It's been three days and nothing has changed.
Three days since I escaped my death sentence, a fake trial imposed for a crime I didn't commit. I was a thief, then a princess, a revolutionary and now I'm nothing but a fugitive, accused of seducing the heir prince to murder his own father. A red trickster who took advantage of the Queen's kindness and used it to her twisted motives.
I'm a lie, but I'm finally free.
The Scarlet Guard came for me and Cal, the fallen in disgrace prince, and is taking us to safety. Not that you would guess that considering the metal tube we are in. This transport is uncomfortable at best, with its trepidant sound keeping me awake at night when I can see nothing but darkness around me. Little time is spent in chats, and every night Farley commands for the electrical lights to be turned off. She never sleeps though, I can hear it shuffling, cleaning her guns or passing from room to room, looking for what I don't know, but asking her is a lost cause, she barely looks at me before going back to her drills.*
It's only on the second day that we are out in the open. Before, the metal tube slid through ratchet tracks like a grumpy snake, outside of it we were surrounded by concrete walls. Every now and then the walls would open, broken and old as they were and would let glimpses of light in. Bored as I was I would stick my nose to dirty glass and stare, hoping to see more, to get a clue of where we were going. Most places looked the same, a huge open space with flora and fauna growing wildly around, remnants of the world before.
At the end of the second day we saw something different though; white and silver walls and floors, there were no plants in that building. It was all too clean, one would think that the time and dust that was everywhere would have gotten rid of that, but not there. It still was broken though, there were cracks, huge and strange, almost claw like on the walls. We saw only a glimpse of it thanks to the speed but it was enough, that place didn't look like anything good.
By the second day I learned something, wherever we were going it was really hot. Shade would always sit next to me, during those three days we talked about everything, or at least of as much as we could without Farley shushing us.
He told me how his camp had been attacked in the middle of the night and he woke up with a gun to his head only to open his eyes and be back in the market in the middle of the night. That was when he met Farley and learned what he could do, when he joined the Scarlet Guard. He told me that our family was safe, waiting for us with the Guard. I enjoyed having him with me again after thinking he was gone for so long. Sleeping in his arms like we did when we were kids made me feel safe again. There was no Maven, no Elara, not even Cal with his ridiculous bag over his head waiting for whatever fate the Scarlet guard had for him. Evrything was fine again, until the walls ended and we were out in the open, into the brazing sun.
The land extended for miles untouched, no plant or building disrupted the dry soil. There was nothing to protect it from the merciless onslaught of the sun.
The rest of the journey really started to get extremely uncomfortable. Kilorn, who was sitting right in front of Cal, started to change positions every now and then, looking for an air drift that wasn't there. The rest of the Guard looked all the same, I knew the names of some for what I had heard; Liam was the tall guy with jumpy eyes that always followed Fairley around, he was probably her second in command. The girl with the large gun always at her side was Kia, and by the way she kept stealing angry glances at Cal's limp form I could imagine why she kept that gun around.
None of them wanted to speak next to Cal, they would go to another moving room where only the faintest whispers could be heard. It was too dangerous they said, to speak in front of a silver, and a prince at that.
They thought he could be a spy or something, they clearly didn't know him. I tried to get them to get the bag out of his head but they wouldn't listen even when I said he was not a threat, and that he had gone through the same as I had. His brother, my fiancé, had betrayed him like the coward that he was, hiding behind his mother's skirts as the Queen Elara, a whisperer and his stepmother, forced him to take his sword and cut his father's head off.
He was called a butcher, a traitor and a monster and he was our greatest ally. They didn't understand that we needed him, that he knew things we could use against the Silver empire. But they were scared, we had all trusted Maven and his speech of revolution and he betrayed us all. I don't know if the guard can ever recover from this.
By the third day we arrive… to the middle of nowhere.
"This is it?" I ask glancing around at the hard, dry soil under the scorching sun as the speed starts to dwell. On the distance, where the surface is like a dancing mirror I can see little structures, but even from here I can tell they are small and wretched, some are missing a wall, others the roof. If this is the Scarlet Guard's safe hiding, we won't be alive for much longer.
The metal tube comes to a stop, the electricity fueling it slowly dies down through its cables until it's off for good. Farley is already up and ready, the heat doesn't seem to affect her as much as making her sweat. She is pure energy and strength, admirable considering how she was almost killed twice in a week and nearly crushed to death a few days ago. She is a leader that never gives up, she is someone people can follow.
"Alright, listen up. It's particularly nasty outside today, so we're going to let Shade do his business so we can get this over with."
"His business?" I stand up, looking for Shade. "What will you do?"
"It's nothing, I'll just go and let people know we are here so we won't have to wait out in the sun for too long." He winks at me and in a flash he is gone. I feel someone walking behind me and turn around to find Kilorn.
"He'll be fine, it's just that with the attack and well, maven," he grimaces when he mentions his name and I can feel the air getting hotter and more oppressing all of the sudden when I think of him, as if he was the heat cooking us alive, the sun burning our skin. He used to be so warm, a nice relief in the coming fall, now he's nothing but fire, destructive, consuming, deadly. "We have been having extra care with the communications; it's easier to stay safe if they can't get us."
I nod but don't feel better, imagining all sorts of scenarios in which shade is somehow captured, that there is no place for us to go because Maven is already there, waiting with his ever present cold smile.
I can't help my eyes to go back to Cal sitting straight despite everything. Wouldn't he had been cheering for my death were it not for his betrayal?
He'll never choose me.
After a few seconds my fears are dispersed when Shade returns and we start moving. I step eagerly out of the wagon, waiting to be free of that oven only to meet the scorching sun. When inside the wagon we had to endure the hot air, now we are met with burning heat on our skin and creeping up from the soil.
The group stays together; two men escort Cal by the arms, bag still on his head as we walk through the disserted place. I don't know where we are but it's nowhere I have ever seen, not even from Julian's lessons. The land has been witness to the cruelty of the sun for far too long, the soil is a reddish brown cracked at the lack of water with a few resilient weeds popping from here and there. If only shade could take us all there and be done with this.
When we finally reach the decaying buildings I think I'll faint. My skin feels like it's been peeled off and hot oil has been poured on it. The shade of the walls is not much comfort considering how the heat is everywhere but it's nice enough and we all let a collective groan of pleasure when we get to recline against them.
"This place always creeps my out." Shade mutters behind me, and when I look up I can see why. The structure is strange, nothing like the houses on the stilts or the palace of the Silvers. This one, although it was destroyed years ago and the heat and dust had taken over it, had a modern air I could not explain. The materials were not the bricks we know but rather a unique structure with solid wires and some crystal-like element similar to the one of the palace's walls. It's a solid block rather than a multitude of bricks put together.
I feel the transport's electricity before we see it. Again is another death trap, all electrical and shaking all the way to us. Shade said the Scarlet Guard took old stuff and reconfigured it so they could use it. The garbage that was useless to the silvers was now our weapons against them. Where have I heard that before?
When we arrive there are five more people inside beside the driver and it drives off to where it came from. Shade notice my nervousness and holds my hand. These five new people don't give me a sense of comfort as I had expected, what can five more people do against an Empire? My mind swirls in endless questions. What do we do now, that the Guard was hit? What happens with Maven and the rule of terror he has begun? What will happen to reds, gifted and not that will have to endure the hell that will surely be brought to them?
We stop in front of a rock formation in the middle of the desert. Once we get close enough I can see a camouflaged metal door hiding in the left corner.
"And," I ask finally, unsure of what to do. "Now what?"
"Now," Farley says with a smirk when the door opens and my eyes go wide at the sight inside. "We hit them back."