by Rebecca Rode
The driver’s eyebrows shot up in the mirror. “Lady Flare, he’s down below.”
“I know. I want to see where he is.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible. No visitors are allowed. Particularly one in your . . . unique position.”
“It’s not impossible. You just need to call in my request. Go straight to Amai—she’ll authorize it.” It was a bluff. She had no idea whether Amai would go along with this.
“But, Lady Flare,” the driver managed, his eyes still wide. “Why?”
Ember fastened her harness, considering the question. Neraline said that by using the gift the stars had bestowed, Ember was somehow becoming less human. She’d once explained to Stefan that connecting with a person’s soul was a beautiful thing. But the things she’d done since then—they were anything but beautiful.
She’d blamed her actions on Kane, on the collar, on the Empire. She recalled how her inner light had reached out eagerly at Kane’s command, like a thing foreign to her. How she’d pushed Mar away and injured Neraline. Maybe there really was something wrong inside her. Maybe she really was a monster.
Harlow had seen a side of her she was afraid to admit existed—a side that would willingly kill another human being. She needed to know whether that side was her inner light or herself.
She needed to know there was still a difference between the two.
“I took something dear from him,” Ember finally explained. “I can never restore what he lost, but I can help carry some of his pain.”
The driver turned in his seat now, examining Ember thoughtfully. Then he sighed and picked up the radio.
Forty minutes later, they drew up to a pod near the Daughter’s home. It looked a little run-down and about double the size of a regular family pod but indistinguishable other than that, except for its resistance to the waves. Tethered, probably.
A guard opened the hatch and motioned Ember in. The driver didn’t stand, instead driving away the moment the hatch closed again. Then it was just Ember and the guard.
Ember peeked through the open door. “Is he in there?”
“No. He’s down below.” The guard pointed at the floor. “You’re to go inside and sit.”
More waiting. She checked her shield again, then made her way through the door and looked around. So ordinary. A single guard and a few chairs. Were they going to bring Harlow up so she could talk to him? Was one guard enough, or were they counting on her using her powers to protect her?
She sat in the largest of the chairs, one that had some kind of mechanism on the armrest. Curious, she fingered the metal panel surrounding a series of buttons.
“Don’t touch it,” the guard growled. “Now, hold still and keep your weight centered.”
Ember stiffened. “What?”
The guard secured the door, tapped it for good measure, then hit a button on the wall. A light above the door flashed red. Blink-blink. Blink-blink.
“What are you doing?” she demanded. Had he just locked her in?
“We’re going below, like you wanted.” He fought back a grin at Ember’s expression.
She sat back, remembering what the escort—er, driver now—had said about these pods descending in emergencies and sustaining life for three days. Now it appeared she got to see it firsthand. A strange prison indeed, but it made sense now why it was effective. No prisoner would dare attempt an escape surrounded by toxic water. Was he in a tank of some kind?
It took the pod ten minutes to pressurize, then slip under the waves. She only knew it was happening because of the screen on the wall. The guard watched it intently, his hand hovering over the panel where the button was. Then there was a jolt and they were still again.
The guard fiddled with the instruments, and the screen went blank. He stepped over to another wall and motioned to a window. There were too many bubbles to see what lay beyond.
Then the screen filled with a face.
Harlow stared wide-eyed at the camera on his end, a look of pleading and downright devastation on his face. Ember had been right. He stood in a small tank, too narrow for the man to lie down in properly. He placed his palms on the glass, which had a network of sensors and pipes crisscrossing it. “The light’s on. Is somebody there? Please answer me.” His voice sounded as if piped in through a speaker.
“You’ve a visitor,” the guard said into the wall speaker. “I’m guessing the only one you’ll ever have, so make the most of it. You have ten minutes.” Then he stepped aside to let Ember approach.
“Hello, Harlow,” Ember said softly. Her carefully planned words fled now that she faced her would-be killer. The first time she’d ever seen him was on a screen much like this. He’d had his wife with him then, of course, and he had been trying to stay strong for her. But Ember could see the strain in his eyes, the tension in his shoulders. This was the look of a man who knew he was going to die. She was seeing it for the second time.
He tried to kill you, she reminded herself, but all she could see was the devastation in him as he hunched over, weeping, his arms wrapped around his chest.
Harlow had attempted murder as revenge for the wife he’d lost. How was Ember’s killing the emperor to avenge her father any different? How was she any better? And yet here she stood again, on the safe side of the glass. A very monster-like thing to do.
“Are they treating you well?” Ember finally asked for the sake of conversation.
“I’m sorry, Lady Flare,” Harlow said, ignoring her question. “I know you have no reason to believe me, but it’s true. I just couldn’t take it anymore, and I thought—I figured it would make me feel better. But it didn’t.”
“I believe you.”
He paused, surprised. “Then you’re a better person than I am.”
Pain sliced through her at the words. She was anything but. “How long will you be here?”
“I have to stay as long as you’re around, so probably forever.” He grinned wryly. “‘Least I don’t have to do any cooking. Hated that kitchen job.”
She chuckled. “I don’t like cooking much either.” It had been so long since she prepared a meal. It felt like another lifetime.
He went quiet and lowered his gaze. “It’s nice of you to come, but I have to admit, I don’t see any purpose in it. I’m sure you’re too busy to worry about me.”
Ember shook her head. “I’ve worried about you since the moment I saw you and your wife on that screen.”
Harlow stiffened. “You do remember.”
“Of course. I didn’t want to hurt either of you, Harlow. If there was any other way . . .”
She trailed off, feeling the wrongness of her words. She should have fought harder or found another option. Kane had hung a young girl’s death over Ember’s head, a neighbor girl from her village. He’d forced her to choose who lived, and she had chosen the girl. A girl who later died with her family anyway.
Wasn’t she doing the exact same thing now, choosing who lived and who died? She’d switched sides, but she planned to kill for the Daughter. She wasn’t being forced to do anything.
Neraline was right. Harlow too. Even Mar had warned her that something was wrong. Ember was becoming a monster.
“I heard you didn’t do it willingly, but I didn’t want to believe that,” Harlow said. “It’s much easier to hate someone who is 100 percent evil, you know? I thought nothing could come of you being here. But since you are, I hope you succeed.”
Ember moved to grip her skirt before remembering she wore trousers. “And if I don’t?”
“Then we tried. Better to try and lose than to live in fear, having our children tested like animals for flicker abilities and our best products stolen in the name of the emperor. Living like trash while they rewrite our laws and smash those who strive for more than what the stars gave them.” His voice rose in a spark of his former passion. “Lillya wanted freedom for us so badly. Everything she did was for the cause. I can’t win this for her, but maybe you can.”
Ember
swallowed hard and forced a smile. “I wish she’d been the one to survive, not me. It sounds like she was better equipped for it.”
“She was an amazing woman. But there’s a reason you’re here. Sounds like you need to find that out for yourself.”
Silence filled the space between them.
“Two minutes,” the guard said behind them.
“Do you need anything?” Ember finally asked. “Are they feeding you well, keeping you warm? Do you need a message sent to any family members, or—or anything?”
His awkward smile faded. “There’s nobody else. Just avenge my Lillya, and all will be well.”
Avenge. Win. Harlow saw all this from a military perspective. Could her task truly be so simple? Ember had been responsible for so much death already. Was her purpose, as Harlow called it, to avenge the Union’s deaths by assassinating the emperor and handing his throne to the Daughter? Or would that finally tip her into whatever dangerous state Neraline warned her about, pushing her into the role of murderer?
Kane once told her the only difference between hero and villain was whose side you were on. The truth of his words was more acute now that she’d killed Kane too.
So much death.
Dai, what would you have done? she pleaded. Stars, please tell me what to do.
But there was nothing. Here, several meters beneath the surface, she felt farther from the night sky than ever before. She’d lost Bianca, driven away Mar, and insulted Neraline. She ruled over her flicker team like a dictator, intending to use them like the weapon she’d once been forced to be. Here, surrounded by people, she felt completely alone.
“Lady Flare,” Harlow said. “You still here?”
Her eyes were squeezed shut. She forced herself to come back to the present and face the man she was meant to have killed. “I’m sorry for everything, Harlow. If they’ll let me put in a good word for you above, I will.”
“I appreciate that. Tell them I’ll never hurt you again if they let me go, but I know that’s not likely. Feeling lucky they didn’t kill me right off, to be honest.”
If he’d succeeded in his purpose and taken her life, they would have. That she knew. The Daughter would have been outraged. Yet Ember had the blood of thousands on her hands, and somehow she was a hero.
“Nice of you to come down after all this,” Harlow continued. “Maybe you aren’t such a terrible woman after all. This is a good thing you did, and bad people can’t do good things.”
“Time’s up,” the guard said. “Sorry, Lady Flare.”
“All right.” She turned to Harlow, unsure how to take his compliment. “Take care of yourself.”
“You bet.”
As she returned to her chair, Ember felt her emotions settle like waves into calm water. Harlow had forgiven her, at least somewhat. He was only one of thousands, but it counted for something.
Except Harlow was wrong about one important thing.
Good things could come from bad people, and bad things came from good. She knew it because Dai was one of the best, and he’d done awful things. Ember remembered that info-screen recording of her father standing next to Kane, looking down on the crowd as the screams began.
This was what Dai would have done were he here—lent a listening ear, eased burdens, visited those in pain. Tried to make something good out of a terrible situation.
She could manage that much. For now.
Thump. Thump.
Ember groaned and forced her eyes open.
“Get up, would you?” Amai’s muffled voice called outside her door. Thump-thump-thump.
She lifted her wrist to check the time before remembering her band was long gone. It had to be the middle of the night. She couldn’t see a thing.
“Ember,” Amai’s muffled voice said. “Wake up and open the door already.”
She swung her legs over the bed and blindly made her way toward the sound. She fumbled in the blackness before finding the bolt. The moment it slid back, Amai pushed the door open and stalked through it, flipping the light on.
“Never took you for a deep sleeper before,” Amai grumbled.
“It’s the middle of the night,” Ember snapped irritably, shielding her eyes.
“It’s nearly dawn. I’ve been up for an hour already.”
Ember let the door slam. If the neighbors woke, it was Amai’s fault with all that pounding. “What’s so important you had to steal a good two hours of sleep from me?”
Amai made her way to the chair Mar had claimed a week before. “Your first combat assignment. Come sit down.”
So Neraline was right. That didn’t mean she was right about everything else.
“The Daughter planned to give you the order herself,” Amai continued, “but she’s busy today, and this can’t wait.”
“It’s day six,” Ember pointed out. “We’re nowhere near ready to challenge Empire soldiers.”
Amai snorted. “We all agree on that. There’s no way we’d send you and your unit out untested.”
Ember pulled up the other chair and slumped into it, frowning. “So it’s just a test, then.”
“Not just a test. This is a critical mission, Ember. You and your flickers will accompany General Pyne and six of his best squadrons to Arcadia, where you’ll recruit all of Commander Kane’s flickers. Our source says there are several hundred of them.”
Several hundred? How had Kane managed to steal away that many failed Empire flickers? It would have taken decades to collect that many.
No, she reminded herself. Not if they were participants in his breeding program. The one he’d threatened to toss her into. The thought made her stomach lurch. Stars. Hundreds of flickers, all imprisoned by that terrible man.
“What is the state of the planet now that Kane’s gone?” Ember asked. “Is there a military presence?”
“Our source said there was, but most of Kane’s paid soldiers left when news of his death reached them. And we have the coordinates of his home. His flickers must be nearby.”
Failed flickers have their uses, Kane had once said. Particularly the women. Not only had he kept his harem close, but probably in his own household. She’d come so close to joining them. Nausea ignited deep in her stomach now. “What if they don’t want to enlist?”
“Then they don’t come. Period. We only have resources for recruits. Any other questions?”
“I don’t think my team is ready,” Ember said quietly, thinking about yesterday’s fight. “Sometimes I feel completely lost trying to teach them.”
Amai’s voice went flat. “In the Daughter’s eyes, flickers are practically invincible, training or not.”
Invincible? Ember had killed flickers as she’d worn Kane’s collar. Somehow she’d slammed right through hundreds of shields that day, killing many of the Union’s flickers as quickly as anyone else. No wonder he’d been so excited to discover Ember’s gift—she’d basically rendered flickers irrelevant. No wonder people like Reina despised her.
“We’re far from invincible,” Ember said. “I hope the Daughter understands that before she orders my team to their deaths.”
Amai clasped her hands and placed them on her lap. “There’s one last thing I wanted to talk to you about.”
Ember sighed. “I know what you’re going to say. Visiting Harlow seemed foolish, but I appreciate that you approved it anyway. I think we both needed to talk this out.”
Amai blinked. “Harlow? No, no. It’s my daughter, Syd.”
Ember leaned forward in her chair. “Wait. The girl in my unit—she’s your daughter? The one who ran away to join the Union?”
“One and the same. We don’t exactly get along.”
“The hair,” Ember breathed as realization dawned. “You shaved your hair to match hers.”
“She has a disorder.” Amai was staring at her hands now. “Anyway, I can’t convince her to quit the unit. Can you keep an eye on her? No special treatment, of course. Just . . . keep her safe.”
Ember had always believe
d Amai was loyal to the Daughter first and foremost. Maybe she’d been wrong about that. Even Amai had someone she loved, a daughter she’d defy her leader’s orders for. Split loyalties. Apparently Ember wasn’t the only person struggling with all this.
There was just one problem. She would prefer to leave Syd behind, along with little Bex, but she couldn’t figure out how to without directly disobeying the Daughter’s orders. They’d been placed with her because of their skills. If Ember left without the youngest members of her unit, it would look suspicious.
“I can’t promise,” Ember finally said, “but I will try.”
“I know.” Amai nodded curtly. Once, twice. Then she stood, signaling the end of their conversation. “I’d get packing if I were you. You leave in less than two hours.”
Chapter 9
Stefan sat back in his chair with a grin and stretched his arms. He glanced at the time in the upper corner of the desk screen. They had probably delivered dinner to his quarters hours ago.
He was lucky. The Empire organization employed hundreds of thousands of technicians, all trained in a specific area of network security. The commander over the network carefully segmented their expertise, ensuring nobody knew too much. Only the highest officers saw the big picture. Fortunately, Stefan had been raised by one. His father.
The man hadn’t exactly trained Stefan intentionally. It was more like boasting, showing him what he knew and how the system worked. But Stefan had been taking mental notes. He’d wanted to become a network engineer one day—at least until he tested positive for flicker abilities and all other options had been torn from him. Regardless, he knew more than the Empire thought he did.
And today that was paying off.
It had taken him days to find what he wanted. Karyl reported that the other flickers were investigating stations, searching unshielded minds for intelligence. They’d even uncovered Union supporters and taken them in for questioning. Stefan wasn’t ignorant of what that meant. Those prisoners wouldn’t survive the experience.
