Traitor Born (Page 28)

“I’m still a soldier. It’s my job to—”

“You’re so much more than a soldier—just promise me you won’t do anything reckless like that again. Everything is about to change. The Rose Garden Society has an agenda, and you’re at the top of it. You know as well as I do what Salloway is planning. After tonight, it won’t just be Gabriel’s death they call for—Salloway and his cronies will up their timeline.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Who do you think had your father killed tonight?” he asks with a note of cynicism that was never there when he was secondborn. “I would’ve thought it was the Rose Garden Society. Don’t get me wrong, they wanted Kennet dead. But Kennet wasn’t just executed, Roselle. He was tortured. Someone hated him enough to make it extremely painful. It wasn’t just political. It was personal.”

“Mother,” I say. A lot of people had a motive to kill my father, but no one hated him like my mother did. Kennet would have inherited the title of The Virtue before I would. Dune and the Gates of Dawn want me to rule. I’m closer now that my father is dead, but the viciousness of Kennet’s murder is not their style. They would’ve simply put a fusion pulse in his head. Mother sent the Death Gods to brutalize my father. If they’d caught me, would they have tortured me as well?

“Othala hasn’t been able to get to you at the Halo Palace, so she changed her line of attack,” Hawthorne says. “If she becomes The Virtue, she’d rule everything. Now that your father is dead, she’s one step closer to her goal. That’s bad for the Rose Gardeners. They need you to become the firstborn heir to The Sword before your mother has a chance to become The Virtue, or you’re as good as dead. If she eliminates all the other heirs to the title, then everyone bows down to Othala, and she saves her son.”

“My mother would then become The Virtue, and Gabriel would become The Sword. I’d still be a threat to Gabriel, so they’d get rid of me. Then Gabriel will inherit the title of The Virtue when my mother dies.”

Hawthorne’s expression is grim. “But Othala can’t save Gabriel. He’s the only one who can do that, but he won’t. No one needs to kill him; he’s doing that all by himself. He’s completely psychotic now that he’s mixing Rush with Five Hundred.”

I cringe. A painful ache squeezes my heart. Separately, the drugs Hawthorne is talking about are dangerous. Together, they’re lethal. “Something can be done. Gabriel—”

“Doesn’t care about anything except getting high and killing you.”

In a broken whisper, I ask, “How are you still alive, Hawthorne?” The night I left him, he’d betrayed my brother, a death sentence in the Fate of Swords, especially if Gabriel is as sick as he says.

“I don’t know,” Hawthorne admits. He sighs, as if he’s trying to sort it out. “Your family doesn’t know what we did the night you escaped. Everything was erased.”

“Erased? How?”

“The security logs were all compromised. Not one drone camera, security camera, satellite, or maginot recorded us. Not on the Sword Palace grounds, or in the streets of the city, or even near your apartment. Every file was corrupted—they’re all blank. Tracking in the city of Forge was wiped out—a total blackout. Gabriel and Othala suspect The Virtue is behind it.”

My eyebrows pull together. The only explanation is that once the malware I uploaded into the maginot infiltrated the industrial systems, Reykin took over and covered our tracks. That must have been risky. He could’ve let Hawthorne burn for what he did that night. It would’ve been smarter where the Gates of Dawn are concerned. No one would suspect a breach. Maybe Reykin’s program is such a ghost that it doesn’t matter?

“What are you thinking about?” Hawthorne asks.

“I was wondering how that’s possible.”

“I’ve wondered the same thing. At first I thought Gabriel was playing me, but then it became clear that he truly doesn’t know what happened that night.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him you slipped away. I followed you and the maginot, but you were able to escape to your apartment, where you were met by The Virtue and taken away.”

I stare out the side window. “They still believe you’d murder me if given the chance?”

“I don’t know—maybe. Things changed after that night. Gabriel has become more and more deranged. I’m his first lieutenant. I run the Heritage Council now, but we haven’t met in days because there’s no point—no information is coming from the Sword Palace. Gabriel doesn’t leave its walls—for his own protection—and no one’s allowed to see him.”

“Is anyone getting him help?” I ask.

“The only person who isn’t terrified of Gabriel is your mother, and I think she’s in denial. She’s like a lioness. I don’t believe the Rose Garden Society saw tonight’s attack coming. Salloway would never have put you in danger like that if he had.”

Neither would Dune, I think. “Have you spoken to Clifton?”

Hawthorne grunts. “You think Salloway talks to me?” The derision in his tone is telling. “He’d never let me near you if he could help it.”

My brow wrinkles in confusion. “But you were at the party tonight. Surely Clifton would have made certain that you weren’t on the guest list if that were the case.”

“I didn’t have an invitation. I snuck in tonight—came in through the roof. I had to try to see you.” He puts the airship on autopilot. Reaching up, he unclasps his chest armor and opens the side, exposing a gravitizer inside the breastplate. We employ these antigravity mechanisms in combat jumpsuits. They use a magnetic force to repel themselves from the molten core of the planet and slow the descent during airship jumps. That explains how Hawthorne survived the fall from the building and his plunge into the water to rescue me. “I was locating a quiet place in the social club where I could bring you to talk, and then I was going to find you when you walked by.”

“I was following my father.” I realize that I might have been able to save Kennet if I hadn’t been distracted by Hawthorne.

He reads my face. “I’m glad I stopped you. They might have killed you, too.”

“Did you see Dune or Clifton during the mayhem in the ballroom?”

“No. I was only watching you,” he replies. A grudging tone of admiration enters his voice. “You destroyed them all, Roselle. They didn’t even stand a chance. I could hardly take my eyes off you.”

“Even when I temporarily blinded everyone?”

“I was on the gallery level. Your red cloud didn’t make it up there to the end of the gallery. I watched you shoot every single target. Then you stopped my heart, throwing yourself on the grenade. After the glass blew in from the explosion, I saw you fall. I ran along the balcony and dove through a window after you.”

“That was brave of you,” I murmur.

“Brave.” Hawthorne laughs self-effacingly. “It was self-preservation, Roselle. I’m lost without you.” I reach my hand out to his. He takes it and holds it. “I’ve been to the Halo Palace a handful of times, hoping you were there, demanding they let me see you.”