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  Faix was wrong. She was powerless and weak on her own; she couldn’t even keep her crew safe for half a day. She opened the chopper door before they blasted their way inside.

  Sometimes surrender was the only option.

  Chapter 29

  THE BOAT DOCKED AND DISCHARGED its passengers, and Wes and his team shuffled out with the rest. Farouk had uncharacteristically complained of seasickness during the trip, and the minute they set foot on land, he retched all over the snow, the sickly glop smelling of quesadilla foam and Caffie-Nutri (the super-caffeinated flavor popular with the younger kids: Caffie-Nutri! Twice the fun! Twice the excitement!).

  “Yum,” said Shakes.

  “Ice you,” muttered Farouk, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “Stop squabbling,” Wes ordered, tense as they joined the crowd headed toward the line of white plastic tents in front of the temple gateway. The famous flesh markets. Was this where Eliza and Liannan had been brought? It wasn’t as he had pictured it at all. He had assumed it would be dirty and disgusting, filled with cannibal outlaws and whimpering slaves, meat of questionable origin hanging on hooks.

  This was nothing of the sort. The brightly ordered streets were filled with pristine white tents, their wares displayed behind glass cases set on gleaming white tables. The products themselves were packaged mostly in white Styrofoam boxes. Discreet signs read CHARMS, POWDERS, or VICTUALS. Towering above the market was a surprisingly tasteful and tall structure built from the purest white Carrara marble. The white temple was sleek and angular, its base carved from the side of the mountain, its peak stretching as tall as the first low cliffs.

  “Where’s the RSA base?” asked Wes. “Cone said it would be right here. Farouk, go check it out.”

  “Let’s keep going,” said Shakes, narrowing his eyes at the people crowded around the outdoor market. The white tents whipped in the wind, and the heat elite pawed through the products on the tables, fingering trinkets, holding them up to the light. No matter how white and clean and pure everything looked, the place had an air of sterility and death. The white marble and polished steel tables were reminiscent of a morgue or a butcher’s shop.

  The whole place made Wes’s stomach churn. He couldn’t watch tourists picking through charms and talismans as if they were candy, when, in fact, they were handling the bones of the dead. The priests wore white powder on their skin, covering their hands and faces. It looked like talcum powder, but Wes couldn’t be certain. Could be bone dust, he thought with a shudder.

  But whose bones? The marked? People like my sister?

  “Sylph powder! Sylph powder here!” hawked a nearby seller. This priest wore silvery hair extensions woven into his gray strands. Wes didn’t want to think about where they came from.

  “What the hell is sylph powder?” growled Shakes.

  “A skin treatment,” the priest said with a gleam in his eye. “Make your skin shine like theirs, eh? Or for your lady back home?”

  Shakes lunged for the man, putting his hands around his neck and throttling him. “I’ll give you freezing sylph powder!” Farouk and Wes had to restrain him as the priest shrieked for the soldiers’ protection.

  “It’s not her,” Wes whispered fiercely, hustling his friend away. “It’s not Liannan. Nat said she was alive, that they’re keeping her alive. We’ll find her, okay? It’s not her. Calm down, or they’ll get us before we get to her.”

  Shakes took a deep breath and stopped fighting. “Okay.”

  Wes nudged one of the runners crowded around a display of glass charms, a young kid no older than fourteen with zits on his chin, an ugly scar on his cheek.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Eye charms. Look at the colored iris inside, it gives luck to the wearer,” the kid said. “They’re popular where I’m from.”

  Wes made a face. “Yeah? Well, where I’m from, those make you look like an idiot.” Which wasn’t exactly truthful, as New Vegas was full of eye charms. Better than a rabbit’s foot.

  The kid shrugged. “You getting one? No? Okay. More for me,” he said as he scooped up the charms and paid with his watts.

  “What’s happening over there?” Wes asked, motioning to the side entrance of the marble tower, where a group of tourists was lining up, many of them carrying weapons of some sort, automatic rifles, deadly-looking knives, even crossbows.

  “Line for the abattoir. Isn’t that why you’re here?” he asked, sizing up their guns. “It’s reaping day. The white hunt.”

  “Right. So we just line up, then?” Wes asked. “It takes you right inside the temple?”

  “Yeah, pretty much, but you go through security before they let you in,” the boy said. “If you check out, you get to play; if not . . .”

  “If not?” Shakes asked.

  “If you don’t pass the test, you don’t get to leave.” The boy chuckled. “It’s no big deal. They don’t want some lockhead ruining the party. I’m sure you losers will be fine, you guys don’t look like anything but a bunch of Vegas donkeys.” He ran off then, catching up to another group.

  “Heatbag,” Shakes muttered. “How’d he know?”

  Farouk returned. “I asked around about the RSA base, and everyone just laughed at me or looked at me funny. I don’t get it. It’s got to be around here; there are enough soldiers here to field an army. What about you guys?”

  “We’re getting in that line,” said Wes. “Whatever it is, it takes us inside the temple where Eliza and Liannan are.”

  A dozen or so unarmed white-cloaked priests flanked the entrance. Cameras dotted the ceiling to let the visitors know they were being watched. The real security was probably nearby, scanning the video feed, waiting to pounce if something went wrong.

  A white-robed priest with a third eye tattooed on his forehead welcomed them. “We are blessed to have so many of you partake in the white hunt today.” He smiled broadly. “As a reminder, once you have made your shot, please follow the signs to the exit and allow the next person to have their chance. If this is not your first time, please follow me; otherwise, remain here for the mandatory inspection.”

  The groups separated accordingly, and Wes and his boys were among the few who remained.

  “Are you all together?” the priest asked. “What is the purpose of your visit?”

  “We’re here for Diamond Jim; he needs a few more of his lucky dice,” said Wes.

  “Ah, the Diamond Casino, of course.” The priest nodded. “Welcome. Your first time in New Kandy?”

  Wes nodded, and the three of them were sent to a small room to the side where a young girl with yellow eyes and a fearful expression stood alone in the middle of the room. She greeted the three boys with a nod.

  “Arms up,” she said.

  Wes raised his hands. Shakes and Farouk did the same.

  She closed her eyes.

  Wes wondered what was going on. What kind of inspection was this anyway? Then he felt a painful jolt in his head, as if stung by a laser or a force of some kind, and he batted it away angrily until it subsided.

  Get out of my head.

  The girl opened her eyes. “Who did that?”

  Farouk shook his head and Shakes shrugged his shoulders. “Do what?”

  “We don’t know what you’re talking about,” Wes said coolly. “Can we go now?” He wasn’t even sure what she meant—that thing? That thing where he batted the dark away? Was that what she meant?

  He wasn’t even sure he could say what had happened.

  He had acted out of instinct and hadn’t even realized he’d done it until it was gone. But what had he done exactly? His hands trembled and his head hurt as a wave of sickness overwhelmed him.

  The priestess looked up at the camera in the ceiling and shook her head. In a moment, the entrance to the room was barricaded with priests holding weapons and iron s
hackles.

  “What is it, beloved?” an older priestess asked, her voice feverish with excitement. “What have you found?”

  The girl pointed to the boys. “One of these three is marked.”

  Chapter 30

  “GOOD HUNTING,” THE SOLDIERS SAID to each other as they surveyed their hostages.

  “Reaping day, too. Priests will be happy to see you, tiger eyes,” one of them said, chucking Nat’s chin before cuffing her wrists with heavy iron shackles. “You’ll make a nice little eye charm, won’t you?”

  Nat grimaced as an image came to mind suddenly, and she saw herself lying on a marble slab while a white priest plucked her eyes from their sockets and placed each one in a hollow glass charm for a wealthy woman to wear when she hit the slots in New Vegas. Blood running down the white stone. Nat had seen those eye charms all her life, but she thought they were fake, made in a factory in Xian. She wanted to throw up.

  “What’ve we got here?” an older soldier asked.

  “Two pint-sized and a marked girl,” the boy replied.

  “What about you, fatty?” he asked. “You marked, too?”

  “No, sir,” Cone replied.

  “Deserter, huh?” the captain said, noticing Cone’s uniform.

  “No—I . . .”

  Before the boy could finish protesting, and without a moment’s hesitation, the captain shot him in the face.

  Dead as snow.

  Cone fell to the ground with a thud, his blood red and thick, covering the white beneath him.

  Cone!

  Nat was too shocked to scream. For a moment, the iron bonds on her wrist stretched to breaking, then snapped back together. She fell to her knees. He was just a kid. He hadn’t even had a chance to fight yet. And they killed him because he wasn’t marked, wasn’t magic like us. If they’ll kill ordinary folk like flies, what will they do to us?

  Brendon and Roark were speechless. They looked up at Nat, their eyes wide with fear and bewilderment. She shook her head. He was just a boy who’d wanted to follow the drakonrydder, who’d believed in her, and she’d failed him.

  “Come on. Get in the truck,” one of the soldiers said, leading them to their vehicle, a modified Hummer like the one Wes had used to transport her out of New Vegas.

  “Where are you taking us?” she asked the soldiers as they were led inside the cargo hold and made to sit on the floor of the truck. She was still shaking from seeing Cone murdered right in front of them.

  “You’ll see soon enough.” The boy smirked.

  “Let’s hope they can run fast,” another snickered. “Tourists like a bit of excitement.”

  Then the doors slammed, the truck lurched, and they were off. The road was bumpy; the constant jostling made her feel nauseated. From the window, she could see that they were heading out of the ruins and into the city limits.

  “Help us! Help us!” she cried.

  Roark and Brendon banged on the iron bars as well. “Help!”

  The streets were crowded with tourists, runners, hawkers, and priests in their white cloaks and powdered faces. She spotted the runners first—shaggy young guys with a weary, grizzled air, guns slung over their shoulders. Was Wes one of them? Where was he?

  A few people in the crowded streets looked up with curiosity, but no one helped. It was as if screaming captives were a common sight in New Kandy, and knowing the rumors about the city, maybe they were.

  The truck entered a tunnel and everything went black. There were no lights inside the cargo hold, and iron made Nat feel physically sick, like she couldn’t even properly think or speak. She was unaccustomed to complete darkness. She had lived for months with the drakon at her side, its fire lighting the sky, its flames keeping the cold and darkness at bay.

  She struggled against her shackles, trying to imagine them destroyed, breaking them down to their molecules, to see their atoms spinning so she could turn them into something else. She could do this. She had broken iron shackles before. But it was as if Cone’s death had numbed her, weakened her, and all she could accomplish was a little rattling of her chains. Maybe that was the idea. The captain had killed Cone as a warning, to make sure the rest of them remained cowering and submissive.

  If that was the case, it had worked.

  Finally the truck stopped, and the sound of the lock turning echoed in the small chamber as the latch released and the back doors swung open. A soldier motioned them forward.

  Nat stepped out of the truck, clenching and unclenching her fists, looking around wearily. Roark came next, blinking his eyes against the darkness, then Brendon, who was coughing.

  They were in some kind of building, and the soldiers herded them toward a flickering light in a far corner. Nat was surprised to find the walls looked familiar. These were the white stone walls and the concrete floors that she had seen in her vision of Liannan. The endless corridors filled with prison cells, the cries and screams of the pilgrims. On the far end was another hallway, and above its arch were engraved the words SACRIFICE IS FREEDOM.

  A priest walked over to the three of them. “We are blessed to have you. You honor us with your presence. We hope to be worthy of your sacrifice.”

  My sacrifice?

  Mine and Cone’s and Liannan’s?

  The whole gray world?

  Would any of it ever be enough?

  Nat spat in his face.

  The priest smiled and licked the liquid from his lips. “A taste of the divine.”

  The soldier herded them into one of the cells and locked the door. “Put your hands up to the bars,” he ordered, holding up a key.

  Nat did, and he took off the handcuffs. He did the same to the smallmen. Then the soldier left them alone in the cell.

  She slid down the length of the wall and put her head in her hands. Where was the rest of their team? Did they find Liannan? Was Wes nearby? They had come to rescue their friend and now needed rescue themselves. Some mission, she thought, and an awkward chuckle bubbled up from her chest.

  “What’s so funny?” Brendon asked.

  She told them.

  He gave a faint grin. “Yeah, we suck.” His red curls covered his face, and Nat had to remind herself that the smallman was older than her, even though he looked so young. Roark’s greater bulk made him appear less childlike, but she sometimes mistook him for someone half her age as well.

  “It’s all right, we always get out somehow,” Roark said. “They haven’t gotten the best of us yet.” He put an arm around Brendon and kissed his forehead.

  Nat was glad they had each other. She wished she had Wes by her side, too. To die without seeing him again was too awful to contemplate.

  If only she’d been brave enough to tell him what she was really feeling. If only . . . What if she never saw him again? What if he died without knowing? What if she did?

  And where was Faix? He said they would see each other again, so that had to mean they would survive this, whatever it was. She tried to sense Mainas, but the drakon did not respond, which wasn’t surprising since Nat was surrounded by a suffocating amount of iron.

  They were going to die here if she couldn’t figure out what to do.

  Sacrifice is freedom. She didn’t want to stay long enough to learn what that meant, but she had a feeling she already knew.

  Eye charms.

  Reaping day.

  Tourists like a bit of excitement.

  This was how the priests killed the marked. It was a bitter truth. They had others do it for them—for sport—as entertainment. Ending her life would be someone else’s great adventure. I hope they enjoy the sacrifice.

  Chapter 31

  WES AND HIS TEAM HAD BECOME prisoners just as quickly as they’d been welcomed with open arms. If you don’t pass the test, you don’t get to leave, that young, obnoxious runner had told him. One of these three is
marked. But who? Him? Shakes? Farouk? His friends were just as dark-eyed and powerless as he. No, this only meant the priests were on to them; they’d seen them arrive in the chopper, and somehow they knew Wes and his boys weren’t who they said they were.

  “You’re making a huge mistake,” Wes said, as the guards disarmed and quickly ushered them down into the bowels of the temple. “Look at our eyes! We’re not marked!”

  “The Beloved is never wrong,” the priest said. “Do not fear, your sacrifice is an honor, and in sacrifice you will find freedom.”

  As they were hustled into their cells, he saw soldiers everywhere: guarding doors, keeping an eye on tourists who were being led to another room. So many soldiers—this place was crawling with military.

  Then he realized why Farouk had only encountered laughter when he asked about the location of the base. The base wasn’t near the temple. The base was the temple, or the temple was the RSA base. He didn’t know why he didn’t realize it sooner.

  It was all so simple.

  We’ve got a base out there, a place to get rid of those we no longer need.

  The military used the white priests as a cover to dispose of the marked captives once they were no longer of use, and profited from their deaths.

  Wes felt ill. At least he knew where Eliza was now.

  • • •

  “Welcome to the abattoir. You bless us with your sacrifice,” said a disembodied voice. Wes and his team were standing shoulder to shoulder with the marked victims, whose brightly colored eyes were glowing in the dark. They looked thin, pale, undernourished. They were all in some kind of holding pen before the labyrinth. Across from the corridor, dimly, he saw a second pen with even more prisoners.

  He couldn’t see much; the maze was built into the caverns beneath the mountain, and their footsteps echoed on the hard surface. The echoes suggested a larger space, a vast nothingness, but looking up, he saw another path carved above theirs, where silhouettes lingered in shadow, men and women holding rifles, perched on catwalks, dangling above the path, just waiting for the poor saps who would run below.