“They’re paralyzed, not dead,” I say. “It will wear off soon enough.”
Berta kicks at Ingrid’s side. “What about Strab?”
“Same.”
“Right, then.”
“What?” I ask.
She glances to the side and frowns. The gesture reminds me of how she couldn’t make eye contact earlier when she stepped into the driver’s seat. “Strab told everyone that the Chamber of Ministers promised her the crown. The Princess Trials was just a farce to make the Echelons feel like they had a chance, you know.”
“Right.” I step back, wondering why Berta is telling me something I already know.
“Strab also said that whoever kills you will become her lady-at-arms.”
Before I can react, Berta slams her head into my face. Pain explodes in my nose and spreads across my skull. My head snaps back so fast, it jerks forward again, and she wraps her hand around my neck.
My eyes water, and blood flows down from my nostrils into my mouth. Shock numbs my body, steals the movement from my limps, only fading when Berta squeezes my neck and cuts off my air.
“Why?” I croak.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you?” She punches me so hard across the face, I stagger and smash my side against the white eucalyptus tree. “You can murder and scheme all you want, parade yourself naked in front of the whole of Phangloria, but girls like us never get the handsome prince.” Berta knees me in the gut, and an eruption of pain makes my knees buckle.
I land on my knees and heave the contents of my stomach onto the ground.
Berta picks up Ingrid’s gun and points it at my head. “This isn’t personal, Calico.”
A rush of self-preservation helps me stagger to my feet. She pulls the trigger. Nothing happens.
Berta huffs out a noisy breath. “Well, that was dumb.” Her gaze drops down to my right hand and switches to the left. “Where’s that gun you took from the driver?”
My vision blurs. My head pounds. I step back toward Firkin’s corpse, where I remember him placing the gun in his side pocket. If I can get to it before Berta, I might have a chance of surviving.
“That’s a Foundling weapon.” She points at the quiver attached to my hip. “Did it belong to that guy?”
I take another step back and blink away the tears filling my eyes. My nose throbs to the tempo of my quickening pulse, and won’t stop spilling blood down my face. With another step, my foot brushes against his cooling corpse.
“Never mind.” She bends over the Guardian girl. “Kanone had a dagger somewhere.”
It’s the quickest I’ve ever moved while in agony. I drop to my knees, slip my hand into Firkin’s side pocket, and point the gun at Berta’s back. I shoot just as she turns to me with the dagger. Berta falls back and lands on the ground with a pained roar.
I point the gun between her eyes. “How could you?”
“What?” she says between clenched teeth. “Do you think because we took down a pair of hijackers together that we’re suddenly best friends?”
Rising to my feet, I try not to let my finger tremble. Berta helped me fight off attackers in a gas-filled room. She stopped me from getting blown into pieces by a bunny bomb and saved me from one of the hijackers.
My lips press into a hard line. “Perhaps we weren’t best friends,” I say with a voice thick with emotion. “But you were my biggest ally in the Princess Trials until you decided to side with the Nobles.”
She lets out a shaky laugh. “You don’t know how these Amstraadi games work, do you? People are only allies until it suits them. I kept you alive because you were a bigger target than me.”
My mouth falls open. “I don’t believe—”
“Wake up,” Berta roars. “This is the Oasis, and we’re in the biggest game of our lives. You treat it like we’re traveling through a cornfield in the back of open-air wagons, singing songs of peace to the tune of a banjo.”
I swallow hard. There’s no point in telling Berta I came to the Oasis on a mission. She would only laugh at my failure. My fingers tremble over the gun.
“Go on, then,” she says from between clenched teeth. “Shoot me.”
I bite down hard on the inside of my cheek, and rasping breaths fill my ears. Berta stares up at me from the ground, her eyes wild. Blood spreads through the pale fabric of her halter dress, making her resemble a tragic figure instead of a fallen warrior. She had looked so lovely tonight, performed so bravely, but her betrayal makes her ugly.
“You can’t do it.” Berta laughs, and the sound reminds me of an ancient nature documentary about hyenas. “Deep down, you think we’re friends.”
“Ingrid would never make you her lady-at-arms.”
“Why?” she snarls. “Because I’m not stunning like Lady Circi?”
“Prince Kevon wants to marry for love, not form an alliance with someone like Ingrid, who sees him as a route to power. She’s never going to be the queen.”
Berta bares her teeth. “Maybe it’s time I ingratiated myself with the ministers. Your death at my hands might elevate me beyond waste disposal.”
A cry forms in the back of my throat. “And what will Prince Kevon do to you when he discovers you’ve murdered me?”
“Stupid bumpkin,” says Berta. “You should have stayed in the Harvester region if you think life is a fairytale.”
My finger hovers over the trigger. I don’t know what to do. If my first shot had killed Berta, then that would have been self-defense, but I can’t execute her even though she would do the same to me. A tiny voice in the back of my head that sounds like Carolina’s says that I was prepared to kill Ingrid and that Berta is no different.
I swallow hard around my aching throat. People like Berta support the regime that subjugates Harvesters, but the lines between good
