The Offering (The Pledge 3)

The venture would be expensive but, in my estimation, worth the cost.

Or so I hoped.

Even if it works, you’ll only be giving those who plot against you the tools they need to destroy you.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I pounded my fist on the conference table. Shut up! I shouted back at her from inside my head.

But she wasn’t the one staring at me when I opened my eyes once more. It was the delegates from regions all across Ludania. And it was Max and Brook and Zafir, too.

I frowned, pretending it was nerves as I turned my attention back to the small, black receiver sitting on the tabletop in front of me. I swallowed a lump of worry as we all waited for something to happen, and I wondered if possibly we weren’t using the device correctly. If maybe we were meant to do something on our end to make it work.

Every eye in the country was watching me on this one. I’d seen the articles in the periodicals. And even now I could hear the doubt trickling in from the streets outside.

I glanced at the woman seated beside me, the engineer in charge of the entire operation, asking her silently with my raised eyebrows the same question I’d asked her a hundred times already: Are you sure this will work?

The tightening of her painted red lips was all the response she offered me, the same terse answer she’d given me whenever I’d finally exceeded her capacity to be kind with my uncertainty. I’m positive. Your Majesty.

Still, I couldn’t help myself, and my hand slipped from my lap and moved toward the device. I wasn’t sure what I meant to do, since I wasn’t certain how to work the thing myself. But my hand hovered there, my heart beating in my throat until it felt like I might choke. I could see my reflection staring back at me in the polished black surface, distorting my features and making me look the way I felt in that moment . . . like a caricature of a real queen.

Someone who had no idea what she was doing.

And for the millionth time I wondered if Sabara hadn’t been right all along.

Inside me I could sense her satisfaction. Smug and filling me with self-doubt.

Stop it, I warned her, hating the ease with which the two of us could communicate. Hating that she could turn me against myself in that manner, make me question myself so easily. It will work. It has to.

I swallowed another wave of doubt, wondering if this doubt were real or if it were Sabara’s doing, even as my mouth went bone dry. All around me the crowd grew restless. Chairs shifted and voices murmured, low and rumbling and skeptical.

My misgivings became tangible, like smoke, making it hard to breathe.

Then something happened that made all of us freeze, and caused a collective gasp.

Beneath my fingertips, which were still hovering expectantly, the receiver crackled to life.

I’d been told what to expect: the thing would make a buzzing noise. That’s how we’d know if someone was trying to send a message.

But when the sound arose, it was more like a hum. And it was the sweetest, most glorious hum I’d heard in all my years. One quick significant vibration followed immediately by silence.

I turned to Carolina—the engineer beside me—once more.

Now she was the one raising her eyebrows, as if she were startled by the turn of events. As if she’d never really expected this to work at all. “I . . . guess . . . we . . . push it,” She said, and then nodded, trying to appear decisive as she indicated my hand, where it was still poised above a button on the transmitter.

The buzz-hum sounded again, reminding us all that whoever was on the other end was still awaiting our response.

I grinned out at the delegates who’d gathered for this occasion, absorbing the moment and taking in their dubious expressions as I let my finger drop firmly and satisfyingly onto the button.

I sat there for a moment, waiting for something more to happen now that I’d done my part, but all I heard was the crackling of static. It was exactly like the static we used to hear when Sabara still ruled and the loudspeakers in the street would repeat daily recorded messages, reminding us to be diligent citizens, or to report our neighbors for suspected wrongdoings, or for immigrants to report to Capitol Hall to be registered.

I could feel the delegates’ eyes fall upon me while I continued to stare at the box in front of me.

“IS ANYONE THERE?”

I jumped back. The voice that boomed through the speaker on the table was altogether too loud, and instinctively my hands flew up to my ears to muffle the sound. But just as quickly I lowered them, reveling in the fact that the voice had been so clear and vibrant from so far, far away.

Wonder and awe filled me all at once, and I heard a small giggle escape my lips. “Aron?” I asked through another bubble of laughter. “Is that you?”

But I knew it was him. He’d been gone for three weeks, and the only messages we’d received had been the ones he’d sent by courier, assuring us he’d be ready on time.

I’d been terrified to trust him . . . and now tears sprang to my eyes.

Within me Sabara withdrew, as her doubt was crushed by my hope.

“IS BROOK WITH YOU?” His voice was still painfully loud, but I hardly cared.

I looked out to where several of the delegates were standing now, unable to mask their amazement at the feat we’d accomplished—bringing dead technology back to life. I searched past them, trying to find Brooklynn among them, and saw that she was already shoving her way through the crowd. Anyone who’d been in her path parted without being asked to do so. One look at her in her black leather uniform, and it was clear she was formidable, even without knowing she was commander of the armed forces.