Page 72 of The Last Hope

“BROTHER!” His voice is muffled but distinctly who I remember. Who I know.

Every tendon in my body snaps into action. Not slowing, I slip past another shoulder. The Knave Squadron is on the front line. Their backs to us, Arden still wears his weapon.

With unseen hands, I pluck an arrow out of his quiver and unbuckle a strap. Able to slip off the bow. I glide around his towering frame.

Barrett catches sight of me—and then Mykal rams his weight into him. The C-Jay barrels forward and crashes onto his knees.

I breach the barricade.

And like a whip of wind, I spin onto the side. Kinden, the Soarcastle sisters, and Zimmer are kneeling, gagged with cloth, wrists bound with rope, and I place the arrow to the bow and draw the string back.

I aim the iron point at the C-Jays. Almost a hundred wary gazes dart to leaders.

I grit down, “He’s my brother!”

“He’s Saltarian!” more than one person shouts.

Several vehement exclamations follow.

“He’s not your brother!”

“He doesn’t bloody care about you!”

“He’ll kill you!”

Kinden is on his knees, unable to understand their human language, and even so, he’s only staring at me. Glassy-eyed, like he discovered I came back to life for a second time.

“Stand down, Court!” Stork yells, rushing through the nearly arm-locked C-Jays to reach Franny. She struggles to bypass Captain Venita, who uses a metal shield to obstruct her passage.

“They’re our friends!” Franny screams. “You can trust them!Let them go; let them go!”

Mykal has already stormed ahead. On my side, he drops to his knees and unbinds my brother first. I sense the knotted and frayed rope between his rough fingers.

Padgett Soarcastle has her back to her younger sister. Attempting to untie one another’s rope.

Zimmer stays still. Scrawny and shaggy-haired, he looks untroubled. Like he’s on a leisure adventure.

“First, lower your weapons,” I demand, not raising my voice. Taut string is pressed tensely against my nose and lips, fingers beneath my chin.

I only know archery because of Mykal.

He taught me in the winter wood.

C-Jays protest, yelling, “Don’t be dim! They’ll hurt you!”

“We know these Saltarians,” I say smoothly. “Drop your weapons. They will not harm anyone on theLucretzia.”

“He’s dehydrated!” a C-Jay shouts. “Messed up in the head.”

“This is what happens when they’ve been starved for thirty-one days.”

“It’s not their fault.”

Gods dammit.

I refuse to question my sanity. These people have none of my memories. None of my history. I’m a boy of eighteen years, but I’ve lived beyond anything they can possibly comprehend.

Mykal unravels Kinden’s rope and runs to help Zimmer.