Page 160 of Ashes of Honor

Main Street Station loomed ahead—its broken clock barely visible through the haze of smoke. I kept my eyes focused and forward, refusing to look at the kids trailing beside me, their small hands clutching at whatever they could carry. Didn’t let my eyes linger on the adults, their faces blank with shock. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered right now.

Evacuate the civilians, reach the station, and stay alive. That was the plan. Those were my orders.

Stay alive.

For Yasmin, for our son, for her.

For her.

A crackle of electricity made me pause and a sharp blue light flickered against the side of a high-rise. The holographic screen flickered to life against the cracked wall, and a cold stream of panic settled in my veins.

Amaia.

She was on her knees, hair matted with ash colored sweat streaked down her face. I would not panic. Not yet. Her eyes—they still burned. That fire in her was still alive.Good. That was good.

“A villain speech, how original,” she said, the force in her voice present despite Ronan lingering over her, fingers wrapped in her hair.

“No. Not a villain—a victor.” Ronan’s smile was cold, lacking emotion—it reminded me of Seth’s. It was mechanical, more machine than man. Like they practiced it every morning, to make sure they fit in. “I think you’d appreciate understanding what you’re up against, learning all the facts, making sure that the people you care for won’t suffer.” The wordsufferslithered out, mocking.

Amaia straightened, shoulders squared against the weight of his grip. I gritted my teeth, the instinct to run to her screaming in my bones. It wasn’t simple. It never was. I had to stay alive—she’d want me to stay alive.

My mind raced. Pieces clicked together.Name the next one after me.She knew. Fury bubbled in my veins. Hot. Suffocating.

“Let us give them all a show. Say hi to the camera, it’s important they understand exactly what happens when you stand against progress. Evolution.” He held out his hand, and Malachai stepped forward, placing a knife in his palm. The camera zoomed in as Ronan dragged the blade lightly across her throat. A thin line of blood appeared, and my chest clenched so tight I thought I’d stop breathing.

Amaia didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. She just stared up at him with that defiant tilt to her head, offering him more real-estate, daring him to do his worst.

Reina made a small, strangled sound as she moved her horse to block the view from some of the younger children. “What’s happening?” she whispered. “What is he?—”

“Don’t you know, this is all history in the making?” Ronan circled her like prey. “The onset of the new beginning. Future generations will thank us for setting them up for success. You said it yourself, one unit, right? With Covert having hold in the other territories, we eliminate what I like to call, inefficiencies. No more fractured leadership, no more squabbles over resources. Everything is structured, centralized. Controlled. Covert Province becomes the heart of it all—a beacon of progress, of strength. The weak don’t get a say in that. Survival belongs to those who take it, who can lead, adapt. You and I understand each other. Both willing to die for what we believe in. It’s the reason I refused to doubt you. It would have been dangerous to do so.”

“He’s making an example of her. Showing what happens if you dare dissent,” I said, the words coming out in a growl.

I felt Alexiares stare and refused to face it—that undercurrent of panic, of rage he barely held in check. He would break, and if he broke, I feared I would too. For her, it was so easy to.

Amaia’s eyes trailed every inch of Ronan’s face, studied every line, every freckle—then burst out laughing. “Wow. All this time, I thought you were just preaching bullshit, saying what you thought people wanted to hear. But you actually believe in what you’re doing, don’t you? You think this is for the greater good? Hurting people, killing people,that’syour legacy. You don’t get to rewrite history just because you don’t like how it’ll make you look.”

The screen flickered as Malachai stepped into frame. His arm lashed out, the crack of his strike louder than a whip through the air. Her head snapped to the side, hair flying, but she didn’t fall.

She didn’t even stagger.

Amaia smiled, blood staining her teeth, her lip bulging to a painful swell. “I truly pity the fool. I’m not sure what’s worse, preaching harmful rhetoric to climb an ego boosting social ladder or believing the whack job shit that comes out of your mouth?”

She held all the bite in the world with her tone, but I caught it—the slip in her speech pattern, the glimmer of sorrow in her eyes, the faint snarl of her bruised and battered lip. She was afraid. More than afraid, Amaia was terrified. Her right hand fell to her waist, tracing over where she’d been stabbed in the last war—I hadn’t been able to help her then either.

“I mean,” she continued, her jaw moving at an awkward angle. “All this science and focus on having the greatest minds, and you wouldn’t comprehend the data if it slapped you in the fucking face and grabbed you by the balls. Let me guess, anything you don’t agree with is a falsity, right? A biased fact? Facts can’t be biased, Ronan. They’re just facts. And at the end of the day, we are, genetically speaking, 99.9 percent identical. Our roots, magic or not, are tangled together in the same evolutionary soil. That is not an opinion, Ronan, that is molecular truth. We are all the same. What you’re doing out here is playing God, disrupting nature’s patterns.Destroyingorder, not restoring it.”

Malachai struck her again. “Shut your mouth.”

“No,” Ronan said with a smirk. “Let her continue.”

This was a public service announcement. He wanted the world to watch. To see how untouchable he was and how unattainable freedom from his reach would be. The great AmaiaBennett. I had no doubt this was being displayed throughout Covert Province as a whole.

“What you’ve done with your powerdisgustsme.”

Ronan glanced at with more than subtle intrigue—amusement. “You would do it differently? Better?”

“I have done it better.” Amaia spit into his face, bloodied saliva dripped down his chin. She locked eyes with the camera. “If you’re watching this, the people you callOutsiders, they’ll be welcome in Salem Territory, Transient Nation, and The Expanse. Granted immediate citizenship. Wherever they want. One unit, one compound. But the rest of you fuckers,”—a laugh. A stale one at that. “I hope you burn in hell.”

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