I head back to the square, arms hanging limp but ready at my sides. Normally this is my dance, walking through the most congested parts of a crowd, letting my hands catch purses and pockets like spiderwebs catching flies. I’m not stupid enough to try that here. Instead, I follow the crowd around the square. Now I’m not blinded by my fantastic surroundings but looking beyond them, to the cracks in the stone and the black-uniformed Security officers in every shadow. The impossible Silver world comes into sharper focus. Silvers barely look at each other and they never smile. The telky girl looks bored feeding her strange beast, and merchants don’t even haggle. Only the Reds look alive, darting around the slow-moving men and women of a better life. Despite the heat, the sun, the bright banners, I have never seen a place so cold.
What concern me most are the black video cameras hidden in the canopy or alleyways. There’s only a few at home, at the Security outpost or in the arena, but they’re all over the market. I can just hear them humming in firm reminder: someone else is watching here.
The tide of the crowd takes me down the main avenue, past taverns and cafés. Some Silvers sit at an open-air bar, watching the crowd pass as they enjoy their morning drinks. Some watch video screens set into walls or hanging from archways. Each one plays something different, ranging from old arena matches to news to brightly colored programs I don’t understand, all blending together in my head. The high whine of the screens, the distant sound of static, buzzes in my ears. How they can stand it, I don’t know. But the Silvers don’t even blink at the videos, almost ignoring them entirely.
The Hall itself casts a glimmering shadow over me and I find myself staring in stupid awe again. But then a droning noise snaps me out of it. At first it sounds like the arena tone, the one used to start a Feat, but this one is different. Low and heavier somehow. Without a thought, I turn to the noise.
In the bar next to me, all the video screens flicker to the same broadcast. Not a royal address but a news report. Even the Silvers stop to watch in rapt silence. When the drone ends, the report begins. A fluffy blond woman, Silver no doubt, appears on the screen. She reads from a piece of paper and looks frightened.
“Silvers of Norta, we apologize for the interruption. Thirteen minutes ago there was a terrorist attack in the capital.”
The Silvers around me gasp, bursting into fearful murmurs.
I can only blink in disbelief. Terrorist attack? On the Silvers?
Is that even possible?
“This was an organized bombing of government buildings in West Archeon. According to reports, the Royal Court, the Treasury Hall, and Whitefire Palace have been damaged, but the court and the treasury were not in session this morning.” The image changes from the woman to footage of a burning building. Security officers evacuate the people inside while nymphs blast water onto the flames. Healers, marked by a black-and-red cross on their arm, run to and fro among them. “The royal family was not in residence at Whitefire, and there are no reported casualties at this time. King Tiberias is expected to address the nation within the hour.”
A Silver next to me clenches his fist and pounds on the bar, sending spider cracks through the solid rock top. A strongarm. “It’s the Lakelanders! They’re losing up north so they’re coming down south to scare us!” A few jeer with him, cursing the Lakelands.
“We should wipe them out, push all the way through to the Prairie!” another Silver echoes. Many cheer in agreement. It takes all my strength not to snap at these cowards who will never see the front lines or send their children to fight. Their Silver war is being paid for in Red blood.
As more and more footage rolls, showing the marble facade of the courthouse explode into dust or a diamondglass wall withstanding a fireball, part of me feels happy. The Silvers are not invincible. They have enemies, enemies who can hurt them, and for once, they aren’t hiding behind a Red shield.
The newscaster returns, paler than ever. Someone whispers to her offscreen and she shuffles through her notes, her hands shaking. “It seems that an organization has taken responsibility for the Archeon bombing,” she says, stumbling a bit. The shouting men quiet quickly, eager to hear the words on-screen. “A terrorist group calling themselves the Scarlet Guard released this video moments ago.”
“The Scarlet Guard?” “Who the hell—?” “Some kind of trick—?” and other confused questions rise around the bar. No one has heard of the Scarlet Guard before.
But I have.
That’s what Farley called herself. Her and Will. But they are smugglers, both of them, not terrorists or bombers or whatever else the broadcast might say. It’s a coincidence, it can’t be them.
On-screen, I’m greeted by a terrible sight. A woman stands in front of a shaky camera, a scarlet bandanna tied around her face so only her keen blue eyes shine out. She holds a gun in one hand, a tattered red flag in another. And on her chest, there’s a bronze badge in the shape of a torn-apart sun.
“We are the Scarlet Guard and we stand for the freedom and equality of all man—,” the woman says. I recognize her voice.
Farley.
“—starting with the Reds.”
I don’t need to be a genius to know that a bar full of angry, violent Silvers is the last place a Red girl wants to be. But I can’t move. I can’t tear my eyes away from Farley’s face.
“You believe you are the masters of the world but your reign as kings and gods is at an end. Until you recognize us as human, as equal, the fight will be at your door. Not on a battlefield, but in your cities. In your streets. In your homes. You don’t see us, and so we are everywhere.” Her voice hums with authority and poise. “And we will rise up, Red as the dawn.”