Shatter the Suns

by Caitlin Sangster

  It’s the safest I’ve felt in weeks. Just us, together, as if there never were walls between us in the first place. Maybe when you have no future, it’s easy to put things that used to be nonnegotiable aside.

  I force myself to shrug away the cynicism of that thought.

  “I’ve changed my mind about Howl.” I say it into his coat, my breath catching on the tightly knit fibers and melting the frost crystallizing across the fabric. “If he can help us somehow and he’ll only talk to me . . . then I’ll talk to him. I’ll find out what he knows, what he wants. Then we’ll leave him here.”

  “You don’t have to.” His voice is muffled against my hair. “We could always try torture.”

  I stifle a laugh, knowing Tai-ge doesn’t mean it. “It’s nice to have options.”

  CHAPTER 10

  I CLIMB THROUGH THE HATCH, and June hops up from her spot by the storage closet’s closed door. She looks me directly in the eye for once. “His head is infected.”

  “You’ve been in there?”

  June nods, pushing the medikit into my hands. “We can’t keep him,” she whispers.

  “Why not?” I smile.

  June doesn’t, her gaze rock hard. “I said I wouldn’t help you kill him.”

  The nuns had a bird they kept in a cage. A soldier brought it from Outside, its bright yellow feathers shining and opalescent when the sun hit them. I used to look at him where he hung in the cafeteria, one small mark of color in the gray, orphaned world. He started out singing, but as the weeks went by, his song faded to a single sad note, until one day we found him in a heap of broken feathers at the bottom of his cage. A wild thing shut up inside, taking everything the bird must have loved and replacing it with gawking orphans who shoved bits of bread between the cage’s bars.

  June’s arms fold in front of her, and she stands between me and the storage closet as if Howl is the victim and I’m the monster. As if shutting him—a wild thing—away would kill him just as it did the bird. I reach out to her, letting my hands fold over her bony shoulders. “I’ll look at his head, and if he has information to help us get to Port North, we’ll take it. If not, then we’ll head toward Dazhai.”

  She narrows her eyes.

  “And we won’t leave him in there to die of blood poisoning. Or boredom. We just have to decide when and where to let him out.”

  June gives me a curt nod, then goes to the hatch and jumps down without looking back. She wants this to be right, and I don’t blame her. But I worry that she’s not as wary of Howl as she should be.

  The medikit lid screeches as I open it to check for anmicro ointment, finding it wrapped in a bandage under a spool of adhesive for closing wounds. Hopefully it isn’t that bad or Howl will just have to die, promise or no promise. I wouldn’t know how to use military-grade wound adhesive to save my own life, much less his.

  When I’ve got what I need, I close the box, my hands shying away from the stain of dried blood caked across the corner. Squaring my shoulders, I push Howl’s cell door open.

  For some reason, I expected him to be sitting there waiting for me. Calculating his next move, deciding which words will make me feel the worst or which nudge will set me in the direction he wants me to go. Instead I find him curled up in the tiny space, asleep, his tethered hands awkwardly twisted under his head to make a pillow.

  He looks so calm and quiet, sleep ironing the curves and lines from his face. Even after everything that has happened, it’s hard not to think he’s handsome. A face you can trust.

  It makes me want to scream.

  Howl cracks one eye open, the other quickly following when he sees me framed in the doorway. He sits up, stretching a little before leaning against the wall. He can’t move very far because Tai-ge threaded a length of cord between Howl’s bound hands and tied it to one of the bolted-in shelves. The cut at Howl’s temple is crusted over with black, splatters of it down his neck and on his shoulder. The skin around the wound is red, and he flinches as he looks up at me, the skin puckering with the movement. There’s a book next to him, a gold-leaf stencil of a sleeping woman on the cover. My book. The one Howl gave me back in the Mountain.

  It’s a story they told us even in the City, a girl condemned to sleep forever for her crimes. The City’s version is so close to Mother’s own story that it made my insides knot up every time I heard it. This version from the Mountain has her wake up instead, her whole family safe. Howl told me that if the girl in the story had a happy ending, then everyone else had a chance of one too. That was before Sole filled me in on who he really was, before Mother woke from her cursed sleep and then died. Happy endings all around.

  Tai-ge must have given it to him.

  I don’t even know why I brought it with us. It’s a fairy tale, like Zhinu and Niulang up in the sky. In real life, stars don’t cry. Bloodthirsty creatures don’t stand down when you sing to them. And I’m not going to be swayed into thinking I’m safe when the gores are slavering at my toes ever again.

  Howl’s eyes are bleary as if he can’t quite focus on me. He looks over my shoulder, taking in the empty cabin behind me, then meets my eyes and waits expectantly.

  “I don’t want to talk to you,” I say quietly.

  “Yeah, I got that.” He adjusts his bound hands with a cringe, then moves the book aside with his foot. There are still remnants of adhesive stuck to his pants where I taped his ankles together, but Tai-ge or June must have cut the rest of it off. “What happened? One second we were going to find the cure together and the next June and your Red friend were shooting at me.” He looks down at his chest, a shadow of a smile curving one side of his mouth. “Did shoot me, actually. If I hadn’t been wearing protective gear, I’d be dead.”

  Keep calm, I tell myself. If Howl wants to pretend he’s guiltless, fine. I just need to know about the papers—and whether anyone else plans to sneak into our cargo bay. “How did you find us, Howl?”

  “Why didn’t you come talk to me before haring off into the forest?” He looks down at the tape twisting around his wrists. “Sole told me what happened, but it didn’t seem like you to leave without even talking to me.”

  “You don’t like it when people think for themselves instead of asking you what they should do?”

  Howl shakes his head. “I thought she had to be lying, that Dr. Yang had some hold on her and they’d found you. That you were on some table in Yizhi—”

  A chill runs through me. “Is Sole okay?”

  He blinks. “I think so. She didn’t come with us to the City.”

  I let out a breath, though the trill of fear stays, burrowing deep inside me despite my resolve not to be afraid. When I ran, I hadn’t thought about it being Sole who would have to explain it to him.

  Howl’s eyes narrow. “How can you think I would have hurt Sole? She’s the closest thing I have to a . . . a mother, or an older sister.”

  There it is. At least he’s not going to pretend that First mark on his hand is anything but a scar. I want him to look me in the eyes. To admit it. “I don’t think it’s too far-fetched a thing to worry about, Howl.”

  “You don’t think . . .” Howl clenches his eyes shut a moment before focusing back on me. “And you look like you’re about to hyperventilate.” He laughs, the hopeless, black sort of sound ringing in my ears. “After everything you lived through in the City, everything we went through, you’re scared of me? We had a plan. You left without me.”

  My anger explodes. “I was scared of Helix! And Cale! At least they were straightforward. You knew they were going to kill me, and you led me to the slaughter like a piglet to gores in a feeding frenzy.”

  “A piglet? Of all the animals you could choose—” Howl starts, but I keep talking, not letting him interject any justification for what he’s done.

  “Sole is the one who warned me not to trust you.”

  “She told you about where I came from, but not—”

  “No. She said that if it came to a choice between your life and
mine, I’d be dead.” My hand goes to my throat, the red line still twinging. “And she must have been right, considering that the last time we were in the same room together, you had a knife against my neck. I’m only in here to . . .” I look down at the tube of anmicro, realizing my grip on the ointment has squeezed it into a sticky mess all over my palm. “I promised June I would look at your head. If it’s too hard for you to tell me how in Yuan’s name you found us, I would appreciate it if you would tell me how to read those papers you brought, and then you can go back after whoever it is the Menghu are chasing this week.”

  I kneel down, my fingers shaking as I pull the bandage from the medikit out of its packaging.

  Howl’s stare is heavy. “There’s nothing I can say to convince you to listen to me, is there? How could you think . . . does it not matter to you that—?” He cuts off, not a word of denial or explanation, just ashy silence. When he finally speaks, it’s quiet. Strained. “It wasn’t that hard to find you. I was reading the scout reports. One said you were fishing around at an Outsider trading post for northern maps. So I came.”

  The bandage’s packaging won’t open, and every time I pull at it, it makes me angrier, until finally I tear it open with my teeth. “Why were they looking for us?”

  “The Reds? I’m not sure.”

  “Reds?” I look up in surprise. “How did you manage to get your hands on City reports?”

  “I was at a City evacuation camp. Hopped on a heli that was headed in your direction and—”

  “You were in a City evacuation camp?” I stand, going back out into the cockpit for my waterskin to wash off the blood caked on his forehead. We’ve been away from the river for a while now, and the waterskin is almost flat. I breathe easier out in the open space, as if there’s a toxic cloud trapped inside the storage room, every moment spent inside making me choke.

  “Yes. I was in a City evacuation camp,” he replies. “The report mentioned you by name. Gave coordinates for where to find you and General Hong’s son, with instructions to send in support forces and provide transport back.”

  “Transport . . . ? Support?” The words come out unbidden. “Like Tai-ge and I were on a sanctioned mission—?” I look toward the hatch, fiddling with the length of bandage. Tai-ge is down on the ground somewhere. If he somehow contacted Reds without telling me—

  “Don’t get all upset. None of the higher-ups are going to admit on open channels that Hong Tai-ge deserted. Morale’s bad enough as it is. I don’t know how they found you.” I turn to find Howl awkwardly maneuvering a hand up to scratch at one of the dried tracks of blood, the tape binding his wrists together creaking. His voice softens. “But I wanted to get to you before they did. I wanted to make sure you were okay—”

  “No.” I go back into the cell, kneeling just out of arm’s reach, the waterskin clutched in my hand. “No City reports, no First marks . . . no more vomiting lies all over me.”

  “Vomiting?” He considers. “I’d go for a less sanitized word if you’re trying to be offensive. ‘Upchuck’ is a favorite of mine.”

  “You aren’t the Chairman’s son, and you’re not going to get anywhere feeding that line to me anymore.”

  He smiles, but his eyes look flat and dead. “Hong Tai-ge is swallowing every word.”

  “Tai-ge just watched your buddies from the Mountain blow his father to pieces, so I’m going to give him a pass for not thinking straight.”

  Howl presses his lips together. I busy myself with tearing off the extra length of bandage. The familiar expression jars, as if now that I know who he really is, he should look different too.

  “I’m sorry,” he finally says. “Can’t say I ever liked the General, but that’s not something anyone should have to see.”

  “Seems like you’ve seen enough that it shouldn’t bother you anymore.” I pretend not to see the heavy look on his face as I unscrew the waterskin’s cap and wet the folded bandage.

  Extra bandage scrunched in my hand, I will myself to go near enough to clean off Howl’s forehead. It feels like if I step into the no-man’s-land between us, something will break. But then Howl leans forward, holding his hands out for the makeshift washcloth. Relieved, I give it to him, letting him wipe at the blood himself, no matter how much it bends his arms.

  “I’m not the Chairman’s son, you’re right.” Howl’s eyes pinch shut as he swabs closer to the actual wound. “I’ve just been subbing in for the last two years.”

  CHAPTER 11

  “SUBBING IN?” I TWIST THE bandage meant for his head between my fingers. “You expect me to believe the Chairman didn’t notice his son was replaced by a Menghu?”

  Howl laughs—almost barks—sharp and abrupt. “The Circle has been telling you you’re at war with a fake army for the last eight years, Sev. What do you know about the Chairman or his family?”

  It sounds like a challenge, as if somehow Howl is looking askance at the star branded into my hand when he never seemed to notice it before. “What is that supposed to mean?” I ask.

  “No need to look so offended. What does anyone in the City know about him? The Chairman might as well be a ghost. I lived in the same house with him for two years, and I still don’t know much about him. He’s a face on a poster, a voice over the speakers to everyone except the First Circle. I was just his very competent, very patriotic, shiny new son.”

  I pluck the cloth from Howl’s fingers, slosh some water over it again, shuddering when it squeezes out brown. My skin crawls at having to come closer, but I make myself scrub at the bits of blood Howl couldn’t see to wipe away. Howl’s words sound like another lie. A lie that would be easy to believe because it would explain so much. How sure Tai-ge is about Howl being Sun Yi-lai. The portrait that looks just like Howl in the City Center. Premier Sutan calling to Howl in the street using Sun Yi-lai’s name. “How is that possible? Why would anyone believe—”

  “The Chairman believed it. There wasn’t anything else to believe. And before you blame me for ‘disappearing’ his real son, I don’t know what happened to Sun Yi-lai,” Howl continues, not quite looking at me as the cloth touches his forehead. “Dr. Yang didn’t even know where he was, just that he’d been out of the City. Hasn’t been seen in more than ten years. Dr. Yang fed the Circle some information about Sun Yi-lai being spotted with a Menghu escort outside the Mountain. They sent out a mission and came back with me.”

  Ten years? But if Howl was roughly the same age as the Chairman’s son, that means the boy would have had to leave the City when he was seven or eight. Younger, even, if it’s been longer than a decade. That doesn’t make sense. We would have heard if the Chairman’s son was missing for that long. I pull out the now-squashed tube of anmicro and slather it on across the cut. Howl flinches away from me, and I let the distance sit. The cut is long and ugly, but doesn’t look so bad now that it’s clean. The skin does look red, but it isn’t hot to the touch and there’s nothing disgusting seeping out of it, so unless June knows something I don’t, there’s not much to fuss over. I pocket the unused length of bandage and hold the bit I used as a washcloth tightly in my hand, wondering if we can boil it clean. We might need it again.

  “I don’t even know what Sun Yi-lai looks like. If we’re the same age. I don’t know if the Chairman cared.” Howl blinks tiredly, pressing the back of one hand to his forehead as if it itches. I bat his hand away from the still goopy mess of anmicro, and he raises an eyebrow at me but quickly gives it up when the movement pulls at the wound. “I thought I was going to have to pretend to be traumatized and refuse to talk about my time Outside when I first got to the City. Dr. Yang made sure I had the bruises to make that plausible.” Howl settles back against the wall. “It never came up, though. I hardly ever saw the Chairman, and no one else was brave enough to ask. I was the heir, I was back, and that’s all that mattered.”

  “They just let you walk in? Without blood tests or anything?”

  Howl shrugs. “Dr. Yang said it wouldn’t be a problem. And
he was right. He was there when they did all those tests, and they mysteriously matched up the way they were supposed to.”

  “And no one noticed you were gone for those months we were at the Mountain? Or questioned you when you reappeared during the invasion? I thought all the Firsts were airlifted out before the real fighting began.”

  A smile I recognize begins on his face, but I’m still surprised when his voice warms up. “Maybe I’m so beautiful they couldn’t bear to think of me as a traitor.”

  My throat closes around what should have been a laugh but is more horror than anything else. Howl notices and looks at the wall behind me, the expression on his face turning sour.

  I don’t want the boy I remember from the woods—the one who made me laugh while he boiled potatoes and sat with me until I fell back asleep after nightmares—to show his face now. That boy is dead.

  No, that boy was never real in the first place.

  I stand up, grabbing the waterskin with thoughts of pouring the whole of it directly on top of his head. But I refrain. “Tai-ge says the papers you brought look like maps.”

  “Isn’t that what you were looking for? I can be very accommodating. It’s almost magical.”

  “You know where Port North is?”

  “No.”

  “Would you have known ten minutes ago before I started yelling at you?”

  Howl looks sharply at me, a ghost of a real smile parting his lips. “No, Sev.”

  “How do we read the maps, then?”

  “You’ll have to get the encryption key.”

  “You brought maps, but no key?”

  “I didn’t realize they were encrypted until after I left. I do know where we are most likely to find the key to read them, though. And it sounds like you were headed in that direction anyway: the camp at Dazhai. The Chairman is touring the other camps trying to keep up morale right now, so it might be a good time to go after it. Take me with you, and I’ll find it for you.”