Free Steel Scars by Victoria Aveyard

Things are too centralized. People will notice, and they’ll root us out before we’re ready. We have to hit hard, hit big, hit where the Silvers can’t hide us.”
    I’m gaining ground, but not much. Still, it’s enough for him to keep his voice from shaking. He’s angry, but not livid. He can still be reasoned with.
    â€œThat’s precisely what you recorded for,” he says. “You remember,I assume.”
    A camera and a red scarf across half my face. A gun in one hand, a newly made flag in the other, reciting words memorized like a prayer. And we will rise up, Red as the dawn .
    â€œFarley, this is how we operate. No one holds all the cards. No one knows the hand. It’s the only way we stay ahead and alive,” he presses on. From another, it might sound like pleading. But not the Colonel. He doesn’t ask things. He just orders. “But believe me when I say, we have plans for Norta. And they aren’t so far from what you want.”
    Below us, the champions of the Feat march out onto the strange gray sand. One, the Thany stoneskin, has a boulder belly, and is nearly as wide as he is tall. He has no need for armor, and is naked to the waist. For her part, the oblivion looks every inch her ability. Dressed in interlocking plates of red and orange, she dances like a nimble flame.
    â€œAnd do those plans include Corvium?” I whisper, turning back to the Colonel. I must make him understand. “Do you think me so blind that I wouldn’t notice if there was another operation in this city? Because there isn’t. There’s no one here but me. No one else seems to care about that fortress where every single Red doomed to die passes through. Every single one . And you think that place isn’t important?”
    Corporal Eastree flashes in my head. Her gray face and gray eyes, her stern resolve. She spoke of slavery, because that’s what this world is. No one dares say it, but that’s what Reds are. Slaves and graves .
    For once, the Colonel holds his tongue. Good, or else I might cut it out .
    â€œYou go back to Command and you tell someone else to continue with Red Web. Oh, and let them know the Mariners are here too. They’re not so shortsighted as the rest of us.”
    Part of me expects to be slapped for insubordination. In all our years, I’ve never spoken to him like this. Not even—not even in thenorth. At the frozen place we all used to call home. But I was a child then. A little girl pretending to be a hunter, gutting rabbits and setting bad snares to feel important. I am not her anymore. I am twenty-two years old, a captain of the Scarlet Guard, and no one, not even the Colonel, can tell me I am wrong now.
    â€œWell?”
    After a long, trembling moment, he opens his mouth. “No.”
    An explosion below matches my rage. The crowd gasps in time with the fight, watching as the wispy oblivion tries to live up to her odds. But the Mariner was right. The stoneskin will win. He is a mountain against her fire, and he will endure.
    â€œMy team will stand with me,” I warn. “You’ll lose ten good soldiers and one captain to your pride, Colonel.”
    â€œNo, Captain, someone else is not going to take over Red Web from you,” he says. “But I will petition Command for a Corvium operation, and when they’ve secured a team, it will take your place.”
    When. Not if . I can barely believe what he’s saying.
    â€œUntil such time, you will remain in Corvium and continue work with your contacts. Relay all pertinent information through the usual channels.”
    â€œBut Command—”
    â€œCommand is more open-minded than you know. And for whatever reason, they think the world of you.”
    â€œI can’t tell if you’re lying.”
    He merely raises one shoulder, shrugging. His eyes rove back to the arena floor, to watch as the stoneskin rips the young oblivion apart.
    Somehow,