LOGINAURORAI don't remember how I got to him.One moment I was on my knees in the dirt, watching the arrow fly. The next, I was crawling through broken stones and dust with my skirt tearing and my palms scraped raw.“Roman!” I screamed. “Roman, no, no, no!”He was lying on his side with his eyes half open. The silver bolt was buried deep in his chest, just under his collarbone. Black veins were already spreading out from the wound, crawling across his skin like cracks in ice.His breath came in short gasps.“Rory,” he said. His voice was barely audible. He tried to lift a hand and couldn't. “Run.”“Shut up,” I sobbed. “Shut up, Roman.”“Please... the baby...”“I said shut up!”I had no idea what I was doing. I only knew I couldn't lose him. Not like this. Not after everything. I'd already lost my parents. I'd already lost my home. I wasn't going to lose the one person who'd stayed.I wrapped my fingers around the bolt.“This is going to hurt,” I said, my voice breaking. “I'm so sorry.”I
ROMANWhen the threads broke, I felt it all the way down in my bones.One moment, I was surrounded by a ring of Council wolves with their teeth at my throat. The next, every one of them froze. The tall woman with gray eyes blinked. Her hands started to shake. Then she dropped her sword like it had burned her.“What... what's happening?” she whispered. “Where am I?”I didn't stop to answer her. I didn't stop to wonder, either. I could think about it later.Because I could feel something through the bond, and I knew it had to do with Aurora.I ran.I shouldered through the freed wolves and tore down the road toward the lower part of town. My ribs screamed where they'd been clawed open. I didn't care. I couldn't feel anything except a very strong pull.Then came something else. Fear. “Hold on,” I growled. “I'm coming. I'm coming, Rory.”I turned the corner into the lower part of town and my whole world stopped.She was on her knees in the middle of the street. Her face was pale, and the
AURORAI didn't think about it. I didn't have time to be scared either. I just tipped my head back and howled.I'd howled before. I knew what it felt like—the rumble in my chest and the scrape in my throat. But this wasn't that. The sound that came out of me was bigger than I was. It boomed over the valley like a wave rushing up a beach.And then the threads snapped.I felt every single one breaking one after another. Then, right after each one, came a rush of something warm and light. It was relief pouring through me, but it wasn't even mine. It belonged to every person I'd just freed.The soldier in front of me dropped his sword. It hit the mud with a heavy thud. He stood there for a second with his hands hanging open. Then his face crumpled, and he fell to his knees and grabbed his head with both hands.“What did I do?” he sobbed. “Oh, gods. What did I do?”All around us, it was happening. Swords clattered to the floor. Men and women dropped to the ground, crying, shaking, and claw
AURORAThe clinic smelled like blood and herbs, but I'd stopped noticing either one an hour ago.I was kneeling beside a boy of maybe fifteen, wrapping a strip of bandage around a cut on his arm. My hands were sticky. My back ached from the baby. Every few minutes the ground shook from the fighting up at the Gap, and every time it did, the boy squeezed his eyes shut.“Hey,” I said softly. “Look at me. You're doing great.”“I'm not scared,” he said. He was shaking.“Me neither,” I lied. Then the door banged open so hard that it slammed against the wall.A runner stumbled in. He was young, covered in soot, with a cut over his eye that ran down into his collar. He didn't look at anyone in particular. He just yelled it to the whole room.“The east wall's down! Dunmore blew it up! There are Council soldiers in the lower part of town!”Nobody moved. Someone dropped a bowl, and it clattered across the floor.“The lower part of town?” Dr. Elsie said. Her face went gray. “That's where we sent
ROMANAt the Gap, the fight was ugly.I’d been in a lot of battles. I knew how a fight felt. People got scared. They flinched. They backed up when they got hurt, screamed, or ran. That was how you knew where the line was.The Council’s soldiers didn’t do any of that.A man with a broken arm kept swinging his sword. A woman took a blade in the stomach, looked down at it, and kept walking forward like it was nothing but a splinter. A boy who couldn’t have been older than seventeen came at me with an empty face, and when I knocked him down, he just got up and came at me again.My stomach turned over. These people didn’t even seem to feel it.“Take prisoners!” I roared over the noise. “Don’t kill them if you can help it! They’re being used!”It was almost impossible. How could you take a prisoner who wouldn’t stop? My wolves tried. I saw them pinning arms, knocking out legs, and tying hands with whatever they had. But for every one they dropped, two more took their place.A man twice my s
AURORAFrom the top of the wall, I watched the army march, and it was the worst thing I’d ever seen.I’d seen fights. This wasn’t like that. This was thousands of men and women moving like one body. Their boots hit the ground at the same time. Their faces were blank and empty. No one was yelling. No one was laughing, scared, or even breathing hard.It was like watching a wave come in.“They’re not even blinking,” Josie whispered next to me. She’d refused to go inside. Her neck still had a bandage around it. “That’s so creepy, Aurora.”“I know.”“Do you think Thomas is okay?” Josie asked.“Hannah says he’s sleeping. He’ll be fine.”“And you?”“I’m fine.”Josie gave me a look. “Your nose is still bleeding, Aurora.”I touched it. She was right. I wiped it on my sleeve and tried to laugh. “Okay. Maybe I’m a little fine.”Roman came up behind us. He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he turned me around by the shoulders and took my face in both his hands.He’d changed into his fighting







