The Raging Ones

by Krista Ritchie

  I try to loosen my shoulders by rotating them. “What about me?” I ask Franny.

  Her brows spring.

  Mykal rocks back a little.

  “You?” Franny shuts her mouth. After the shock wears off, she thinks and says, “For you, I’d like a…” She trails off. “What do you like to do besides study for StarDust?”

  I don’t know. I used to like medicine, but I don’t yearn for it. I don’t want it.

  They must feel my uncertainty because they both start listing ideas.

  “A mirror,” Mykal says with a crooked smile. “So you know exactly how beautiful you are.”

  “Books,” Franny says. “All kinds. So you’re never bored.”

  My lips want to rise, but I just listen and nod. They list a wristwatch, stars, a perfect planet, and good people. At that, we fall silent.

  As the launchpad fills, many more candidates are in earshot, so we stay quiet.

  Zimmer tells an animated story about extinct pigeons to a girl and boy of eight years. I don’t want to trust him. I don’t want to even like him, but as Franny’s hatred fades, mine begins decreasing in kind.

  I don’t trust him, I have to remind myself. I don’t like him.

  Nearby a young man in fur complains to his little sister, “Heral vandalized my world planet textbook for no reason.”

  “He scratched out Saltare-1; I would’ve done the exact same if you gave me a marker.”

  I tune them out. Everyone’s apathy toward Saltare-1 confused Franny for a while. Candidates will even mockingly gag at the name, and I had to explain that Influentials don’t personally know our sister planet.

  Their dislike stems from Saltare-1 being the largest planet in our solar system and the perfect distance from the sun.

  Saltare-3 prides itself on overcoming a horrific natural disaster—whereas Saltare-1 appears like the more privileged, unchallenged sibling. Resentment naturally built over the years.

  Almost all two hundred candidates are on the launchpad as Odell struts into the seated crowd. The little blond girl fixes her ivory fur hat and says to her friend, “I found out why they’re really making us wait here.”

  Whispers die all around us, heads whipping toward Odell who remains standing, upturned nose pointed at the floor.

  I didn’t think there was an ulterior motive to my father’s directions.

  I couldn’t have known.

  Odell says, “They’re finally searching the rooms for the stolen indigo cards.” I chill and Mykal has to cover his face to hide his emotion. Franny is frozen with me.

  “Thank the gods,” someone says.

  Others voice their approval. “The culprit should be expelled today.”

  “Without a doubt.”

  I shouldn’t be this upset or uneasy. I’ve already burned the cards I stole and memorized the words, so they won’t find any evidence in my dorm.

  “Court.” Padgett Soarcastle calls me out from many feet away, across a hundred suspicious eyes. “You look dismayed.”

  Mykal grinds his teeth. Franny scowls darkly, and while I try to layer on deception, their heat boils like my own. My smile is not a smile, really—it’s coarse like Mykal’s and blistered like Franny’s.

  Raising my voice to be heard, I say, “I’m concerned that resources are being used toward catching a thief and not on StarDust.”

  Gem has her cheek on Padgett’s shoulder, and she lifts her head suddenly like a thought bursts in her brain. “What if the indigo card thief is Quick-Hands Jakker?”

  “No,” a few say, followed by a few more candidates exclaiming, “Yes.”

  Padgett started this giant group discussion and now she sits upright and observes, her arm protectively around her little sister’s waist.

  “It’s not him.” Everyone turns to Kinden, who checks his gold-plated watch for the hundredth time. “As I’ve said before, no imprisoned thief can escape Vorkter, let alone find a way into StarDust.”

  Padgett says, “And you would know all about criminals.”

  Some candidates hold their breaths, their shock homed in on Kinden. He drills a malicious glare into Padgett, and she reacts as though nothing transpires.

  My stomach twists and flips and dives.

  “You think Kinden stole the indigo cards?” someone asks.

  “No,” another candidate clarifies, “his own brother was sent to Vorkter.”

  “Maybe it runs in his family.”

  “Shut up,” Kinden interjects, “all of you.” He picks himself off the cement and grazes the crowd with two scorching eyes. “My little brother wasn’t a thief. None of you can speak like you knew him because you didn’t.”

  Odell, the only other person standing, refutes, “I’ve heard the facts. The story. He was a criminal.”

  “He was so much more than a criminal,” Kinden sneers.

  I ice over, a memory slamming forward. When our father told Kinden, “Tone down your arrogance.” My brother would turn to me and ask, “Is my arrogance bothering you, little brother?”

  “No,” I would say.

  “Why not? It seems to bother everyone else.” He’d sport a pompous smile, sometimes eating vanilla ice cream from a pint.

  “You’re more than your arrogance,” I’d say at eight years, at nine years, at ten years. And he would slide his ice cream across the table. Always offering me a bite.

  “I realize you loved Illian the most,” Kinden once said to me, “but outside of myself, you’re my favorite in this small world.”

  I suppressed that memory for ages.

  Kinden believes that I loved Illian most because I grieved for our little brother in ways no one else did. In Vorkter, after my deathday—my past with Illian surfaced more often, but I could never reach Kinden. I buried him so deep. As though knowing the piercing agony that would outpour with each thought of him.

  My immeasurable love for Kinden bangs at my heart like two iron fists. Weeping and howling to let him back in.

  I can’t.

  I can’t trust him. I can’t trust anyone but Mykal and Franny.

  Kinden towers above the crowd, chest rising and falling heavily. “I hate him for what he did, but you don’t have the right to hate my brother. That is my right alone.”

  “Maybe he had a reason,” I say aloud as Kinden spins on his heels toward me and every pair of eyes zeroes in on me—I feel the enormity of my mistake.

  Keep quiet.

  It’s too late.

  Kinden scans me up and down, probably wondering why I’d defend his little brother. And he tells me, “Etian never gave a reason.”

  My birth name sounds foreign to me. Etian Valcastle. I flinch—no. Franny is the one who flinches. Mykal has his fingers to his jaw, both trying to suppress their shock at my birth name.

  “What’d he do?” someone asks, yanking Kinden’s attention away from me.

  “You don’t know?” Odell says like he’s uneducated.

  A young boy adds, “People have been whispering about it all month.”

  “None of you have anything better to do?” Kinden snaps. “I’ll laugh as you’re all expelled today.”

  Padgett says coolly, “So it’s the Saga 1 Mission now, consisting of just you.”

  Kinden points at the starcraft. “If I could operate the Saga by myself, I’d be the only one chosen, so yes, Padgett. I am this mission.”

  Gem snorts. “Gods, tell me you’re joking.”

  “Gods, tell me you’re joking,” he mimics Gem, knowing how to irritate her last nerve.

  “You’re awful.”

  “What you mean to say is that I’m the best.” He sweeps us all again, but then lands on me. “Court. Why don’t you tell the uninformed candidates why Etian Valcastle was sent to Vorkter Prison?”

  I don’t falter this time. “Because I’m uncertain as to why,” I lie. “I don’t pay attention to hallway mutterings.”

  “Then I’ll tell you.” Kinden speaks solely to me, even as everyone else listens with bate
d breath.

  I already shared these answers with both Franny and Mykal, but I never was able to see Kinden’s reaction after he learned I went to prison.

  So I watch him as intently as he watches me.

  “Etian was a Wonder and a physician,” he says like he reads from a history book, unemotional facts bleeding from his lips. “A little Babe was wheeled into the trauma center on her deathday. Etian tried resuscitating the girl.” I did. “He hovered over her body and gave her compressions.” Yes. “Other nurses and physicians screamed and fought Etian, but he just kept pounding on her chest. Two hours passed and then security pried my brother off the dead Babe.”

  I inhale, my eyes almost glassing.

  Physicians are sworn by oath to treat injuries to our greatest ability. There is one exception. If a person needs aid on their deathday, we’re to do nothing. They will die no matter how hard we fight, how skilled we seem, how enraged we become.

  Lives are not something to be saved.

  Not when we know the day everyone dies.

  My medical professor wrote that on the chalkboard the first day of class. It has always stuck with me.

  I leave my memory as Kinden says, “Altia Patrol gave Etian a warning after the first time. They reminded him of Altia Law—”

  “No physician will use resources on the dying or dead,” I recite, my voice hollow. “Everyone knows that capital punishment.”

  Even Fast-Trackers. Even Babes.

  Kinden nods once. “Three days later, he tried resuscitating a dead Fast-Tracker. While giving him compressions, his fellow physicians told him that he knowingly broke oath twice, and he’d be convicted. They ripped Etian off the body, and the next morning, Altia Patrol arrested him outside of the Rose Glades.”

  As Kinden’s story hangs heavy, someone asks, “Did he know the Babe and the Fast-Tracker he was trying to…?” There is no word for what I was trying to do.

  Lives are not something to be saved.

  “They were strangers.” Kinden says the truth. I never knew them. Not even their first names.

  “Your brother sounds like he lost his mind,” someone says from the back. Almost everyone nods in agreement.

  Zimmer chimes in, “Or maybe he just wanted a vacation at Vorkter.”

  I actually laugh—a strange laugh, but I laugh. All eyes dart to me again.

  Kinden glares at me. “It’s not amusing.”

  I know. Before I add anything else, my father’s footsteps resound, clanking on the concrete, and we all clamor to our feet. Bodies rising from the ground.

  Tauris sighs. “I’m deeply disappointed.”

  Mykal glances worriedly at me. I glance back and shake my head, uncertain of the outcome. Franny crosses her arms and tries to breathe out a tight breath.

  “Your performances today were adequate,” he explains, “and one hundred of you will be leaving tonight as promised, but we were hoping to find the person who believed stealing was a solution. In Altia and StarDust, theft is not only frowned upon, but it’s illegal.”

  Some candidates clear their throats but no one whispers.

  My father slips his hands in his pockets. “Since we were unable to find the stolen cards, anyone who uses those words will be immediately expelled and turned over to Altia Patrol. The candidates whose cards were stolen will be given replacements tonight.”

  Mykal lowers his head to shield his horror from view. His fear grips his lungs so fiercely that I have to unbutton my shirt and then extend my arm over his shoulders.

  “Mykal,” I whisper in the pit of his ear, trying not to draw attention.

  He’s unmoving. Those stolen cards had granted him more hope than anything thus far. I know that.

  “We’ll find another way,” I breathe lowly.

  Unresponsive. Franny elbows his side, but he’s in no mood for her either. He looks like he’d rather walk out of StarDust and never return.

  “Please exit when I call your name.”

  It happens quickly, and out of a hundred eliminated, we’re all safe—but I believe with every last breath that Mykal wishes my father had spoken his name.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Mykal

  I’m failing.

  I’ve been failing. Those stolen cards were my last shred of hope for StarDust.

  Now it’s just … gone. My surname has been propelling me ahead this far, but I can’t see them accepting me if I keep stumbling behind. Fall or not, I’m ranked in the bottom of the class.

  I charge into my dorm, slam the door behind me, and viciously pace.

  My remaining two roommates are celebrating downstairs with most everyone else. Rejoicing in their accomplishments while I wallow in my wretched failures.

  Alone here, I rip off my silly suit. Tearing the rich, ugly fabric. Popping buttons off the shirt. These slacks—I wrestle with every bit of clothing.

  An angry growl rumbles deep in my throat. Breathing desperately, heavily, I stand in gray underwear.

  “Court,” I say his name aloud and shake out my arms, frenzied from what Court calls adrenaline. I once told him not to nickname my senses with strange-sounding words.

  “Court.”

  I feel him pause for a second, lying on his bed, reading some book. Though he chooses not to move.

  “Court,” I growl louder. “Court.”

  He shuts his hardback, worry cresting his face. Quickly, his feet locate the floor. There aren’t many places I’d be, since I’d rather gnaw on my own foot than celebrate in the common room. So he’ll be finding me easily enough.

  I focus on Franny and sense her packing a box in her dorm, eyes glassing. As though she’s recalling the past. I suppose she’s finally mailing her fur coat back to the Catherina Hotel. A plan she’s considered for a few weeks now.

  I pace and pace. Then I head to the armoire, ripping my clothes off the hangers. Too many suits. I pluck off casual slacks and a forest-green shirt, Altian emblem on the breast.

  I fight with the leg of my slacks, and the door flies open.

  Slowly, Court closes it, all the while watching my struggle. I grunt, trying to tug the fabric above my muscular thighs.

  He raises a brow. “If you needed help dressing, could you—maybe, next time—not say my name like it’s dying on your tongue.”

  “I didn’t call you in here for this.” I button my slacks at my waist. Then I run a coarse hand through my hair.

  “Then what?” Court stands stiffly by the armoire.

  I search for the armholes to my shirt. Damned thing. I throw the garment on the bed, done wrestling it. Done wrestling with most everything.

  I look up. His fear already weighs as heavy and cold as piles of dense snow. I practically see the words Don’t quit, please don’t quit etched over his frightened eyes.

  Once upon an era, I had those same words etched over my tough gaze. When we first found each other in the winter wood. Don’t you quit, Court. Please don’t you quit on me.

  But I’m not the kind of boy who kneels down that easily. Like three hells, I’d take a knee now. Not after I’ve come this far.

  I called him in here for another reason. Something else. I near him in two lengthy steps. I nudge his foot with mine.

  He hardly stirs. Just stares morbidly. Fearfully. I nudge again—and the faintest bit of light flutters in his stomach. His carriage aches to raise.

  Come on, Court.

  “Heya.” I tap his cheek twice.

  He sweeps me from toe to head. “Is that a Grenpalish sign of affection?”

  I smile a crooked smile. “Took you over two years to figure out.”

  He rolls his eyes. “I had a feeling.”

  I rest a hand on the armoire by his shoulder. “Yeh,” I say in a heavy lilt, not bothering correcting myself. “I like a lot of your feelings, you realize. The grave ones, even the sullen and sad—I don’t mind feeling them all.”

  He shifts his weight, and his gaze hits the floor. “Funny.”

  “That’s no jest,
Court,” I say, and I lick my dry lips. “You keep saying that you make my life dismal and bleak. But my world never felt as bright, as worthwhile and full, until I met you.”

  His defenses start dropping. Shoulders lowering, no longer squared. “Are you teasing—”

  “I’m not teasing,” I say strongly and nudge his foot again. “I’m done being afraid. There’s so many other things that rightfully deserve that emotion. Fear of being expelled, fear of Bastell, fear of being caught. But you … us. This link. I won’t be wasting my energy fearing that. If I’m expelled tomorrow, I want to know that I had the courage to choose a future where I could kiss you.” I edge nearer. Till our chests nearly touch. “That’s all.”

  “That’s all,” Court repeats my words. An emotion battles its way through his body. Fighting tooth and nail to emerge. Our eyes dance across each other’s features.

  Our chests rise together. A powerful breath filling our lungs.

  “I’ll be kissing you,” I say more bluntly. “More than once.”

  And then slowly, a breathtaking smile overwhelms his face. A smile unlike anything he’s ever worn. Bright and vast. Enough to crest tears in the corners of his eyes that look more happy than grim.

  He’s smiling.

  His smile stretches his cheeks like they’re my cheeks. I can’t stop feeling. Can’t stop staring. Gods bless that’s beautiful.

  And he says, “You called me in here so we could kiss?”

  I laugh. “I did.” Something flutters in my stomach—and his stomach. We eye each other tentatively. A good kind of nervous. And excitement.

  No more restraint in my bones. In his bones.

  I lightly push his arm, then his cheek. My rough, coarse, and playful movements all I know. All I’ve seen in my youth.

  Court stays unbending, but his hands glide around my waist, up to my shoulder blades.

  I cup his jaw, and then my callused palm travels to the back of his neck.

  His heartbeat thuds fast in my chest, and with one look, Court consumes me whole. “Name this feeling,” he whispers, our lips a breath apart.

  A feeling that overpowers me, that wraps me up warmly in the coldest hours. Through ice, through snow. A feeling that has never let go.

  “Love,” I breathe deeply.