Skyhunter

by Marie Lu

  “Is that why you brought him a bag of bread and fish from the mess hall?”

  “Stop wringing decency out of me.”

  “It’s an honest question.”

  “I need something as bait if I’m going to try coaxing answers out of him, don’t I?”

  “Well,” he says, “don’t tell Adena that you’re trying to feed the prisoner.”

  “Is she still upset with me?”

  Jeran hesitates long enough for me to wonder if he couldn’t see my signs in the dark. “She’ll get over it,” he finally replies. “But you have to understand how hard it was for her to watch you defend the life of a Federation soldier.”

  “We don’t know if he was a soldier.”

  “She doesn’t care about that.”

  I don’t respond for a while. A part of me rears up in my own defense—I had tried to save a life and a friend I’ve known since childhood is holding it against me. But then I think of Adena’s meat pie deliveries, the way she’d looped her arm into mine as we walked to the arena. I think of years ago, how she had screamed when Federation troops shot her brother dead as he tried to run across the warfront to us. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen her break the Striker oath of silence out in the field. Aramin had refused her plea to send Strikers into enemy territory to retrieve his body, but even he hadn’t had the heart to punish her for the outburst.

  I picture the memories coming back into her life, crowding her head. She must be in her workshop now, furiously sharpening her tools.

  “I’ll visit her tomorrow,” I tell Jeran. “I’ll apologize in person.”

  We finally reach the lowest floor. There are only a handful of cells down here, all arranged in a circle around the central spiral of steps. So little light reaches this floor that the walls around us seem to extend into blackness beyond the glow of torches. Guards stand at attention before each steel door.

  Prisoners from the Federation are kept down here. One of the cells holds a Ghost that had been captured alive months ago. I used to hear its shrieks echoing beyond the gratings five floors above, the rhythmic clang of it throwing its body against the steel doors. Now it is quiet, stirring into a rage only when people enter its cell. I’ve never seen its face, although I know the Speaker has authorized us to experiment on it to understand how the Federation could possibly have mutilated a human into such a creature.

  There are Federation soldiers down here too—or, at least, there used to be. Their screams would fill the air for weeks as they were tortured for information, for any desperate lead we could get in order to help us fend off the Federation for another month.

  But now, as we make our way to the last cell, I hear nothing. Guards nod at us in silence, wary of disturbing the captive Ghost. We give them our silent salute as we stride by.

  There are four guards standing at attention before the prisoner’s—my Shield’s—cell. Jeran approaches one of them so quietly that he jumps, drawing his blade before he sees the cut of our coats.

  “Striker Jeran,” he mutters in greeting. “Hells, you blue coats sneak up like a rogue wind.”

  “Hello,” Jeran says politely, blinking. “I’m sorry for startling you.”

  The second guard snorts at the sight of me. “A nice display you put on in the arena yesterday. I’m surprised the Firstblade didn’t cut your throat right then and there.”

  Common soldiers are also trained to sign, so I could respond if I wanted to, but I choose just to glare instead. We wait for them to slide a metal disc along the edge of the cell door. A series of clicks echo through the space. Then the door creaks open, and we walk past the guards and into the prisoner’s room. They shut the door behind us.

  The cell reeks of mold and death, torchlight from outside coming in through the door’s grating and weakly illuminating the back wall, where the prisoner sits.

  He’s wearing the same shackles I’d seen him in yesterday, thick bands of metal clapped around his neck and wrists and ankles and waist, the chains nailed to the wall behind him. The strange, metallic texture of his hair is noticeable even in this low light. His head is down against his chest, as if he’s asleep.

  Perhaps he didn’t hear the door open, or us step in.

  Then he lifts his head. Beneath his dirty, mussed hair glitters a pair of near-black eyes. Now that I see him alone, without the distraction of the arena, I can tell he has the physique of a fighter—tall and well-muscled, built solidly underneath his prison suit.

  Jeran hesitates beside me, reluctant to come closer.

  The prisoner says something to us that I can’t understand. I find myself taken aback by his voice—deep, gritty as the scrape of stone on stone, but with a tone so refined that I wonder for a second if he’s a trained singer.

  When I just stare, he turns to Jeran and gestures impatiently at him, then repeats what he said.

  Jeran clears his throat, eyes darting uneasily away from the prisoner. “He’s wondering why we didn’t bring any weapons with us.”

  I watch the prisoner, careful not to let my hands stray to where the hilts of my weapons should be. He doesn’t need to see that he makes me wary, or that I hate being without my blades. I take a few steps closer to him, listening to the rhythm of my boots against the stone floor.

  “I didn’t think we needed them,” I answer. My hands move in slow, measured movements, so that the prisoner doesn’t think I’m about to attack him.

  He watches me as Jeran translates into Karenese. There’s a challenge in his eyes, but he doesn’t move a muscle. My gaze goes to the chains still wrapped tightly around his chest.

  He mutters something.

  “He can tell that you regret stopping his execution,” Jeran says for him.

  I shrug. The light filtering in is so weak that it barely outlines the silhouettes of my hands in orange. “And you hate that I did,” I answer, looking directly at the prisoner.

  His eyes flash at that, dark and angry. “You had no right,” Jeran says, adding a softness to the prisoner’s words.

  “Or you could say ‘thank you.’ Some gratitude for saving your life would be nice, you know.”

  I watch Jeran as he translates my reply. “Did you actually repeat what I said?” I ask him when he finishes.

  Jeran is embarrassed enough to trip over his feet as we edge closer to the prisoner. “I said, ‘My duty is my duty,’ instead,” he replies.

  I give him an exasperated look. “Being polite for me now?”

  “Sorry, Talin. I don’t know how to say gratitude in Karenese and I’m trying not to upset him.”

  The prisoner watches me, curious. I want to ask him if he ever fought for the Federation. If he’s ever slaughtered my people, if his swords ever ran red with Basean blood.

  We’re close enough now that I can smell the stench of his breath, the stale, unpleasant smell of someone who hasn’t eaten in weeks. I reach into my coat and pull out the bag of food I brought for him, some breads and dried fish I’d saved from my own rations. At my movement, the prisoner stiffens, stirring uneasily, and for a second I assume it’s because he thinks I’m pulling out a weapon. But even when he clearly sees the food in the bag, he doesn’t change his posture.

  “I know you don’t want to eat,” I sign as Jeran translates, then slide the bag next to his feet. “But this is just in case you change your mind.”

  He doesn’t bother picking up the bag. Instead, he peeks inside it before turning his head away in apparent disgust. From this angle, I can see the hollow pits of his cheeks, the shadows under his eyes.

  “Eat,” I sign, now frustrated. But he doesn’t bother moving, and only after another long silence does he finally say something in reply.

  Now Jeran looks genuinely awkward. “Er, he says he doesn’t like fish.”

  I shoot Jeran a withering glance. “He doesn’t like fish?” I sign flatly.

  “Maybe best not to belabor it,” Jeran says.

  “The bread, then?” I sign to the prisoner, annoyed.
/>   His lip curls in distaste, but this time he grabs the bag and takes out a hunk of bread. That’s when I see a slight movement wriggle from his shirt pocket. A small, furry head peeks out from it, its nose sniffing the air, beady eyes locked on the food. It’s a fat mouse with a missing tail. To my surprise, the man lifts his hand so the mouse can climb into his palm, then lowers the creature to the bread, where it puts its tiny foot-paws on the crust and starts nibbling away.

  Beside me, Jeran makes a face and shudders. “I feel like it’s on me,” he whispers, his eyes locked on the mouse.

  “Glad to know I brought food for your pet instead,” I sign at the prisoner.

  He just shrugs, one thumb idly rubbing the mouse’s head. “It was here first,” Jeran translates with a queasy expression. “And it keeps me company.”

  Something about the prisoner’s gentle movements around the mouse makes my dislike of him waver. I think of my father leaning beside me as we watched the butterfly’s chrysalis.

  I sigh. “Tomorrow, you fall under my charge,” I sign instead, changing the subject. “So I thought we should get to know each other a little better before we spend more time together. Don’t you think?”

  Still, he doesn’t answer.

  “Were you born in the Federation?” I ask.

  The first serious light comes into his eyes. His lips go flat, but he shakes his head. “I lived there for as long as I could remember,” Jeran says for him. The prisoner’s hands move unconsciously, like they will somehow help him explain, and I find myself searching for words and meaning in the gestures. After a while, he looks at me again. “You?”

  “My mother and I fled here when your Federation conquered Basea.”

  I can’t keep the bitterness out of my gestures, and he notices it. This time, Jeran hesitates.

  “What did he say?” I ask him.

  “At least your mother still lives,” Jeran replies quietly.

  Anger flares white hot in me. Maybe it’d been a mistake to save this prisoner’s life. My mother has lived to bear the permanent scars of what the Federation had done to her, and I do not have the patience to listen to a former Karensan soldier shrug that off.

  “What happened to yours?” I sign. If I had a voice, the words would have come out ice cold.

  He looks away, refusing to contribute to our conversation. The mouse finishes nibbling and darts back into his shirt pocket.

  “And your father?”

  Still nothing.

  “Why don’t you want to live anymore?” I ask him, my signs gentler now.

  He pauses for a long time before he gives me a steady look. I watch his lips move as he speaks to Jeran.

  Jeran glances apologetically at me. “He wants to know why this matters to you.”

  “Why what matters?”

  “This. Him. His past.”

  The conversation I’d once had with Corian comes back to me in a torrent of emotion, and for an instant, I’m twelve again, lounging by the grapevines beside my Shield. Why does it matter to you, how I feel about Basea? I’d signed, and I can hear his answer in my memory. Shouldn’t it matter to everyone?

  The similarity of this moment, here and now, takes me aback. For a moment, I feel as if I were Corian, the one reaching his hand out to this foreigner.

  I bend down to balance on the balls of my feet and rest my elbows against my legs. Our eyes are level. If I really do have to lead him around in shackles for the unforeseeable future, I’d at least like to be able to trust him enough to be near him.

  “My mother and I lost everything,” I tell him, “when we fled into Mara—everything except for each other. Our pasts matter because they created us, helped mold us into who we are.”

  He gives me a suspicious frown. “You want to dig into my life by holding out pieces of your own.”

  Well, he’s not as generous as Corian was. Now I think he’s mocking me with the tilt of his head, as if it were easy for me to talk about the broken pieces of my childhood. I nod at the brand peeking out from under his shirt. “Your brand. What did the Federation do to you?”

  Again, no answer. I realize that he’s studying me now, his gaze focused on the fresh black studs of bone in my ears. He likely doesn’t know what it means, but somehow I feel he can sense the weight of sorrow on my chest. He’s quiet for so long that Jeran looks questioningly at me before the prisoner finally replies in a softer voice.

  “My little sister used to have a mouse for a pet,” Jeran translates.

  It’s the most genuine thing the prisoner has said so far. I can hear the loss in his words, the grief lacing his voice.

  “I’m sorry,” I sign, and I mean it.

  “Do you remember your life before they came?” he asks me.

  It takes me a moment to realize he means before the conquest of Basea—and yet another to notice that he refers to the Federation as they, not we. Corian had once asked me if I had any other relatives, but when I shook my head, he’d let the matter drop and never brought it up again. At first, some part of me flares in defense at the prisoner’s words. It is easier not to talk about the painful places of your past, better sometimes to let it go. But his question conjures an old memory of a sunlit garden, a hot, humid breeze, and broad green leaves hanging wet in front of our windows.

  “Fragments,” I reply. “Nothing significant.”

  The prisoner says nothing as he reaches into his shirt pocket to pet his mouse’s head again. The creature leans up into his touch, its eyes closed. When he speaks again, he doesn’t mention my past. “I’ve never met a Basean before. This is my first time venturing out beyond the Federation’s borders.”

  He hadn’t answered me when I asked him what the Federation had done to him, so instead, I sign, “Do you remember your name?”

  “They called me the Skyhunter.”

  The mystery of the word sends shivers down my spine. Jeran and I exchange a look.

  A long pause follows. I’m about to tell him that it’s not a question he has to answer, but then he lifts his head to give me a strange expression. I realize that he had been taking so long to respond because he was trying to recall his name. How long has it been since he last used it?

  “Redlen,” Jeran translates at last. “Some call him Red.”

  I watch him rub incessantly at the spot of grime. Then I frown and look closer. He notices my gesture, and as if to acknowledge it, he holds his arm in the light so that it’s bathed in light blue. Now I can see the faintest hint of an artificial groove underneath the skin, running from his wrist up to his shoulder.

  Had the Firstblade noticed this on him? It appears as if something had been grafted to him underneath his skin, something that turns his skin into this strange, unnatural surface. I remove one glove, then hold my hand out questioningly at him.

  He nods, moving his arm closer to me, indicating that it’s okay for me to touch it.

  “Careful,” Jeran signs, casting me a sideways glance.

  “I am,” I reply, then let my fingers brush against the prisoner’s skin. It feels as natural and alive as anyone’s, although noticeably warmer. I push down slightly against his arm, then jerk away. There is the figurative saying of muscle hard as stone, but this truly feels like it, as if his skin had been stretched over something as firm and unmoving as steel.

  When I don’t try to touch his arm again, he leans back against the wall with a clatter of chains. “The Federation’s work.”

  Jeran casts me a quick glance as he translates the sentence. He’s not surprised that the prisoner—Skyhunter—Red—had been altered by the Federation, but that he told us.

  The instinct I’d had in the arena flares again. “Something is wrong with him,” I sign, unable to shake the feeling. But I still can’t tell why the Federation would do this to him, what benefit it is to them to deform his body. Was he just an experiment, not meant to be used?

  What can he do?

  I go back to his eyes. He still has his scowl on, and his expression is d
efiant, his lips on the edge of baring his teeth.

  But I’m silent. I think of what it must be like to have something artificial embedded into your body like this, what he must have experienced, what the Federation’s plans for him had been. What unspoken things lie in his past. Here, in this cell, he looks less like a threat and more like just a prisoner in a strange place, among strange people.

  My thoughts make me shake my head, irritated with myself. “I don’t know what might have happened to you,” I sign to him, “and I don’t expect you to tell it to me. We all have pain from our past. But at the warfront, none of that matters. I’ve been handed the responsibility of your care, and that means you will accompany me as I go about my duties. And if you help us, we might even be able to help you.”

  He turns distant again and glances away. “I don’t need your help,” Jeran says, his soft voice a mismatch to the acid in Red’s.

  “Maybe you’ll be surprised,” I retort.

  “I don’t like surprises.”

  “Apparently you don’t like anything.” My gestures are so annoyed that Jeran backs slightly away, his eyes going to the prisoner and his hand to his belt before he remembers he doesn’t have his weapons with him.

  Red meets my eyes again. We hold each other’s stare, and for a moment, I think I see something vulnerable in him. It is the part of him that has not yet been touched by the Federation.

  Then the moment ends. He looks away from me and tilts his head up to the light beaming down from the ceiling grate. The mouse stirs in his pocket, its whiskers peeking out. A sigh rumbles in the prisoner’s chest as he pats the creature absently. I wait a moment, wondering if he’s gathering his thoughts, but when he doesn’t speak again, I finally stand up and turn my back on him. Jeran walks with me. I can feel the questions stirring in him, and his hesitant eyes on me, but I don’t answer and I don’t look back. I can’t. If I see the prisoner’s face again, I might want to throw a fist at his stubborn jaw. The reasons why I saved him are beginning to wane in my mind.

  “Any luck, little rat?” one of the guards says, sneering at me as he opens the cell door to let us through.