Natalia pulled Ernst aside immediately after her group had decided to kill him. 30 minutes later, she came back, eyes narrowed at Haydn. “It’s done. You’re safe for now,” she said before stomping off to some part of the forest, Brannon hurriedly following after her.
An hour later, Ernst called the initiates to the matrix of emptied crates. “It has been suggested,” Ernst began, “that we go to the other side of the coliseum and raid the bunkers and forts there. That way, we can get red and white cards at the same time and get out of this Fried forsaken tundra.”
“Technically not forsaken,” Gershwin muttered from beside Nadia, “very literally the opposite.”
Natalia strode right up to Ernst’s guard. “Is that really wise? We don’t know how the whites have aligned themselves,” Natalia pointed out, drawing scattered nods. “They could all be allied as one or they could have commandeered a mech of their own.”
Ernst scoffed. “A mech pilot, why would they take the trials? That’s cushier than being a knight.”
Natalia nodded. “You’re right, but they could have an engineer or two with them. Point is”—she turned back to the rest of the group—“we don’t know what they have.”
“If they’re like us, they’ll have formed groups like us,” one of Ernst’s guards said.
Is she trying to get us to go scouting? Nadia wondered before her eyes widened. With her, we can clear whatever is in those forts on our own. “And what if they are not?” Nadia interjected, breaking from the ring, drawing all eyes to her like a triggered siren. “Think about it, we come from many backgrounds, and they likely do as well. I for one was little more than a flower seller, an incredibly augmented flower seller, yes, but a flower seller nonetheless,” she finished. My lord, forgive your servant for resorting to her rusted tongue and help her see other ways to make your will done.
Natalia flashed Nadia a smile but Ernst’s frown deepened. “I don’t give two scraps about the opinion of a fucking flower merchant,” he said, drawing chuckles and laughs from the ring.
“Well, I do give a scrap about the opinion of a fucking flower merchant,” Natalia said, mimicking Ernst’s voice. “She’s right. We don’t know what’s out there and if we just bulldoze our way forward, we could end up picking a fight with a bigger group than ours. I know you’re bold, Ernst, but you’re not suicidal.”
Ernst stroked his chin. “Very well,” he called out, a hint of bitterness in his voice like he had really wanted the pretzel for an appetizer while everyone else wanted spinach dip. “A team will be sent to the other side, to scout.”
“Only one?” the fucking flower merchant called out, earning another smile from Natalia. “They could easily get picked off. Three perhaps, or—”
“Three it is, then,” Ernst agreed, and Nadia didn’t bother to continue. “I will pick them. In the meantime, the rest of you should get your trucks ready. We leave when the sun is fully online,” Ernst finished before shooing the initiates away.
“He is not going to pick us, I already know that,” Natalia said when she had rejoined with Nadia. ”Regardless, you did great.”
“Did I? Nadia muttered. “He will just have his best men go out and then he will lie to us about it.”
“That’s what we want, isn’t it? If his sycophants and guards are gone…” Natalia trailed off. “We don’t need them. Whatever is in those bunkers and those cubes, I can handle once I get my energy back.”
“And how long will that be?”
“After lifting a train and all of your ungrateful asses”—Natalia’s smile gleamed like a dagger—“two or three days. Normally, they rotate alterists on the frontlines out east, so we always have one, but I doubt there’s another alterist like me here.”
“What does that mean?” Nadia asked. “Rich?”
“Try card carrying and effective,” Natalia said out the side of her mouth. “One in a million people have the natural coils to create even sparks. Most alterists never know about their abilities and live full, boring lives with all the dread and happiness that entails. Fried and his servants might find one in ten, one in five if they’re lucky, and move them into one of the imperial lattistician academies. In a class of 100 oreborn, the lowest rank, 50 will graduate to quenchling, the fourth rank, the others either running away or burning themselves out between meltblood and austenitiate.” Her electric blue eyes narrowed, casting a dark shadow across her face. “In 100 classes, maybe ten lattisticians will rise to the rank of martension like me, even fewer to temperon, pearlescent, and maragenius.”
“So you are one in a”—Nadia paused to do the math, never her strongest suit—“hundred billion?”
Natalia nodded. “Something like that; it’s what my father keeps saying he paid for me,” she sighed, “never knew when to shut up about it either.”
A hundred billion marks? Nadia’s eyes nearly shot out of her head and splattered on a distant tree. She really does have money in her veins! “You could buy the game makers if you wanted.”
Natalia scoffed. “I could buy my way through these trials if I wanted to.” She pointed to the fort in the distance. “I have already been approached by half of the orders for one of their knights to get me a red card and white cards for the rest of my group. I turned them down, because I can pass these trials on my own.” She pointed to Ernst. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s pulled some strings with some knight he’s met on the frontlines. They’d definitely want a captain like him.”
“Is that why we are sticking close to him? For whatever goodies he has?”
“No,” Natalia said as the ring broke once Ernst had selected the scouting groups. She raised her hand to her face, hot lines of orange trudging across the grafted skin like bloated slugs. “Strong as I am, 200 men will be a challenge when I feel like I’m being electrocuted every time I tap my coils. If I tap them again without letting them heal, that won’t be far off. I am still a freakish mutant, and the day one of them dies from a bullet I fail to stop is the night that they cut my coils from me as I sleep.” She squinted past Nadia and a smile spread across her lips like ice cracking. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes,” she said breathily once Brannon was within arm’s length.
“Someone thinks so,” Brannon muttered. “What’s the plan? The less time we spend around Ernst, the better.”
“We are going to get a red card and then we are going to bail,” Natalia said quietly. “We can get white cards on our own before the scouts get back. After that, it’s those cubes and then we are done.”
“Any idea what’s in the cubes?” Brannon asked.
Natalia shook her head. “Not a nail’s worth of an idea, but I figure I have enough power, and you have enough brains between the five of you.”
“And Ernst?” Nadia asked. “I doubt he will take kindly to our desertion.”
Natalia nodded. “Once we have a red card, we turn and burn, emphasis on burn,” Natalia said, wiggling her fingers like flames above her head. “Brannon knows explosives, do you?”
Nadia nodded. “I know enough,” she said, having spent exactly one training session on explosives. My lord and his Saint of Precision, guide your servant so she does not blow herself up.
“Good. Go find Haydn, I’ll find the priest, Brannon find that redhead.” She flicked her hand at Nadia and Brannon. “Go on now, you’re dismissed, shoo shoo.”
Nadia rolled her eyes. “When we are done with this and back at the hotel, I am going to give you all a seminar in mannerisms,” she said before turning to find Haydn, but not before swiveling back and adding, “and I mean it!”
As the designated Haydn-whisperer, Nadia found the boy already at the truck, sitting on the lip of the open back. “Looking for me?” Haydn kicked his dangling legs weakly. “Figured I’d make it easy on you. What’s the plan with her highness?”
“Natalia,” Nadia ground out. “We are sticking with this group until we get a red card and then we are turning and burning. We will complete whatever is in the fort on our own.”
Haydn scoffed. “Is her higness crazy? Those things are huge.”
She is something alright, Nadia thought dismally. “She is under the impression that with her raw power and our brains, we can do it.”
Haydn arched a brow. “She thinks I have brains now, does she?” He dropped to his feet and dusted himself off. “Well mark me down for flattered and skeptical. Does she not realize that whatever is in there might not even be a test of power at all? I mean”—he bounced his hand off his forehead—“it could be another game of capture the flag where a certain number of people are needed to even play.”
He does have a point; anything could be in those cubes. “Lord Deimos did say that six black cards and six white cards were needed. I am sure the six of us will be enough, we just need to be creative.”
Haydn cocked his head to the side, confused. “You do realize you are relying on the word of the propaganda head of Atlas?”
“No, I am relying on the word of the Saint of the Mind,” Nadia said, feeling very smart for the quick reply.
Haydn sighed. “You are really trusting of the saints given everything that’s happened.”
“Fried gave his kingdom his saints, and it is through them that we may know glory and virtue,” Nadia rattled off.
“Could hardly have said it better myself,” Gershwin said from behind Nadia. “The Pages of Pearlite, chapter one. If this knight business doesn’t work, there may be a place in the clergy for you yet.”
Nadia knew such a thing was an impossibility, having determined long ago that she was more fit to be a mother than a nun. Seeing Haydn and Brannon both chuckle at Gershwin’s joke made Nadia bite her tongue and kill whatever lecture was on it. Let them have their fun, she reasoned. “Perhaps,” Nadia shrugged, “I do have experience with children, after all.”
Gershwin smiled sadly and turned to Natalia. “Tell me, Natalia,” Gershwin said, “do you have any idea what is in those forts to be as confident as you are? You must have heard something, as connected as your family is.”
Natalia rolled her eyes. “As much as you may think we have a hundred fingers in every pie and that we talk about all of them at dinner, we only have ten, and we don’t eat together often or ever.”
Gershwin flapped his gums together, disappointed. “Well then, I suppose we shouldn’t keep Fried waiting much longer,” Gershwin said. “Who will be in the truck for this raid of Ernst’s?”
Haydn’s bony arm shot up. “I’d like to avoid being seen for as long as possible.”
Brannon pointed at himself and Nadia. “As the best shots here, we should stay on the outside.”
Nadia nodded. “Who will drive then?” Certainly not me, I hope. I have not driven since I married Tobias.
Samuel sighed and raised his hand. “Me, obviously. I’m probably the only one who can get it to start,” he said before turning to Natalia. “What you said, about someone turning one of the mechs, you’re right. Give me an hour or two and I think I could,” he chuckled, “or at least it’d be really fun to try.”
“Just don’t blow us up,” Brannon said before following Samuel to the front of the truck.
“I’ll stick behind as well,” Natalia said after a moment of watching Brannon go. “Without my alterism, I am quite diminished, just Haydn with more muscle.”
“Hey!” Haydn exclaimed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We’re all banking on using me in the cubes, aren’t we?” Everybody nodded. “That’s what I thought.”
Gershwin sighed, his shoulders slumping into the attachment point of his black arms like they were being vacuumed into it. “I’ll stay inside so they don’t try anything.”
Nadia sighed as well. “Haydn, whatever you do, think would Nadia approve of this?” Nadia said before adding through her teeth, “if not, do, not, do, it.”
Haydn chuckled. “Yes mam!” he exclaimed before firing off a salute and hopping into the truck. Once the boy was inside, Nadia lowered the door before following Brannon.