CHAPTER
15
Lily felt Juliet calling to her after she finished claiming another queen.
Lily, Lillian has taken her army to Bower City without us. They just disappeared.
Rowan’s brow furrowed in question at Lily’s expression. “Lillian didn’t wait for us,” she told him.
I told you I was gathering more forces, Lily called out to Lillian in mindspeak.
I gave you all the time I could, Lillian replied. Join me now or the war is lost.
Lily turned to Rowan. “What do I do?” she asked him.
Over the course of the day they’d managed to claim almost twenty nests, but it was only a tiny fraction of what they needed. Rowan pulled his lower lip through his teeth, his eyes scrambling across the ground as he thought. Finally, he shook his head.
“We don’t have a choice. Dividing our forces would be suicide,” he said. “We have to go.”
“But we don’t have enough soldiers,” Lily said, holding her hands out helplessly.
Rowan was calm. He looked at the Woven Lily had just claimed and smiled to himself. “Then I guess it will come down to which side has the strongest queen,” he said. He took her hand and kissed the backs of her fingers and warmth traced up her arm. “It’s time, Lily.”
Lily nodded. She was exhausted. She had never felt more awake.
Rowan struck flint against steel and sent a spark into the mulch at Lily’s feet. As the fire rose she closed her eyes to gather up all of her claimed.
She started with the insect Woven. Seeing through the pale lavender tinge of the speaking stone near Richmond, she summed all fifty thousand of them. Using the same speaking stone, she moved to her raptors, only one thousand pairs of wings, but they would be invaluable to fight the flying Hive.
Her mind dove into the fast-flowing stream of the speaking stones, heading north. She saw green and stopped to gather the nine thousand of the tank-like Pride and the thirty thousand of her human claimed waiting at the camp. Carrying all of them with her, Lily vaulted across mountains and valleys, her mind swimming across the miles of the continent to where Pale One and the twenty thousand warriors of the Pack were waiting in the flaxen-yellow hue of the Ocean of Grass.
Lily turned her mind, now nearly a hundred thousand strong, through the scorched red of Death Valley, up over the thin pink and rarefied air of the rocky mountains, and into the misty pearlescent throbbing of the westernmost speaking stone. Toshi was standing right next to it. He called out to her.
Lily, has the war begun?
Yes, Lily replied. She played the vibration of the redwood grove and jumped her army. I’m here.
“She’s here,” Toshi said, his eyes searching past the army at Bower City’s gates and into the distant smudge that was the redwood grove.
“Obviously,” Ivan remarked dryly. He looked down at the orderly ranks of disciplined soldiers. “She didn’t bring enough.”
“That’s not Lily,” Toshi said, frowning with confusion. “That’s the other one. The Salem Witch. Mine is coming.”
He craned his head to look up at the Hive as more of them streamed into the air from the city. The din of their wings rattled his bones. He saw Warrior Sisters rising up from the restricted zone. Toshi wondered whether the antidote had ever made it to his family. Whether it even worked.
“There,” Ivan said, pointing to a figure being carried to the ramparts over the main gate. “That’s Grace. They’re building her pyre right there.”
Toshi stared at Ivan. “They’re really going to burn her?”
“Oh yes,” Ivan replied as a sinister memory stole through him. “I hope that witch of yours is as strong as she seemed. I once saw Grace spend two whole days and nights on the pyre.” He looked down at his hands and Toshi could have sworn he saw flames licking inside Ivan’s eyes. “We chopped down every tree. Burnt all the switch grass. We even threw our clothes on the fire. And through it all she burned. Screaming. Laughing.” When Ivan looked up again his eyes were sunken and haunted. “Grace lives for the pyre.” He clapped Toshi on the shoulder, shaking himself. “I have serum to distribute and you have crossbows to steal.” A thought occurred to him. “This would be a lot easier if we were stone kin.”
Toshi was struck by the offer. “It would be an honor,” he said.
When they touched each other’s willstones Toshi was surprised to find Grace was there at the forefront of Ivan’s thoughts, but not Grace as they both knew her now. Toshi saw a backdrop of dusty mining towns, horse-drawn carriages, homesteaders in broad-brimmed hats and gingham prints, and Grace as a girl with long plaited hair, a buckskin dress, and beaded moccasins.
“That was a long time ago,” Ivan said, drawing Toshi back to the here and now. “Come. We have a lot of work to do.”
They went back downstairs, stopping in the room where Grace had learned to spirit walk in the hopes that they could help Red Leaf, but the shaman was gone. They continued on down to the lab where the forced calm had given way to pandemonium. Mala was nowhere to be found. The table she had been manning was tipped over, and vials were scattered all over the floor. People were pushing and shoving their way into the lab to grab handfuls of the serum and rush out. Toshi tripped over something and realized that he was stepping on a body.
Toshi pulled the inert woman out of the main flow of the mob and checked her pulse. There was a welt the size of goose egg on her neck. She was dead from a sting.
He looked out a window. Workers were swarming outside, coalescing into great clouds and descending on the most panicked people. When the cloud flew away and moved on to the next person, the dead body left behind would be covered in stings. One sting would be enough to kill a person in ten seconds, but the Workers were overreacting as much as the people were. Their hive was being invaded and they were turning on anything that was not them.
“Everyone, calm down,” Ivan shouted, holding up his hands, but the mob was past listening.
“I need good climbers,” Toshi shouted amid the rushing, grabbing confusion. Ivan called out two men by name.
“Avery! Michelson! Come with me,” he ordered.
Two tall young men stopped trying to hold back the tide of people and came forward. Ivan had them gather up as many darts full of pesticide as they could carry and led them out the back way and through the twisting passages of the villa. There were no Workers indoors. They were all out on the streets, swarming.
They stopped at one of the many service storerooms. Ivan went to the dusty shelves littered with fishing poles, skis, tennis rackets and all other kinds of recreational equipment. He pulled down a large duffel bag. Inside were ropes and grappling hooks for climbing, which he distributed between them. Toshi, Avery, and Michelson looped the thin, strong rope over their shoulders and put the pesticide in the duffel bag.
“Toshi,” Ivan called after them as they ran. Toshi stopped and looked back. “Good luck.”
Toshi nodded. You, too, old friend.
When they hit the street, they saw that the situation had deteriorated further. Bodies lay here and there in the streets. Swarms of Workers were expanding and contracting in the air in a murmuration. They were chasing people indoors, and anyone left outside would be targeted.
Toshi’s raiding party ran to the nearest watchtower. Storm clouds started forming into a wheel over the city and the sky turned an ominous shade of pewter. Grace was on her pyre, and her power was building. As the raiding party pounded down the streets Toshi felt a sharp sting on the back of his hand.
He started counting to ten.
Lily opened her eyes. She stood among the redwoods. Rowan was still clasping her hand.
Her army shifted out of the shadows of the ancient giants, their faces stark with awe. Jumping was a new experience for most of them, and even for those who had done it before, the sight of the towering redwoods was enough to strike them dumb.
Tell them to calm down, Rowan said in mindspeak.
Lily did her best to explain, and to those claimed that couldn’t understand, she did her best to comfort them.
Now. Tell them not to kill one another, Rowan added.
“Right,” Lily breathed. She could feel all her claimed balking at being thrown together like this, and it wasn’t just the ranch hands against the Outlanders anymore. The Pack hated the Pride. The Pride hated the raptors. The simians hated the humans. The insect Woven felt nothing, but everyone hated them. This wasn’t an army. It was a melee waiting to happen.
What have I done?
Remind them why they’re here, Rowan said in mindspeak. Get them to focus on fighting the Hive.
Lily felt a clamor rising in all of them. They would not accept this. The hatred between them went too deep.
“Wait,” Lily whispered desperately to herself. She could feel control slipping away. Grumbling, shouts, and hisses rose up from the ranks. She could force them to work together. Control them. Bend them to her will. That would be the easiest way. That would be what Grace would do, maybe even what Lillian would do, too.
Lily was neither of those people, and she decided she never would be.
She ran to the highest point she could find—which happened to be the back of one of the raptors—and climbed up with a silent appeal to him to help her do this. She steadied herself against the raptor’s enormous head and shouted what she only dared whisper before.
“Wait! Listen to me. You aren’t enemies,” she called. “Hear what I have to say before you all tear one another apart!”
“Listen,” Rowan yelled.
“Listen!” Una echoed, backing him up.
Every face in the crowd turned to her. She looked out, taking it all in, searching for a place to start. Her claimed. They were all so different. They were together, but she still needed to find a way to unite them. She took a deep breath and began.
“I come from a world where people never know what it’s like to be someone else. We can only imagine what it feels like to walk around in someone else’s shoes. That’s what we say, by the way—walk around in someone else’s shoes—which is so small compared to what you can actually do here.
“In my world we don’t know what it is to live a different life from the one we were given, to be a different race or gender, forget about being a different species. In my world we fear anyone who’s different. We think those people are our enemies and that they want to take what’s ours or destroy our way of life. We think like that because, well, what else are we supposed to think? We can’t know someone else’s mind like you can.
“Things should be so different here. But what do I see? The same division, the same fear, the same us-against-them mentality that I see back in my world. Walltop hates the Outlanders. Why? Because the city isn’t large enough for everyone and Outlanders are always trying to sneak in illegally. Outlanders hate the Woven. Why? Because the Woven took their land. The Woven hate the humans. Why?” Lily paused, knowing this was the missing puzzle piece. “Because a human enslaved them and forced them to be killers. A human created them in order to tear this world apart.
“Your hatred isn’t real. The things that divide you aren’t real. They were created by greed. Someone has set you all against one another so she could profit. Someone has made it so you need walls—walls that divide you and make you weak so she can be stronger. This world has only one true enemy, and we can fight her. Here. Today. I brought you all together for this one purpose, but first you have to stop fighting one another. It’s up to you. I’m not going to force you. The choice is yours.”
Lily jumped down and rejoined Rowan on the ground. She felt the silence as deeply as she heard it. She waited. No one left. No fights started. Everyone just stood there, staring at her.
“What’s going on?” she mumbled to Rowan.
“They’re waiting for orders,” he told her, eyes bright as he buried a laugh.
Lily panicked. “I have no idea what to do,” she said.
“That’s okay. I do.”
Rowan turned. Tristan, Caleb, Una, and Breakfast were right behind him. Alaric and Pale One were right beside them. Rowan turned back around and pointed to a group of ranch hands on one side, and then at a bunch of wolves on the other.
“You start cutting down the trees, and you drag them into a pile,” Rowan ordered. “Our witch needs a pyre.” When no one moved, he started yelling. “Quickly! The Hive will be on us any minute now! Who has axes?”
Spurred into action, Woven and human alike started scurrying before Rowan’s anger. He struck out into the disarrayed clusters of men, women, and Woven and started arranging them into groups.
As Rowan moved away from them, Lily felt a hand on her shoulder. She turned and saw Tristan.
“I need to talk to you,” he said urgently, his eyes still following Rowan’s back as he stalked away, barking orders.
“Now?” Lily asked, motioning to the utter chaos that was moments away from tumbling down upon her head.
“I’ve been trying to get you alone for weeks, but Rowan never leaves your side,” Tristan said, dragging a hand through his hair. “There’s something I need to tell you. In case one of us doesn’t make it. I need you to know something.”
“What?” Lily asked, concerned, and recalling that every time Tristan had tried to speak with her alone lately, Rowan had appeared to interrupt and hurry them off in different directions.
“Rowan never meant to abandon the coven. He intended to go with us when we made the crossing. It wasn’t his choice to stay behind.” Tristan took a deep breath. “It was your Tristan’s.”
“What are you talking about?” Lily said, completely blindsided.
“When you woke up after being in the cage, do you remember how he didn’t have a mark on him, but Caleb and I got the stuffing beat out of us when we tried to get your willstones from Rowan?” he asked. Lily nodded numbly. “Well, I cornered your Tristan and made him show me what happened. This is his memory.”
. . . The three of us can hear Rowan making noises in his sleep. Caleb told me he has nightmares sometimes, but this is sad. He sounds like a child, whimpering and pleading. I wonder what he must have gone through as a kid to be like this, and I feel bad for the guy. Almost bad enough to stop this, but not quite.
I hang back and let the other Tristan and Caleb go rushing into Rowan’s tent. Rowan barrels through the two of them quicker than I’d thought. He’s terrifying, even without Lily’s strength in him. Feral. I wince a little as he drops the other me. He starts to charge me and I back off, yelling.
“Whoa, take it easy! It’s me.”
His eyes clear and he seems to snap out of it. He runs his hands through his hair, looking at what he’s unwittingly done to his stone kin.
“Didn’t you tell them?” he asks me.
He already knows I didn’t—if I had, they wouldn’t have tried to jump him—but he can’t accept it yet. It’s hard to accept it when someone’s set you up. He sits down heavily, his eyes skipping around, thinking.
“Why?” he asks.
I sit down next to him. I want to get this right so he understands. He’s got to be the one to leave her or I don’t stand a chance.
“Say I did tell them. Say I give them the whole story—that I was the one who told you in mindspeak to take her willstones away in that split second when Alaric was going to slit her throat. Then I tell them that you were going to break Lily out of her cage tonight while Alaric was away from camp, and we were all going to ride off into the frigging sunset together. What then?”
He looks at me, still not understanding.
“Do you know Lily at all?” I ask. “Because if you did, you’d know she’ll never forgive either of us. If she ever finds out the truth, she’s going to hate both of us for doing this to her, even if it was for her own good.”
“No, she—” he starts to argue.
I cut him off. “Yes, she will. I’ve known Lily since kindergarten, and I’ve never seen her forgive anyone. Do you know I’m her only true friend in our world? That’s because if someone picked on her for her red hair or her rashes or her weird mom, that person was never allowed to play with us again. She held a grudge against pretty much every person in our town. She pushed everyone away until I was the only person left in her life.”
Uncertainty flashes in his eyes. There’s only one nail left to drive into this coffin, and I hope it’s enough.
“Now, what if Lily hates both of us?” I ask. “Who’ll take care of her if she’s sent us both away? Who’s going to love her? She’ll be alone, Rowan.”
He drops his face into his hands. I don’t know if he’s crying or not, but I can’t let that stop me. The guy had his chance with his Lillian and he blew it. He can’t have mine. She was always supposed to be mine, since we were little kids. I feel bad for him, but getting Lily back is all that matters. I know I can make her happier than Rowan can. I know it.
He picks up his head. I don’t see tears, but the hollowed-out look he gives me is even worse somehow. “Juliet says Lily wants to go west. You’re going to need me. The coven’s going to need me,” he says. His voice is thin and lacking conviction.
“She won’t want you there,” I say.
“Still. I’ll follow, just in case. She doesn’t have to know.”
And then he can swoop in and save everyone at the last minute. Be the hero. Win her love. What can I say to stop him? Maybe only the truth will work.
“Look, she’s gotta hate someone for what we did. That’s how she works. Let her hate you.” I’m begging the guy now. “Give me a chance to make her happy. Stay away.”
Finally he nods. He looks lost, like he just woke up in a room he doesn’t recognize. I feel like shit about it, but at least she’s mine . . .
The memory ended and Lily stood staring at Tristan. He looked ashamed but relieved for finally getting it off his chest.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?” Lily asked, still too shocked to feel the hurt that some small part of her knew was coming eventually.
“For the same reason Rowan doesn’t want me telling you now,” Tristan said, seeming fed up with the whole thing. “Because your Tristan was dead and we didn’t want to tarnish his memory. Because Rowan was convinced you’d still hate him anyway for not catching up with us in time to save him. Because you don’t forgive and you never forget.”
Lily couldn’t look at him. She was too ashamed of herself. She blindly reached for Tristan’s hand.
“Can you forgive me?” she asked. He made an uncertain sound and she mustered the courage to glance up at him. “I’m sorry, Tristan. I’ll try to change.”
This wasn’t the reaction he’d expected. “You’re not angry?”
“No,” she said. Lily squeezed his hand tightly and then let it go. “I have to find Rowan,” she said, and ran into the throngs of people preparing for battle.
She felt her way to him, calling out in mindspeak, and quickening her pace until she was bumping into people as she passed. Everywhere she looked, scared people were girding themselves for war. Couples were embracing. Children were being separated from parents they might never see again. Friends were exchanging daggers and swearing oaths to look after the others’ families if only one of them came back. Lily could hear it all as she ran past. Her claimed were whispering about their fears and their loves and their losses in her mind.
As she plowed on, seeing the surprised stares she was drawing, Lily finally figured out how he’d always been able to find her. She’d always know where he was because it was where she most wanted to be. Rowan was standing in a clearing surrounded by braves, distributing arms.
He spun around as she skidded to a stop a few feet from him.
“Rowan,” she said.
Everyone dropped what they were doing to watch. Caleb, Tristan, Una, and Breakfast caught up with Lily a moment later and regarded her cautiously while she confronted Rowan.
“What happened?” he asked, his eyes worried, and the sword in his hand drooping by his side.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, breathless.
“Tell you what?” he asked, and then confusion turned to understanding. His eyes flicked to Tristan. “You told her.”
Lily strode forward, her cheeks red and her eyes shining with unshed tears. “How could you keep that from me? Especially after what Lillian did to you?” Her voice broke. Words like “hypocrisy” and “irony” floated around in her head. Instead she inarticulately blurted out, “It’s like . . . the exact same thing only backward!”
She stormed right up to Rowan and he braced himself, like he thought Lily was going to hit him. Instead she threw herself into his arms and kissed him. After one stunned moment he dropped the weapon in his hand and lifted her up against his chest, holding her off the ground as he kissed her back.
“When this is over, you and I are going to sit down and tell each other every secret we’re keeping from the other,” Rowan said when he finally set her back down.
“Okay.” She smiled up at him. “You go first,” she said, winning a laugh from him.
“Ah, guys?” Una interrupted. “So glad you two worked it out, but we need a little more direction here. What’s the plan?”
One quick squeeze that promised a proper reconciliation later, and Rowan released Lily.
“Tristan,” he said, every inch the general again. “I want volunteers who can handle heights and who are good shots with a crossbow to ride the raptors.” He turned around and glared at the rabbit-like stares he was receiving from the ranks. “Step up! If you don’t volunteer I’ll hand you over to Una and she’ll put you on the back of a lion.” He grinned. “If the Pride doesn’t decide to eat you first.”
“You heard the man,” Una repeated crisply as she clapped her hands, snapping the gawkers to attention. “Raptor riders with Tristan, Pride riders with me.”
“Caleb. I need you to coordinate between Alaric and the Pack,” Rowan said. “I’ll introduce you to Alpha, the Pack’s leader. Are you going to be okay fighting with the wolves?” Caleb nodded once. He didn’t like his assignment, but he knew what was at stake. “They speak our language, you know. That’s why I’m putting the Outlanders and the wolves together. I think we have more in common than you realize,” Rowan told him. Caleb looked stunned by this for a moment and then he seemed to rethink it. Rowan turned to Breakfast. “And you—”
“Guard Lily while she’s on the pyre,” Breakfast finished for him. “This ain’t my first rodeo.”
“Exactly,” Rowan said, and turned back to Lily, his demeanor softening. “Reach out to Lillian. Stay linked with her. The two of you are going to have to work as one for our armies to synchronize.”
Lily called out to Lillian.
I’m here, Lily said. My army is in the redwood grove.
I’m climbing my pyre now. Keep your army hidden until I tell you to join us and then stay open to my call. You’re going to have to jump your army out of the blast zone as soon as I tell you to.
Listen to me. You can’t use the bomb, Lillian, and if you’re counting on using it to save you in the battle you’re going to die. Carrick—
Lily felt heat and pain as the fire rose around Lillian and their connection was severed as all of Lillian’s concentration went into changing heat into force. Lily called her over and over, but Lillian didn’t answer. She looked up at the swaying treetops, unsure if Lillian had understood her. Lillian’s witch wind began to howl through the grove, whispering and moaning around the branches like ghosts summoned to the battlefield.
Lily looked around her, taking this one moment to be right where she was, right at that moment. Rowan was marshaling her army into shape. Men, woman, and Woven were running this way and that. Axes were being put to the trunks of the redwoods and every thump of the metal biting into the venerable wood was like a sin inside her heart. But this was war, and Lily knew that the trees were just the first of many to die this day.
Toshi, Lily called. Where are you?
She caught a glimpse of the streets blurring past as Toshi ran through Bower City.
I’m a bit busy at the moment, he replied. She could hear him counting in his head. He got to ten. I’m not dead. He seemed surprised by this.
Lily could feel sweat streaking down his back and the bubbling hysteria of a squashed laugh in his chest. He looked to his left and his right and she saw rough-looking men carrying rope on either side of him. Lily recognized them as hers by their willstones, and called each of them by name. Avery. Michelson.
We’re trying to get crossbows from the Hive’s lookout platforms so we can use the pesticide we developed, Toshi continued.
Does it work?
Don’t know yet. But the antidote does.
They’re still building my pyre, but I’ll give you what power I can, she replied. Where is the antidote?
Ivan has it, Toshi replied.
Good. Let me know if you succeed with the pesticide, Lily told him. I have an impossible task for you when you’re done with that.
Oh, good. My favorite.
Lily smiled to herself. She transmuted as much energy as she could spare and filled Toshi’s, Avery’s, and Michelson’s willstones with force. She felt them revel in it and smiled. A wave of exhaustion hit her and she staggered to the side. Juliet caught her.
“You need to sit,” Juliet said, leading Lily through the confusion and to a mossy rock.
“I just need salt,” Lily said as she sat down. She looked over Juliet’s shoulder and noticed that Alaric’s painted guard had shadowed every step Juliet took.
“Alaric really meant it when he said you were going to stay out of the fight, didn’t he?” Lily asked, gesturing to the guard.
“Yes.” Juliet rolled her eyes. “I feel so useless, and so do they,” she said, indicating her entourage.
Lily got an idea. “I need your help. I’m going to jump someone here, and he’s going to have a whole bunch of antidote for the Workers’ stings. Do you think they could help you distribute it? I’d need you to fan out and give it to as many as you can,” Lily said.
“Definitely,” Juliet said.
Lily reached out to Ivan in mindspeak and found him in his lab, frantically making more antidote and pesticide. She called his name softly.
Lily, he replied, surprised but polite as always. Forgive me. I’m out of practice being someone’s claimed.
This is going to be a little strange for you, she told him in mindspeak. But I need you to pick up as much antidote as you can carry.
Ivan did as she asked and Lily jumped him to her. He appeared before her, his arms laden with bags full of vials.
“That was one of the most singular experiences I’ve ever had,” he said with a quaver in his voice.
“Ivan, this is my sister, Juliet,” Lily said, smiling. “She’s going to help you distribute the antidote.”
Ivan nodded at Juliet politely as he handed her what he carried. He then turned back to Lily. “Send me back to my lab,” he asked. “I’ll keep making it for as long as I can.”
“Contact me when you’ve got more, and I’ll jump you back here,” Lily replied, and then sent him back to his lab.
Toshi looked up at the Warrior Sisters’ platform, still wondering how he was supposed to get up there, when he felt a rush like he’d never experienced before. His body felt light, his head clear, and every sense was sharpened.
He heard Avery and Michelson groan. They felt it, too. The three of them met one another’s eyes with small, secret smiles on their faces.
“So that’s what all the fuss is about,” Avery said, his smile breaking into a grin.
“I guess we’ll die happy, then,” Michelson added.
Toshi let out a shaky laugh and redirected their attention to the platform. It suddenly didn’t seem difficult to climb at all. The three of them clambered up the bare scaffolding with ease. They didn’t even need the rope.
The top of the platform was deserted. All the Warrior Sisters were at the perimeter. Toshi looked toward the tiny orange glow of Grace’s pyre on top of the wall. Above her the Hive was swarming. A strange, circular cloudbank was forming in the darkening sky. It started to rotate over Grace’s pyre, and then there was a pause in the mounting tension like the end of an inhale just before a scream. A single beam of light shot out of the pyre and into the sky.
The Hive was unleashed. They streamed over the wall and flew down upon the waiting army. A moment later, Toshi felt the ground shake and another beam of light pierced the sky from the direction of the battlefield. The Salem Witch answered Grace’s call to battle.
“Here,” called Michelson. Toshi went to him and saw crossbows hung neatly inside a wall box.
Toshi took down one of the crossbows, fitted a dart into the firing mechanism, and aimed over the side of the platform. Down below at street level, a swirling mass of Workers was flying past. Toshi shot the dart into the swarm. He heard a pop as the dart exploded in its center. Nothing happened.
“Damn,” Avery said.
“What do we do now?” Michelson asked. “Do we go back to the lab?”
“Wait,” Toshi said, holding up a hand.
The cloud of Workers seemed to be thinning, and a trail of dark specks was starting the litter the ground. Then all at once, the swarm fell out of the air, dead.
Toshi reached out to both Ivan and Lily. It worked. The pesticide worked, he told them.
Try to kill as many swarms inside the city as you can, Lily said. The more you kill there, the less will be able to join the Warrior Sisters on the battlefield.
We’re on it, Toshi replied.
The raiding party stripped the box bare, tied the crossbows across their backs to climb down, and left them at the base of the tower before moving onto the next. Toshi passed Ivan an image of what they were doing so Ivan could send other rebels to gather the crossbows and start exterminating the Workers.
Toshi contacted Lily again. What was that impossible task you were going to give me?
I want you to go through the back door of the Hive and kill the Queen.
Ah. Toshi’s insides liquefied.
You should be able to get to her easily. The Warrior Sisters are aboveground, fighting, Lily said, trying to give him confidence. She sent him images of how to get to the Queen.
“You two keep at this,” Toshi said aloud as his team approached the next platform. “I’m going to need all the rope.”
“Where are you going?” Michelson asked, taking the coil off his shoulders and passing it to Toshi.
Toshi didn’t dare say it, he merely gestured to city center. “Our witch has given me an impossible task,” he said.
He kept one crossbow for himself and took as many darts as he could. He left them to it and ran toward the Hearing Hall, pausing every chance he got to shoot down swarms of Workers.
The first wave of Warrior Sisters started flowing over the wall and raining down on Lillian’s soldiers.
The sky over the battelfield darkened as the wheel of Lillian’s storm clouds began to rotate above her. A ray of blindingly bright light shot up from Lillian’s pyre into the center of the wheel, knocking everyone back with a pulse of energy.
Lily locked the iron-and-diamond cuffs around her wrists as she ran to her pyre. Rowan ran beside her, pulling her crown out of his satchel. When they got to the base he carried her up the uneven mountain of cut logs to the stake waiting at the top. Lily had never seen a pyre this high before.
“I have an ax crew stationed below with Breakfast to keep the fire well fed,” Rowan told her hastily. He started threading the chains on the stake through the rings on Lily’s cuffs. “Tristan will keep a squadron of raptors over you to repel any air attacks by the Warrior Sisters. Una will lead the Pride and the ranch hands on the left flank. Alaric, the Outlanders, and the Pack will be to the right. I’m leading the insect Woven straight up the middle.”
“How will you lead them?” Lily asked. “The insects don’t understand language.”
“I’ve become stone kin with all the queens,” Rowan said with a troubled look on his face. Lily stared at him, knowing how much it cost him to do that. “The point is,” he continued, “they’d have to get through our entire army before they could get to you—”
Lily put her hands over Rowan’s and made him look up at her. “I love you.”
“And I love you.” He placed the blackened crown on her head and kissed her hard, crushing her against him. “I’ll be with you,” he whispered, and then turned and climbed down.
Lily looked up. She could hear her chains, her breath, and the wind. High above her the tops of the redwoods rubbed up against the storm-dark sky. Thirty feet below, her army went about their frenetic last-minute arrangements for battle. Weapons were checked. Ranks were ordered. Strategies were concocted. Former enemies became stone kin to coordinate in battle. Only Lily stood alone. Waiting to burn.
She smelled it first—just a hint of smoke teased out from the pulpy smell of the wood, and then suddenly there was so much smoke she was choking on it. Her eyes streamed as she coughed and sputtered, her body bent double as she hung in her chains. The heat rose, and Lily knew three full seconds of terror.
Gift me, Rowan called out in mindspeak.
The heat began to build until Lily was shrieking. A hurricane wheel of her own began to form over the creaking redwoods until a boom sounded out and light shot up from Lily’s smoke willstone.
It’s nearly time, Lily, Lillian called. When the Hive has committed all its forces to fighting my soldiers in the center, send yours out of the grove on all sides to surround us.
I understand, Lily replied. Lily could feel Lillian’s exultation in the throes of battle with her army, but her body was weak, and she was burning more than she should. Lillian. There’s something you need to know about the bomb.
You can’t convince me not to use it, Lillian replied.
I know. That’s why I had Carrick dismantle it.
Lily felt Lillian’s dismay, and then she Gifted her army and sent the screaming horde of men, women, and Woven onto the battlefield.
Toshi jerked to a halt when he heard the boom. He saw a third beam of light shoot into the bruised sky and knew that Lily’s army had taken the field. Dread consumed him. They wouldn’t last long if he didn’t kill the Queen.
Toshi could feel echoes of agony and ecstasy from the rest of Lily’s claimed as they hurled themselves into battle, and his feet turned on their own and started running. Feeling Lily’s power in him, Toshi reached Hearing Hall in moments.
He ran through the forest of columns, a petrified echo of the redwoods surrounding Lily, and went to the door that opened into nothing. He tied the climbing ropes together and used them to ease himself down into the darkness. When he reached the end of his rope he let himself drop.
His magelight blazed out as he fell. When he finally hit the floor, he picked himself up and started running again.
Lily exulted.
She bounded across the field with her fearless Pride. She soared through the air with her fierce raptors. She swarmed across the ground with her frozen-souled insects. She led the charge with Rowan onto the field, thundering toward the struggling and dying Walltop soldiers, delirious with mad joy, and almost went back on her word. As Rowan tore into the leading edge of Warrior Sisters with his battalion of queens, Lily felt herself sliding toward taking all of him.
There was a part of him that wanted it, too. He wanted to know what it was to burn on the pyre. It was for this reason alone she resisted, even when he wouldn’t have. She couldn’t let Rowan burn.
Warrior Sisters cracked their cat-o-nine-tails whips, and when they couldn’t use their whips they fought with their bare hands. Their movements were blindingly fast and brutal. They did not fight with punches and kicks, but rather they grabbed on to an opponent’s limb and tried to rip it off or they’d fly up as high as they could, let go of their struggling victim, and let gravity do the killing for them. They attacked in concert with their Sisters, but they were as brutal with one another as they were with their victims. If one was losing a fight, the others did not waste their efforts on a lost cause. If one was winning, others joined her to end it quickly.
Workers swarmed, and they were felling Lillian’s uninoculated soldiers by the dozens. Their swollen bodies hardly looked human, and the sight of them angered Lily. She contacted Tristan, who was engaged in an aerial battle with the Warrior Sisters.
Tristan—fly into the city, she ordered. Gather rebels with crossbows. Shoot the swarms from raptorback.
I’m supposed to stay over you and protect you, he argued.
Get that pesticide. Kill the swarms. My fire will protect me.
Lily wrapped her hands around her iron chains and held on as the logs beneath her turned to crumbling red coals. She called out to Breakfast for more wood and his team piled her pyre ever higher. She drew the heat into her crucible of a body and changed it faster and faster until all of her claimed were overflowing with power. Lily’s army basked in her mounting strength, throwing themselves at the Warrior Sisters in frenzy, while Lillian’s army began to falter.
Lillian! How can I help you?
I’m dying, Lily, and when I die it won’t be quietly. You must take my claimed from me or they’ll die with me.
I don’t know how.
I’ll give you everything I am. Everything but one part—the worst of me. That I’ll take with me to my grave.
Lily’s vision scoped out from her pyre, pulled up into the air, swirled over the battlefield, and spiraled down into Lillian’s.
Clawing agony assaulted her. A thousand regrets rained down on her head. Every memory Lillian ever had, every mistake she ever made, every willstone she ever claimed, every love, and every hate she harbored in her heart transferred from Lillian to Lily in an instant.
All but one. Lillian kept Carrick for herself.
Watching as if from a great height, Lily saw Lillian lying atop her smoldering pyre, the fire nearly extinguished. Her skin was black with soot and streaked red with blood.
Come, Carrick. Carry me to our grave, Lillian called.
Toshi was lost.
He blundered through row after row of womb combs, his blood chilling at the thought of the horrors they unleashed. Desperate now, Toshi ran toward what he hoped was the back wall. His feet made a squelching sound and seemed to stick. He was standing in wax.
Relief over finding the hive quickly gave way to fear as he hurried down the ever-narrowing passageway. The smell of honey grew so strong it made him dizzy. He saw evidence that others had recently come this way in the wax. He followed the footprints left by Lily’s coven to a bottleneck. He climbed through, his heart in his throat, and saw the Queen. She was writhing on her velvet throne, her body twisted and racked with pain.
Toshi hefted his crossbow, aiming it directly between her bulbous, rainbow eyes, and then lowered it. He forced himself to raise the muzzle of his weapon again. His hands shook as he watched her spasm and clutch at her pillow in mute agony. The healer in him wavered, and the one precious second he’d been granted passed him by.
Rough hands grabbed him and wrestled him to the floor, knocking his crossbow out of reach. Toshi saw male torsos under their insectoid heads. The drones had squat bodies that were thick and square as bricks. Bristling hairs stuck up from their shoulders and backs. As they tried to rip off his arms and legs, Toshi noticed their stunted wings would never fly.
He felt his limbs straining as they were pushed into unnatural positions, but they didn’t break. Still full of Lily’s power, Toshi fought back. He reached past the waving tubes in their mouths, grabbed ahold of their hairy, ovoid heads, and started wrenching them around. He rolled, and they rolled with him, pouncing on top of him in a pack and swarming over him.
The knot of them crashed through a wax wall and Toshi felt warm, sticky honey flowing over him. He jumped up to his feet, only to be knocked back again. More drones joined the fight as the sticky, bloody ball of them pushed through another wall. Toshi scrambled to get his feet under him and noticed that he was being pushed back and uphill, away from the Queen’s chamber.
He threw himself against them, pushing and shoving and trying to make his way back as they formed a blockade to steadily inch him out of the hive. He dug in his feet, only to feel them sliding back in the wax. He killed one after another desperately, trying to get back to the Queen.
He tasted fresh air and felt earth under him as the pile rolled. The drones had evicted him from the hive.
Only two wheels of clouds darkened the sky. Only two beams of light pierced their centers. Tasting victory, the Hive surged forward, throwing themselves against their foes with reckless abandon.
Lily was torn. Half of her hung from her iron-and-diamond shackles. Half of her gasped for breath on a pile of ash.
Hang on, said one half of her to the other. Survive this battle, and we can heal you. Toshi can save you.
The part of her left in ashes spoke for the last time.
I have seen myself as many things. I have been the hero and I have been the villain. I may never be a hero again, but at least I can make my final act a heroic one.
I summon Carrick to me. He doesn’t want to come, so I force him. He fights me, his limbs stiff, but my will is stronger. He picks me up in a gruesome parody of a bride and groom, and carries me into the redwood grove. He can feel how hot my skin is, and he knows what it means. He is not the first mechanic I’ve marched to his own death.
As we near the exit of the hive, we pass by a pile of drones fighting one of Lily’s claimed. The one who can heal me. For a fleeting moment the thought of salvation shines a light in my dark mind. Toshi could cure me. Take all this pain away. I don’t have to die, but the war would go on, and many others would die in my place.
I don’t give Carrick the order to stop. We pass by my last chance at life and I grow hotter until my body bursts into flames. I smile. I choose this for all of them. I choose this for Rowan.
Carrick carries me into the mouth of the hive. Drones step up to stop us, but we have become a blowtorch that scares them away. Carrick would scream in agony if I would let him. But I won’t.
Wax melts as we pass. The walls and ceilings drip and sizzle. We make our way to the Queen’s chamber as the hive dissolves around us. Carrick carries me to the Queen and lays me down beside her. In death I will become the bomb that was denied me.
I think of Rowan. I’m grateful that my final thought is of love.
Time to die.
Half of Lily ended. The other half took refuge in her coven.
She saw Toshi. The fireball of Lillian’s passing was heading right for him. It emerged from the hive and roared toward him. Lily jumped Toshi away before the fire could consume him.
She saw Rowan. He staggered, his heart skipping, when he heard the explosion. He knew Lillian was dead. He looked up into the sky and saw the Hive break ranks just when it was about to be victorious.
She saw Tristan. He wheeled his raptor and aimed his crossbow at a dark clump of Workers, but the tight swarm suddenly dispersed and flew off in every direction before he could fire.
She saw Una. Una felt her lion slow. She cut off one more Warrior Sister’s head, and then turned to see what her lion was looking at. The enemy was running away.
She saw Caleb and Alpha. They stood back to back, fighting a ring of Warrior Sisters who surrounded them. Without warning, the Warrior Sisters dropped their whips and leapt into the sky.
She saw Leto. His left leg was broken. It stuck out awkwardly. He hauled himself up onto his right knee as he watched the retreat, unable to rejoice. Too many dead Walltop soldiers were scattered around him for this win to feel like victory.
She saw Breakfast. He swung his ax and blinked the sweat and soot from his eyes. He saw a flash overhead and paused to look up. The Hive was flying away.
Again, she saw Rowan. Alaric raced past him. He was running toward the main gate of Bower City—and to the pyre that was still ablaze on the ramparts.
Toshi dropped the arm he’d raised to cover his face against the oncoming fireball, and found himself on top of the Governor’s Villa, standing next to the speaking stone.
He allowed himself one moment of utter confusion before he wrangled his wits back in order. Ivan, he thought, and raced down the stairs of the villa, through the maze of passages, and into the lab.
Toshi found Ivan, still furiously making pesticide as fast as he could, and pulled him away from the vats.
“It’s over,” Toshi told his old friend. “The Queen is dead.”
Ivan’s eyes drifted off to the side, the barest hint of a smile turning up the corners of his lips. His face suddenly darkened.
“Grace,” he whispered. “Is she—?”
“Still on the pyre,” Toshi answered before Ivan could finish asking. The two of them turned immediately and ran through the city to the wall.
Lily heard the hissing and tasted the wet smoke before she realized what was happening. Bucket after bucket of water was being shuttled to her and dumped over the last flames. Her pyre extinguished, Lily cut off the loop of power flowing between her and her claimed. She could hear voices all around as her claimed dug to get her out of the remnants of her colossal pyre.
Relief gushed through her, thick and sweet as honey, but a mountain of burnt and half-collapsed logs both surrounded and covered her.
“Hold on, Lily. I’m almost to you,” Rowan said, his voice sounding muffled and far away.
“I’m here,” she called out.
Water started dripping down through the collapsed tinder above her, black and greasy with charcoal. She heard the thunking of an ax as Rowan got closer and closer to her, and felt the half-joyful, half-frightened thrill thumping inside him.
It’s over. We won, he kept whispering inside his mind, repeating it over and over, trying to convince himself it was true.
“There she is—I see her!” he shouted to the crew behind him. Lily saw Rowan throw aside his ax and start wrenching logs away with his hands.
Lily pulled her chains free from the crumbling stake, and reached up to him as he threw the last log aside and gathered her to him.
“We did it,” he whispered, his voice breaking.
“We really did,” she replied, smiling through tears as she clutched at him.
She couldn’t seem to get close enough to him as they kissed and held each other. She pressed herself against him, laughing and crying and babbling all at once. They held each other in the center of the scorched pile while the rest of the timber crew cleared a path, wanting nothing but to stay exactly where they were.
Toshi and Ivan passed teams of rebels still combing the streets for swarms, their expressions cautiously hopeful that the battle was over. Bodies were already being collected and taken off the streets on stretchers. The injured were rushed to healers, who had set up triage centers every few blocks. Toshi noticed that not everyone getting help was a citizen. The restricted zone must have emptied into the city proper at some point during the battle, and Toshi held out hope that his family had made it across.
When they reached the wall they found that the stairs that zigzagged up to the top were cleared of the Warrior Sisters who usually guarded them. Toshi and Ivan took the stairs two at time. When they reached the top they heard voices. Someone had beaten them to Grace.
Grace’s pyre steamed under her knees. She crouched atop the pile of doused logs, facing an Outlander with a fierce face. He threw the empty bucket he was holding aside and strode toward her.
“Grace Bendingtree. I am Alaric Windrider, sachem of the last tribe. I find you guilty of genocide,” he declared.
Grace shifted on her knees, her shackles jingling softly. “Aren’t I supposed to get a trial first?” she asked, smiling.
“No trial,” he said. He pulled a knife out of his belt and her smiling face fell.
“Sachem? What are you going to do with that?” Toshi interrupted, edging his way forward uncertainly.
As Toshi frantically combed his mind for some kind of argument to present to Alaric, a small swarm of Warrior Sisters flew toward them and landed on the battlement. Alaric faced them, dropping into a fighting crouch and brandishing the long knife in his hand. Toshi felt Ivan push him back, protecting him, but the Warrior Sisters weren’t looking at any of them. They went directly to Grace.
Grace looked at her former claimed uncertainly as they stalked toward her. “Wait,” she said, holding out a tentative hand. “No—”
Before Ivan, Toshi, or Alaric could make a move, the Warrior Sisters snatched Grace up by her arms and legs, flew her past the edge, and let her go.
She screamed the whole way down. When she finally struck the ground and went still, the Warrior Sisters flew away.
“Grace is dead,” Lily said as she and Rowan scrambled out from the extinguished pyre. Clouds of steam still rose around them, filling the air with fog. Fatigue was taking Lily over, and turning her legs to jelly.
“Alaric?” he asked. Lily shook her head and showed him what Toshi had just shown her.
“The Hive did it,” he said, surprised.
“They had the most reason to hate her, I suppose,” Lily replied. She narrowed her eyes at Rowan. “You knew Alaric ran up there to kill her, didn’t you?” she asked.
“Yes.” Rowan met Lily’s eyes and held them. “And I was going to let him.” Lily nodded, accepting it, and pulled his arm even tighter against her body. The subject was closed.
Rowan helped Lily out of the blackened crater, but she wouldn’t let him carry her. No matter how much it hurt, she was going to walk away from this. As she minced through her claimed on her blackened feet, Lily passed Breakfast, still hefting his ax, his other arm draped over Una’s shoulder. Una stood next to a lion, her hand resting casually on her new stone kin’s back. Tristan grinned at Lily and Rowan and she grinned back. Beside Tristan, Caleb stood with Alpha. She noticed that they had exchanged knives and raised an eyebrow at him. Caleb shrugged to show he was as surprised as she was at this new alliance. Mary and Riley were there, scattered among the painted braves who still guarded Juliet. Lily even caught a glimpse of her mother, wandering among the stumps of the hacked-down trees. Samantha looked sad, as if she were mourning someone.
Lily leaned on Rowan’s arm, limping her way across the battlefield. She met Leto in the middle.
“We took the field, Lady,” he said, grimacing in pain from his broken leg.
“We did, Captain,” Lily replied gravely, surveying the heavy losses Walltop had incurred.
“Stay where you are,” Rowan told Leto. “We’ll send a stretcher.”
“There are few injured,” Leto said, despite his condition. “The Warrior Sisters don’t stop until either they’re dead, or their opponent is.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Lily said.
“Lady,” he replied, bowing awkwardly from his prone position as Lily passed.
Lily released Rowan’s arm and walked across the battlefield on her own. She summoned healers to the battlefield to tend to the wounded. She called to them in mindspeak, and then jumped them directly to those who needed help.
Her feet, always the first to burn on the pyre, screamed at her with every step. Blood dripped down her hands and off the tips of her fingers from the raw skin under her jingling shackles. Her crown dug into her scalp, heavy and sharp, and she lifted her chin under its weight.
Lily stood in front of the gates of Bower City, her coven—both human and Woven—arrayed behind her. At her feet was the split corpse of the witch she had conquered.
“Open the gates!” Lily called out over Grace Bendingtree’s dead body.
The heavy doors opened. Toshi stood on the other side with Alaric to his left, Ivan to his right, and Mala standing behind them. Mala’s mouth was smiling but her eyes were glowering.
“The city is yours,” Toshi said, relieved.
Lily walked through the gates and stumbled to her knees.