted.

“Say the word, Avril,” her father told her. “It’s only a word, and words mean so little.”

She felt the emotion, like a drug almost, and it had been made all the more potent by her self-imposed inactivity. There was no question what had happened here was more than a demonstration, it was an attempt to make her feel what she was now feeling, and it had worked, as much as she might not want to admit it.

“How do you
feel
?” Tiberius asked again.

“Powerful,” she replied. It was the truth.

Tiberius seemed to approve. “And so you are.”

Quade lowered his guns, studying her in that strange calculating way. Avril stood up and moved away from the fallen pirates, all four motionless in the dirt.

“Tell me,” Tiberius said. “What did you dislike most about the White Helix?”

The answer came too easily. “Patience was always stressed over action.”

Tiberius nodded. “That would sit poorly with
you,
wouldn’t it? Even as a child you couldn’t stay still. Once, you escaped your guards and climbed out your window to the platform nine stories below, do you remember?”

Avril nodded with a small smile. “I made it a game. It took two days for them to catch me. You were furious.”

“I didn’t understand you then. I should have seen the yearnings you had for adventure, I should have encouraged them. Instead I locked you up for your own protection. It was a mistake. I should have realized that in you was the potential for true power, even more than your brother. I never looked close enough, but I’m looking
now,
Avril.”

The emotions going through her were unexpected. Part of her felt a slight tenderness for the older man standing in front of her, his eyes clear of the Tone, and another part felt a revulsion for feeling it. “What do you see?” she asked.

“The future.” His eyes burned into hers.

Avril stared back, conflicted, her thoughts and emotions torn asunder.

*   *   *

HOURS LATER, HER BODY
still ached; a bandage was wrapped tight around her ribs, but the pain had been earned in action, and so it felt good.

Avril leaned against her balcony, in her old room, though none of the original vestments remained. It was just bare, wooden walls, and the sheet metal roof, with a king-size bed, an armoire, and a desk, all of which were empty.

Night had fallen and Avril stared out over the city. Even in the dark, it was a frothing, heated hub of activity. Lights from the old refinery flickered harshly, cooking stoves filled the blackness, and the huge flames from the flare towers tore at the night veil, drowning out the light from the stars. The sounds of laughter and yells and lovers’ quarrels drifted up to her. Faust was electric, and ever since Tiberius had reminded her of one of her early escapes, she hadn’t stopped thinking about it.

He had known exactly which buttons to push to make her confront who she was, and not for the first time today she wondered what she would have been if she had stayed. Just another Archer, consumed in her own darkness? Or would she have managed something else? She would never know, of course, but the question nagged at her.

A knock at the door startled her.

“Come,” she said. When it opened, Quade stood outside, the last person Avril expected.

“May I?” he asked. His voice was full of strength, but somehow quiet too. There was an introspectiveness to Quade. He was more than just one of her father’s thugs, he was cunning, but you had to be to rise as far as he had.

Avril nodded and he stepped into the room.

“You did good today,” he observed. “For all the lip service it gets, wouldn’t have thought White Helix fighting styles to be so effective.”

“I guess that’s a compliment,” Avril remarked, studying him warily. “Is that what you came to tell me?”

Quade hesitated only a moment, then he spoke, simply and to the point. He didn’t whisper, didn’t look around, and Avril sensed very little fear or apprehension in his eyes. “Tiberius’s time is done, the Menagerie can’t go any further with him. He’s too swept up in the wrong things, so … me and a few others have been encouraging change.”

Avril was more than a little surprised, not just by the words, but by the fact that he was saying them to
her.
He didn’t seem threatened that she might go to her father.

“You’re working with Rogan West.” Avril stated the obvious. “For how long?”

“Pretty quick after they took those Pinnacles. First time anyone’s ever gotten that far, but I knew it wasn’t gonna last unless someone kept the momentum going. Tiberius is just too smart.”

“
Momentum
kind of faltered at the attack on the Commerce Pinnacle, didn’t it?”

Quade frowned. “That would have worked if it hadn’t been for Hawkins. That attack was smart, I don’t care what anyone says. We’re not gonna take any more Pinnacles, security’s too tight now; we have to find other ways to bring Tiberius down, and there’s only one real option. Erode his public opinion. Like any leader, he only has power if people let him keep it.”

“Or if he’s dead,” Avril said. “Why not just kill him?”

“What good does that do? The rules say only a Consul rank can challenge for leadership, and Marek is firmly in Tiberius’s pocket. Anyone else who kills Tiberius is just an assassin, and they’re gonna be dead a few seconds later. Killing him’s no way to take power, and power’s all that matters here.”

His frankness seemed to know no bounds, and she studied him curiously. “What’s your angle? You want Tiberius’s crown?”

Quade snorted in contempt. “I got enough power, don’t need no more, and that’s really the problem. Here, enough is never enough. People kill and scheme and climb over each other to reach the top, and all of it’s encouraged by your dad, because he doesn’t see the world any other way than that. Whole damn thing is starting to fall apart because no one looks out for anyone else but themselves. Say what you want about the Wind Traders, but they got each other’s backs. I worked too long and hard to get where I am to see it all go to hell, and I don’t got much time left anyway.”

He was right, Avril saw. His eyes were nearly full of the Tone’s black tendrils.

“Real question is,” Quade kept on, locking his eyes on hers. “What do
you
want?”

Avril stared back. After today, the answer was a confusing one. “I don’t know anymore.”

Quade studied her in that same inquisitive way. “Well, figure it out soon. You got a card in the game now, but it’s losing value by the second.” He moved for the door, but Avril had one more question.

“Why tell me this, Quade?” she asked. “Why are you sure I won’t tell Tiberius?”

“I’m not,” Quade said, stopping in the door. “I’m just hopeful. First time in a long time, actually.” Then he stepped through and closed it behind him.

It was clear what he’d meant. Now that she knew of his betrayal, she had a card to play. She could tell her father about Quade or not. Prior to today, there was no way she would have told anyone, but now …

Things were less clear. Avril stared back out over the city.

What was she doing? Playing Faust politics? It was the opposite of what she intended coming here, but things had changed, hadn’t they? She could try and deny it, but the truth was she enjoyed the Nonagon this morning, still felt the tingling of adrenaline. She’d told Gideon more than once she wasn’t very good at patience. Here, she had found something she never expected. Here, she could
be
herself, as she wanted.

Looking out over the city, she saw the possibilities. It
could
all be hers, she knew. Who was there that could possibly challenge her?

The ninth Keystone of the White Helix played in her mind.
Temptation shows us who we are.
It had never occurred to her to ask Gideon: if that was the case, then what was the point in resisting?

25.
COMPASS

THE BOX WAS AN OLD AMMO CASE
, maybe four feet long, wooden and colored with old, faded green paint. The lid had been replaced with Plexiglas, letting Holt and the dozen or so pirates that had crowded around him see inside, and what
was
inside would make most people cringe.

But Holt wasn’t like most people anymore.

It was a Devil’s Box, a game unique to Faust, and Holt stuck his arm through a hole in one end. At the other sat the box’s only inhabitant, its long, thick body wrapped in a tight coil. It was easily the biggest rattlesnake he’d ever seen, and the rattler on its tail vibrated and rose as Holt’s fist moved inside.

It was still strange, the lack of emotion. He’d seen Devil’s Boxes before, watched kids gamble their lives for credits, but he’d always just shook his head at the idiocy of it. Now though, the box took on new meaning. Maybe
it
could make him feel something again. Maybe raw, primal fear could override the apathy, but this was his third time trying the box, and so far he still felt nothing.

It sat on a table in the Machine Works Pinnacle’s makeshift food court. Rogan West’s rebels had set up a temporary one here. Everywhere were stalls selling harvested fruits and vegetables, nonperishables, water, all of it plundered from outside the city. Meat sizzled on grills, and there was a plate of beef and peppers in front of him that Holt hadn’t touched.

Excited murmurs passed through the crowd. Bets were placed. Seconds later, something was pushed through another hole in the box’s side. A small, gray mouse quickly scurried forward, darting through a field of rocks inside the case between Holt’s hand and the snake, looking for shelter, but there wasn’t any.

The snake’s eyes shifted to the mouse, its forked tongue tested the air.

Holt watched too, his eyes shifting from the snake to the mouse and back again, waiting for the right moment.

Then his hand shot forward, grabbed the mouse in his fist. The snake uncoiled in a lightning-quick move that flung it forward.

Holt snapped his hand back. Rocks and dirt sprayed everywhere where the snake hit. It struck again, just as fast, its rattle shaking.

Holt ripped his hand out. The crowd murmured, pressing in to see. Holt studied his skin, but there were no bite marks. He’d done it. Again. He let the squirming mouse loose, and sat back in his chair. The crowd erupted in a variety of reactions, some pleased, some angry. Bitterly Holt felt none of those things, just watched as everyone collected their winnings.

“Again?” a hopeful rebel asked.

Holt stared in through the glass at the snake, withdrawn back to its corner. Its strange eyes, yellow with vertical slits, stared back eagerly.

“I think he’s done for now,” a small voice said. Holt looked up as the crowd parted. Olive stood there, radiating a fierceness even the rattlesnake couldn’t match. The pirates mumbled in disappointment and moved off, leaving them alone.

Olive studied him darkly. Clearly she disapproved of the depths to which he’d sunk, but, like everything else, her reaction failed to illicit a response. Her eyes roamed over the bruises and cuts she could see on him, Tiberius’s little welcome-home presents.

“Really worked you over, didn’t they?” she asked, sitting in the chair opposite his, the Devil’s Box in between them. She didn’t look at the snake.

“How’d you get here?” Holt asked. He’d forgotten about Olive and her crew, their ship still held at the Commerce Pinnacle. This was Machine Works, one of the two Pinnacles the rebels controlled, and not only was it under siege, the Skydash was gone, Ravan and Masyn had seen to that. Getting here couldn’t have been easy.

“Saw you and Ravan’s little escape, figured whatever leeway I had in this place was about to run out. Getting here wasn’t that big a deal. Gotten pretty good at finding ways through dangerous places over the years.” Her eyes shifted down to the snake in the box, studying it with interest. “They locked down the
Wind Rift,
put my crew in ‘quarantine,’ gonna strip it for real now, which means they’ll probably kill every one of my guys.”