by Marie Lu
He gives Jeran a pitying look that makes my blood run cold. “It’s all right, Father,” Gabrien says. “Jeran’s strengths have always been physical.”
Jeran shifts uncomfortably, head down. I find myself moving closer to his side, every muscle in me tensing to protect him.
“Well,” Jeran’s father replies to Gabrien. “A man is fortunate enough to have one son as high-achieving as you.”
Aramin’s expression doesn’t shift at the subtle insult to the Strikers, that we are nothing more than brutes sent to hold monsters at bay, but I do see his folded arms stiffen, and his body turn subtly toward Jeran in a protective stance. Jeran doesn’t look up at all. I’m reminded of the many times he’d be alone in a corner at the mess hall, nose buried in a book while the rest of us ate. I think back to how many times he’d taken the exams to qualify for a position in the Senate and please his father. How disappointed he’d been when he failed them.
Senator Terra turns his attention to Red. “So this is the prisoner who caused a scene in the arena,” he says to Aramin.
“He was the scene,” Aramin answers. He nods at me. “Although Talin seems to have stolen it.”
“I see.” Jeran’s father glances thoughtfully at me before saying, “Is it wise to let a prisoner traipse around like this?”
“He’s weaponless in a hive of Strikers,” Aramin replies. “I assume he is a failed soldier of the Federation. Let Talin wear out her punishment.”
Wear out my punishment—meaning until Red is killed, which will almost certainly happen soon, given his complete lack of training and weapons and anything resembling armor. He will be thrown onto a field in the warfront with me, and I will watch him die defenseless. That is, if I’m not killed first.
The same thought must have crossed Senator Terra’s mind, because he replies, “In a few days, then.”
“Don’t be so sure, Senator.” The Firstblade looks at me. “Perhaps she’ll get some useful information out of her Shield by then.”
The Senator sniffs and turns back to face his younger son. “When you finish here, Jeran, I want to see you back home. The gardeners need help cutting the roots of that dead oak.”
“Father.” Jeran clears his throat uncertainly. “I think I need to be at the arena until—”
It happens so fast. My hand has barely gone to the hilt of my sword before Senator Terra seizes Jeran by the hair and yanks him forward hard enough to throw him off balance. A strange, terrible giggle comes from Jeran, and when I glance at his face, it’s blank from fear.
I start to pull out my sword, but the Firstblade acts before I can. One second, he’s standing with his arms folded; the next, he’s moved in between Jeran and his father. He grabs the Senator’s forearm; his fingers close hard enough against the Senator’s skin to wash it of color.
The Senator glances at him in mild surprise.
“Remember your place, Senator,” Aramin says, his voice calm, but underneath it I can hear a dangerous edge. “Your son will be at the arena today for his training, at the request of his Firstblade.”
The Senator doesn’t look at him. All he does is hold Jeran tightly, fist in his hair, until finally the pressure from the Firstblade’s grip makes him let go. Jeran stumbles, dirt soiling the bottom of his coat. When Adena approaches him in concern, he just holds up a hand at her and shakes his head. He’s still making that awful giggle.
“It’s fine,” he says to her. “I’m fine.”
Even Red has tensed beside me.
Aramin meets the Senator’s stare without a flinch. I imagine the man sneering, telling Aramin that he can do what he likes with his son. But the Firstblade outranks us all, even both Senators here, so at last, Jeran’s father bows his head with a chuckle. “Shall we move on to the catapults?” he says. “My son and I are interested to see what the Senate’s funding package has yielded.”
He says this casually. As if he hadn’t just attacked his second son a moment earlier. As if Jeran weren’t still standing before him, trembling harder than he’s ever done before a pack of Ghosts.
The Firstblade nods. “After you.” He waits until the Senators have passed him before he turns to Jeran.
“I’m all right,” Jeran says before Aramin can speak. “Thank you.” He wears a tight smile on his face, but his brows are knotted and his eyes glossy. His voice sounds hoarse with the effort of holding back tears.
The fierce light has gone from Aramin’s eyes, leaving a concerned expression on his face. He looks like he wants to say something more to Jeran, then hesitates and decides against it. Instead, he frowns at me. “Don’t attempt to draw your blade at a Senator,” he tells me in a low voice. His words are stern, but empty of anger. “I have enough to deal with, explaining away your antics in the arena. My power to protect you has its limits.” Then he glares at Red and walks away.
I look at Red. Even though he couldn’t understand everything that just happened, he isn’t a fool—his eyes linger on the back of Jeran’s father, dark and hostile, before jumping to Jeran in concern. My resentment of this prisoner gives way to something resembling approval.
As Adena walks over to Jeran and touches his shoulder, I’m hit with the realization that, if Jeran were ever to die, it would not be a monster that killed him, but his father.
8
I hate the procession we always make when we head out to the warfront.
It’s no different this morning as we wind out of Newage’s gates and through the Outer City, our path pointed to the horizon. Teams of cooks, servants, and metalworkers walk behind the supply wagons. Then come battalions of common Maran soldiers, their armor scuffed and worn, their faces gaunt. Strikers ride in pairs both at the front and back of the procession.
Red rides beside me this morning. His presence is an unfamiliar weight at my side, and I keep casting him sidelong glances.
He’s still shackled, and chains still run across his chest, more for show than any practical purpose. Though he hasn’t been given a Striker uniform, at least he has been allowed to change out of his prisoner suit. No need for the Federation to hear about an obvious prisoner of war staying in our defense compound.
Red’s face is a cold mask of indifference this morning. He doesn’t look my way.
As usual, crowds have gathered to see us off. Most in the Inner City are solemn, waving their respect to us as we pass. But I can feel their expressions shift as they turn to me. The farewells dim, and in their place is a din of mutters, hostile glares, snorts of disgust. I try to ignore their glances. As we make our way through the Outer City, I crane my neck in the hopes of glimpsing my mother in the throngs that have assembled along the muddy paths to watch us go. Maybe she’s here, but I don’t see her. The only ones clustered on either side of our procession are stall owners and their hollow-eyed children.
Finally, we leave behind the city and enter the open plains that dot our land. Towering ruins stand like silent sentinels as we pass. My gaze lingers on one of them, a fragment of steel three times taller than me, jutting out of a stream glowing with blue minnows. The sapphire light reflects off the metal in wavy patterns.
“Mara.”
I turn around, still surprised to hear Red’s gritty voice next to me, and see him looking up at the steel beam. He stares at it, then back at me.
“Different.”
He’s picked up a couple more Maran words since yesterday, but I still shake my head, unsure what he’s trying to say.
He gives me a frustrated look and turns away again.
“I’ll ask him.” Jeran rides up beside me, then calls out at Red in Karenese.
I watch him as he goes. Gone is the strange, terrified version of Jeran I’d seen yesterday in the Grid, head bowed before his father and brother. Today he’s the boy I know again, attentive and thoughtful, if a bit quieter than usual. A mottle of blue-and-purple bruising peeks out from the collar of his jacket.
He’d headed home immediately after practice yesterday, so eager was he to st
ill help his father chop down their dead oak. He’d slept at home, not in his Striker apartment he shares with Adena.
Sometimes I wonder whether Jeran feels relieved after his father’s punishments, as if it resets the clock on when his father will lash out again. I remind myself to ask my mother to make a poultice for his bruises when we return.
Red responds, and after a moment, Jeran nods at me and points up at the structure. “Back in the Federation’s capital, there are ruins of old ships, with walls made of some kind of mystery metal. It’s where they used to find artifacts of the Early Ones’ books.”
I lean forward instinctively in my saddle. Is he finally trying to tell us something useful? “A library?” I ask, nodding at Jeran to translate.
Jeran shrugs as Red answers. “No idea,” he says. “Maybe. All the steel towers here around Newage make me think this was once a city.”
“It was,” I tell him. I look back at the remnants of their civilization and try to imagine what it was like. “I heard the Federation used those books to learn how to create Ghosts,” I go on, nodding at him. “Did they use that on you?”
His expression shutters in an instant. He nudges his horse hard enough to make it skip a step.
“He’s asking if it really matters,” Jeran tells me, his voice more hushed. “Doesn’t Mara use the Early Ones’ technology without understanding it?”
I turn my frown on Red. “You brought up the ruins in the Federation,” I sign at him.
Jeran looks more uncomfortable in his translations. “Now he’s asking what happened to you on the night you fled into Mara,” he murmurs at me.
I look away from Red. “Forget it,” I tell him, my signs cutting and angry.
We fall back into a tense silence. Whatever small bond we might have forged seems to fade again behind a curtain of suspicion. Jeran turns away at Adena’s voice, eager to get out of the thick tension that’s built back up between me and my joke of a Shield.
Red and I spend the rest of the day ignoring each other. By the time we reach the warfront, the sun has already crept below the horizon, casting the sky in hues of deepening purple. We settle into the defense compound in a mass of silence.
“Is Red not coming outside to join us?” Jeran signs to me as we gather around a fire.
“I don’t really care,” I sign back, still cranky.
Jeran hands me one of the bowls of stew he’s carrying, then sets a second one beside himself after nearly dropping it. His eyes, always observant, linger on the tent where Red is currently hiding.
Across the fire, Adena leans on her knees from where she sits and uses a hunk of hard bread to push around the chunks of fish in the stew. She shoves the entire softened bread into her mouth. “Maybe he’s plotting against us,” she signs.
Jeran frowns at Adena and hands me a second bowl of stew. “You’re suggesting he might be a mole?” he signs back.
“I’m saying he could be anything. We don’t know. Do we?” She turns to look at me. “Is he clever when you talk to him?”
“Very average,” I reply witheringly at the same time Jeran also signs, “He seems educated.”
Adena snorts. “Maybe he’s not a spy, then.”
I glare darkly at the bird we have roasting over the flames. She’s not wrong, although it would be foolish for him to try anything out here. What would he do? Break out of his chains and through the heart of our defense lines to deliver messages to the Federation? Either way, Red hasn’t emerged since we arrived. As far as I know, he’ll stay in there and go hungry for the rest of the night just to avoid having to see me again.
At the look on my face, Adena sighs and pats my knee. “I’m kidding. Just give it some time,” she says aloud to me. “Maybe he’ll be useful yet.”
I watch the fire lick the night air, unwilling to admit that I’m looking for more reasons to dislike him. “He won’t talk,” I continue. “He won’t eat anything except some stale dinner rolls. At this point, all I’m doing is waiting out the days until he gets himself killed.”
“Adena didn’t tell me anything for the first several years we were paired,” Jeran speaks as he gingerly cuts a leg off the roasted bird and tosses it in her direction. She catches it in one hand, bounces it from the heat, and bites into it. “It took me six months to learn what part of the city she lived in.”
“But you were the hardest to crack, Talin,” Adena says to me, holding up a greasy finger. “And not because you’re quiet. Corian came to me so many times for advice on how to get you to open up. Did you know that? He would ask me how I started conversations with you and what made you laugh.”
I smile, remembering a time when Corian had dressed in a ridiculous shade of green because Adena had told him it was my favorite color. “I knew,” I respond.
We all fall quiet for a beat, grieving over our own memories.
“Train with him for a few days,” Jeran finally signs, nodding back in the direction of Red’s tent. “Maybe you can help him prepare for a battle so that, if he does end up in front of a Ghost with you, he has a chance.”
“Didn’t he escape a Ghost at the warfront?” Adena signs.
“Word has it,” Jeran replies.
“Well. Maybe he’s a better fighter than we think. At least he has some muscle on him. Didn’t you tell us about his unusual skin, Talin?”
I nod.
“Has he mentioned anything about what he can do?” Jeran signs at me. “Or why he’s branded?”
I shake my head, thinking of the strangeness of Red’s artificial body.
“If he’s an experiment,” Adena signs after a while, “then it’s likely he isn’t the only one. There might be others like him back in the Federation. Although who the hell knows what he’s useful for.”
A silhouette stretches over us, and suddenly our hands all freeze. I look up to see Red approach our campfire. His eyes are wary, his steps as slow and cautious as if he were hunting.
Adena’s hand moves closer to one of the swords at her side, but Jeran reaches out to her without looking away from Red. He shakes his head subtly. Adena’s hand relaxes, but her stare stays on my new Shield.
“So…,” she says, letting the word trail uncertainly into an awkward silence.
Red stands there, unsure of what to do. On the top of his shoulder, his mouse sniffs the air, tentatively heading down his arm at the smell of food.
I wave him over, gesturing to the bowl sitting untouched next to me. He stares at me, then at the stew, as if it might contain poison. The mouse doesn’t hesitate. It scampers down to the ground and perches on the edge of the bowl.
Jeran looks like he might retch.
Adena makes an exaggerated cough at Red. “Just sit down and have some dinner,” she says. “Jeran here cooked it himself. You should probably show some enthusiasm.”
Jeran gives Red a nervous smile and says something to him in Karenese. Then he looks back at me and says, “I told him I’m a phenomenal cook.”
“It’s true,” Adena adds to Red, waving at Jeran to translate for her. “If you ever end up lost in the woods, this is the one you want with you. He could cook a meal out of twigs and make you crave it.”
Now Jeran is blushing and beaming at the same time. “Wild sugarweed. It’ll flavor anything, especially a good filet of white fish.”
Red glances down at them. The expression in his eyes is so searing that Adena’s hand rests back on her hilt again. The instinct that tickled the back of my mind at the arena flares up again now. What had the Federation been doing with him? What made him flee?
“No fish,” Red then says, his accent thick.
We all stare blankly at him.
“Well, we’re set,” Adena says. “He can say ‘no fish.’ We’ll all be chatting together in no time.”
“Here,” Jeran says to Red, cutting the other leg off the roasting bird and tossing it to him. “Try this instead.”
Red catches the leg, steps toward me, and takes a seat. He pushes the bowl of f
ish stew carefully away and bites into the meat. I watch him curiously as he eats. He stops only to pull a few strips off to lay them next to his mouse. I look on as it grabs the meat with its foot-paws and digs in.
Finally, Red holds up the leg bone and gives Jeran an approving nod. Jeran’s chest puffs up in pride.
“We’re at the warfront now,” Adena says as she studies Red. “You know anything about fighting?”
Jeran translates, and Red puts down the bone, eyes fixed on Adena as she talks.
“Yes,” he answers on his own.
Adena smiles a little at the way he enunciates the word. “What kind of fighting?”
He doesn’t answer, so I dust my hands of crumbs and stand up. My hand tightens around the hilt of one of my swords. I yank it out with a flourish—and the instant I do, I see Red tense, his body moving instinctively into what looks like a fighting position.
Adena notices too. “So you do have some training,” she says.
“Decent training too,” Jeran adds, nodding at Red’s posture.
A warning buzzes in the back of my mind. We are skirting the edges now of who he must have been in the Federation, prodding at the mystery of the title they had given him. Skyhunter. What does a Skyhunter hunt?
I nod at him to get up. When he narrows his eyes at me, I hold my free hand open and give him what I hope is a trustworthy look. Then I pull out my second blade and toss it to him.
He catches it without hesitation, like it’s an instinct he’s been waiting to use. We all stare at him as he handles the first weapon he’s had while inside Mara. He turns the blade in his hand, as if he can’t quite believe I’ve given it to him, and then looks back up at me.
I get over my surprise quickly enough to lift my blade at him. “Practice,” I sign.
Even without Jeran translating, Red seems to understand. He lifts the sword too, the weight of it effortless in his hand, and touches the blade to mine.
