Chapter 2

The sun dipped below the peaks, dragging the temperature down with it. The wind off the mountain turned into a blade, slicing through Eve's thin cloak and biting into her sweat-soaked skin. Her body was shutting down. Her vision swam, and her legs felt like they were filled with wet sand.

This was it. Her last chance. The guards would come to clear the plaza soon.

She ignored the screaming protests of her muscles and the throbbing in her shattered elbow. She thought of the day she turned thirteen, the first time her fingers closed around the hilt of "Rebellion." The blade had hummed in her grip, a joyful vibration that resonated all the way to her core. That memory was a knife twisting in her gut, but it gave her fuel.

She launched herself up the stairs. She moved faster than before, a desperate, reckless sprint. Ten steps. Fifteen. Twenty. The holy pressure clamped down on her, trying to crush her, but she pushed through the pain, her breath tearing in her throat.

The mocking whispers from the crowd died down, replaced by shocked murmurs. Maybe she was going to do it. Maybe sheer will could defy divine law.

A cold sense of hope swelled in her chest.

Then, from the peak of the stairs, "Rebellion" let out a wailing shriek. It was a sound of absolute rejection, a blade refusing its tainted master.

A visible shockwave of blue light erupted from the top of the stairs. It rolled down the stone steps, crackling with raw energy, moving ten times faster than the previous blasts.

Eve's pupils dilated. She tried to brace herself, but her body was already past its limit. Her muscles locked up. The shockwave hit her square in the chest.

Every bone in her body screamed. It sounded like a hundred twigs snapping in a fire at once. The force launched her into the air, a broken puppet cut from its strings. She tumbled down the hard stone stairs, her limbs flopping at unnatural angles. Agony exploded everywhere-a blinding, white-hot inferno that consumed her thoughts. Warm blood splattered across the white stone, leaving a gruesome trail behind her.

Screams erupted from the crowd, mixing with the sickening thuds of her body hitting the steps.

She hit the stone plaza at the bottom with a dull, wet thud. The world went completely dark. Her last conscious thought wasn't of the pain, but of a sharp, piercing betrayal. Rebellion? she screamed in the silence of her mind. Even you? Why? The last image burned into her retinas was the cold emblem of the sanctuary above.

Consciousness faded into nothing.

Panic rippled through the onlookers, but no one stepped forward. She was a condemned criminal. Touching her was bad luck, maybe even treason. A few people ran to fetch the guards; others simply backed away, their faces pale with horror.

No one helped her.

In the shadows of the fortress wall, Cato Sims's fists slowly uncurled. His knuckles were white, the only sign of the tension coiled in his massive frame. He watched the crumpled, bloody figure at the bottom of the stairs. The blank mask on his face cracked for a fraction of a second, a flicker of something dark and fierce crossing his features.

He waited. The guards arrived, took one look at the mangled state of her, and shook their heads. They waved off the crowd, declaring her a lost cause. They didn't even bother to check for a pulse.

As the plaza emptied and the darkness thickened, Cato moved.

He walked out of the shadows, his stride measured and completely silent. For a man of his size, he moved like a ghost. He crossed the distance to her, kneeling in the pool of her blood. He reached out, his large, calloused hand hovering near her broken nose, feeling for the faintest whisper of breath.

A flicker of warm air touched his fingers. She was alive.

He glanced around the deserted plaza. The guards had retreated to their posts. The pilgrims were gone. He slid one arm under her shattered knees and the other behind her back. He lifted her without a single grunt of effort. She weighed nothing in his arms, as light as a bundle of dry sticks.

He cradled her broken body against his chest, turning his back on the Holy Stairs, and walked toward the dilapidated shacks behind the fortress, swallowed by the night.