by Marie Lu
“Some think she is one of our most capable Strikers,” Jeran’s brother says, his eyes fixed on mine, “although that’s said more often by simple minds.”
The other Senators murmur, chuckling, at Gabrien’s teasing. He knows exactly how close I am with his brother and remembers how I’d shifted protectively toward Jeran that day in the Grid. He is not only sticking a thorn in me, but throwing an insult at his brother for being my friend. When I stare back at Gabrien, I can tell he knows full well how much this bothers me.
Tomm laughs with the others, although Pira simply looks away as if disinterested.
“They say Strikers learn how to dance, don’t they, to practice their grace?” another Senator says, looking at Tomm.
He nods. “We do.”
“Then perhaps the Basean once danced so well for the Federation’s soldiers that they let her live,” the Senator suggests mildly. Everyone laughs at the vulgar suggestion.
“A dancer?” The light in Gabrien’s eyes turns teasing. “I wouldn’t be surprised. She’s very lovely.” His smile widens at me. “You’ll have to show us.”
Does he really mean for me to dance for them? I hesitate, and at my pause, the Senators laugh harder. I stay very still, trying to understand the joke.
“I’m bored,” Pira announces, irritated at the conversation. She tilts her head at Tomm. “Can’t we get something to eat?” Tomm just waves her off, his face still turned eagerly in Gabrien’s direction, as if for approval.
“She hasn’t said a word,” the Senator from earlier chimes in again. “She probably doesn’t speak Maran. Perhaps we should go find your brother, Senator Gabrien.” She waves a flippant hand toward the rest of the courtyard. “He speaks other languages, doesn’t he?”
There’s an edge to the way they talk without greeting me, a cruelty in the smiles they wear. Years of facing Ghosts at the warfront with my blades and guns and daggers, and yet the sharpest teeth are still here, on the grounds of the National Hall, where I have no weapons to defend myself. My hands clench and unclench helplessly at my sides. I can feel myself caving inward, feel them turning my silence into a weakness. While I fight for them at the warfront, they have their banquets and celebrate a losing war and taunt me, not realizing there will be a day when their world will suddenly collapse.
“Excuse me.”
Red’s deep, grit-rubbed voice makes me turn in surprise. I’d been so focused on the interaction happening before me that I hadn’t noticed our bond sharpen and clear at his approach. His accent isn’t bad. How long had he practiced saying that Maran phrase? He stops at my side and gives the nobility a single nod. Gone is the feverish, bloodied, frightened young man I’d sat beside at the warfront. His steel wings are hidden tonight beneath an elaborately embroidered black robe trimmed with shimmering yellow silk and dyed yellow fur, but even then, I notice that the back of the robe has been tailored with two trimmed slashes to allow his wings to unfold. Underneath it is a white silken shirt woven so fine that I can’t see the threads. His expression is calm and bemused tonight, and his strange air of confidence suddenly makes me aware of how handsome he is.
Even if I could speak, I’d be at a loss for words. The only thing that breaks my stare is the sight of his mouse perched on his shoulder, munching on a bit of grape.
The Senator next to Gabrien makes a startled noise at seeing Red’s pet, then clears his throat in embarrassment as he eyes the banquet tables, wondering whether other mice are scampering amid the food.
I’m sorry, Red secretly says to me through our link. Is it considered rude to bring rodents to a Maran party?
I lift an amused eyebrow at Red. He just shrugs, but the edge of his mouth lifts too.
Before me, the nobles’ taunting banter quiets as they stare at him in stunned silence. Tomm’s and Pira’s sneers drop. Even Gabrien’s smug smile fades under the hard eyes of the Skyhunter. The sight of the blood draining from his face sends a quiver of satisfaction through me.
Red doesn’t bother to wait. He gives them a bow of his head so deep and proper that I immediately know it’s sarcastic, and then pulls me from their group and ushers me down the corridor. I find myself feeling grateful for the now-familiar heat of his hand. Every conversation around us fades away. Behind us, the Senators exchange shocked whispers.
“That’s him,” one says. “The prisoner from the Federation!”
“The Skyhunter?”
“Yes. He’s the one who massacred the entire Federation offensive at the warfront!”
Red gives me a sidelong look. I thought you could use some help, he says to me through our link.
I don’t know whether to feel relieved for his help or annoyed at his comment. You could have said something to me through the link, warned me you were coming.
I didn’t want to disrupt you during such a tense exchange.
Suddenly I remember that he can tell when I’m angry or anxious, that he must have known how the Senators’ conversation made my heart contract. Can he also sense the way I’d admired his evening look? The thought burns my cheeks. Have you been to formal events before? I ask instead. You seem so comfortable here.
My father used to attend formal functions back in the Federation, he replies. I know enough about how they work.
I’m ready to ask him more, but then we reach the banquet hall, where the Speaker is in the middle of giving a toast. I stop and look away from him, trying to ignore the stares that follow our every step.
I heard Adena dressed you tonight, he says after a beat. She did well.
I search for sarcasm on his face. Are you making fun of me? I ask, irritated. I’m not in the mood tonight.
He frowns at me. I’m complimenting you. Is that not it? You look decent.
Decent. Maybe some things are lost in translation, even through our bond. I glare at him, wishing Adena was here so she could hit him with one of her customized weapons.
We step into the warmth of the banquet hall. Near the front of the chamber, the leader of Mara stands leaning over his table, an arc of his Senators on either side of him. Even Aramin has switched out his Striker uniform tonight for something more luxurious, a vest and coat of white and gold that highlights the subtle gold that lines his eyes. I relax slightly at the sight of Jeran, resplendent in his formal jacket, as he and the Firstblade talk in low voices. Beside him, Adena waves at us. We exchange brief smiles, then without a word turn to face the Speaker.
The Speaker pauses in his toast at our arrival. I’ve seen him before, but always from a distance. This close up, I can see the exhaustion behind his expression, the droop of his skin and the age in his watery eyes. His gaze skims first over me before darting away in disinterest, the edges of his lips thinned into a grimace. His attention settles on Red. “Well,” he says, his voice laced with sarcasm. “Our guest of honor.”
There’s a shuffle as everyone around him shifts, jockeying with one another to be in the best position to observe the man that their Speaker has focused his attention on. Red stands stiffly beside me, but on the surface, he seems to accept the attention without complaint.
Jeran leans closer to me. “I’ve warned the Firstblade against provoking Red to the point of triggering his most powerful state,” he signs, “but the Speaker will want to see a little of what you both can do.”
I nod slightly in return, unsurprised, but the thought still makes my heart leap. We all know so little of Red’s capabilities. What if this goes wrong? It doesn’t take a link between us for me to sense Red’s stiffness.
The Speaker waves a hand at the room. “A word with my Senators, please,” he says with a curt nod.
The elites need no second bidding. They file out of the chamber in a hush of footsteps, but not before I hear them murmuring as they pass us by. Most of them step around Red as if he might lunge at them, while I merely get some hostile stares. I ignore the looks. Before long, the room has emptied, leaving us with only the Senators, the Firstblade, and the Speaker. Guards at the entran
ces close the glass doors leading out into the courtyard. The noise from the festivities suddenly muffles.
I say nothing as we turn to face the Speaker. The silence stretches on for a moment as he studies us with suspicious eyes.
Finally, he looks at Red. “The Firstblade tells me that you almost singlehandedly destroyed two of the Federation’s patrols at the warfront,” he says. “Along with some of the largest Ghosts we’ve ever fought.”
Red waits for Jeran to translate, then nods once. “Yes, sir,” Jeran says for him.
“Is that true?”
“Yes, sir.”
He glances briefly at me, like he might say something about the rumors that float around me too. How I’d been the only one capable of approaching Red in the middle of his rage.
But when he addresses me, he merely says, “And you’re the Basean.”
I bow my head once.
“Who doesn’t speak.”
Appropriately, there’s nothing for me to say to that, so I remain still.
A note of scorn enters the Speaker’s voice. “A Basean Striker who doesn’t speak, yet has the gall to call a meeting with her Speaker to propose an idea.” He tilts his head at me. “Tell me why you decided to save this prisoner.”
He isn’t asking because he’s curious. He thinks me a liar, that maybe I knew about Red’s abilities when I asked to spare his life. Even now, he’s studying my face, searching for something dishonest, something I’m hiding.
I bow my head again and sign with my hands. “Because I felt sorry for him, sir.”
Jeran translates aloud for me. The Speaker regards me carefully. If he doesn’t believe me, he doesn’t say it. Instead, he nods at Red. “Let me see.”
At that, Aramin steps around the table and comes to stand in front of us. He draws his blades. “With all due respect, sir,” he says, “this may be dangerous.”
“I can’t very well discuss something I have no knowledge of, can I?” The Speaker lifts an eyebrow. “I want to see what this Skyhunter can do. Show me the physical transformation.”
I nod at the Firstblade’s hesitation. Then I take a few steps away from Red. Through our link, I send him a thought.
He wants to see your wings, Red, I tell him.
His lips tighten, and for a moment I wonder if he’s unable to do it on command, that he can only transform if in an emergency. That if he does transform, it will be like that night, when he lost himself so thoroughly that he couldn’t pull himself back.
But Red nods in response and turns to face the Speaker. I gasp. Through our bond, I feel the intoxicating rush of his strength. It’s impossible. Where does it come from? It floods his every vein, as if replacing his blood with the ocean, the air in his lungs with a storm’s gale. The sensation leaves me trembling.
Then Red’s wings unfurl behind him in a ripple of black metal. I can only look on in horrified awe as they expand, wider and wider, each feather a deadly, dark blade, stretching to either side of him until they reach the edges of the chamber.
He no longer looks like a human. He looks like a machine, built for death.
Aramin takes a step back. Even his sharp frown wavers now in the face of Red’s transformation. The Speaker watches with an unchanging expression, but I can see his hesitation in the stiffness of his posture. Beside me, Jeran rests his hands on his weapons, while Adena’s lips move unconsciously, as if she were already calculating how the Federation had managed to create such a thing.
I wait to see if Red’s eyes will glow, as they did on the battlefield, but they stay dark and unblinking on the Speaker.
“It’s true, then.” The Speaker finally nods at Red. “The Federation has done their work on you.” Then his gaze shifts to me. “What are you proposing?”
The link between Red and me tightens like a bowstring. I bow my head again, then sign my answer to the Firstblade. Jeran says my words aloud: “The Federation is capable of controlling their Ghosts. They attack only those who aren’t part of the Federation’s army. We’ve known this for decades. The same should be true for this prisoner—and yet, he doesn’t answer to them. Instead, he holds the key to what we need.”
Jeran nods here to Adena. She steps forward, her energy crackling nervously in the air. “Ghosts do not obey the Federation simply at their creation,” she explains. “The poison they ingest permeates every inch of their blood.” She takes a deep breath. “But this Skyhunter is proof that the Federation can make mistakes.”
“What kind of mistakes?” the Speaker asks.
Adena glances at me, hesitant. “The Skyhunter tells us that the Federation uses a mental link between themselves and their creations to force them to obey. But Red escaped into our borders before his link could properly set. He has instead bonded with Talin, and in a way that does not involve control from either end. I believe this is because the Federation creates this link in a multistep process—first establishing the link, then asserting their authority through it. Red only experienced the first step. It means that even though neither he nor Talin control each other, they are able to communicate with each other through their link.”
This surprises the Speaker more than Red’s wings. He looks quickly at me, eyes narrowed in suspicion, and searches my gaze for evidence of something supernatural. “You’re sure of this?”
I look at Red. We have to prove ourselves, I tell him without moving my hands at all.
He looks back at me and nods. Even in this small gesture, the others around us shuffle, and the Speaker eyes the air between us uneasily. They can tell that we have somehow spoken to each other without having spoken, that some kind of invisible communication has happened here that somehow managed to exclude them all. And even though I’ve talked to Red like this before, a new thrill hums through me at the public display of it. Here, I am not the one incapable of speech. I can talk in this world where others cannot.
Beside me, Red opens his mouth. He addresses the Speaker in Karenese. At the same time, I can hear his words in my mind, can instinctively understand the meaning of them without understanding the language itself. My hands come up; I gesture the same phrase to Jeran, who translates it aloud to the Speaker.
Then, I do the same with Red. I look at him, then think a phrase in Maran. I enunciate it in our own tongue, speaking it slowly and carefully through our link. As I do, Red repeats the words aloud, his eyes never leaving mine as he goes.
This is the more impressive feat, hearing this brute of a Federation soldier utter aloud the language of this nation, with all the correct intonations. The Speaker straightens, face stricken with bewilderment, his eyes darting back and forth between us.
When Red finishes, Jeran clears his throat and translates my signs. “Their minds are linked, as if one,” he says. “If Red had fallen under the Federation’s direct control, this link would be what they would have used to command him, to trigger certain emotional states and actions from him, to use him as precisely as a puppeteer does a puppet. But here, as you can see, their link went awry. It has fallen instead into our hands.”
Silence. While the Speaker’s eyes stay on us, still disbelieving, Aramin narrows his eyes. Behind his dark curiosity, I see an expression I would’ve never expected him to direct my way. Respect. I’m so taken aback that I look away, unable to bear it.
When the Speaker finally replies, his voice is thick with distrust. “How do we know this power between them won’t be used against us?” he says. “A Karensan soldier and a Striker who comes from a nation now controlled by the Federation.”
“You’re saying they might still be working for the Federation, sir?” Jeran says.
“How do we know this soldier does not have a connection to the Federation?” the Speaker goes on. “That he will use this link he now has with one of our Strikers to feed the Federation information about us? How do we even know that this Basean is loyal to us, rather than some spy?”
He isn’t wrong. We don’t know, truthfully, if Red still has some kind of tie with
the Federation’s Premier. All we are really banking on is the fact that I have a history serving as a Striker, and that I have sensed nothing traitorous in Red’s mind.
The Firstblade comes to my defense. “Talin has trained as a Striker since she was twelve,” he says. “Since then, she has been loyal, has never done anything to arouse suspicion. If she says that this bond is what it is, that this Skyhunter is on our side, I’m inclined to believe her.”
After the tense way Aramin and I had confronted each other in the arena over Red’s life, it’s strange to now hear him stand firmly by both of us. Nearby, Jeran smiles quietly to himself.
“Besides,” Adena adds, “it’s a dangerous game for the Federation to play, handing us one of their newer experiments like this. Would they let one of their own purposely lay waste to two entire battalions of their soldiers, with the risk of letting an open link like this fall into our hands?”
The Speaker has nothing to add to that, but the frown stays on his face.
“This is the first time we have an actual example of such a link,” Adena goes on, trying to take advantage of the silence. “It’s worth studying this in our labs.”
“You’re seeking to discover how the Federation creates such a bond,” the Firstblade says, “and then learn how to destroy that same bond. Is that right?”
“Yes, sir.” Adena is so eager now that she’s leaning forward, hands gesturing along with her words. “It’s the Federation’s greatest strength, that ability to command their monsters. If we can sever it, we might have a chance to win this war and push them back. Maybe even to push them out of other nations already conquered.”
The Speaker sniffs dismissively. “This can’t be done,” he says.
Instead of seeing this as a possibility, he sounds hesitant, fearful. Even annoyed. I frown at the tone of his voice. What do we have to lose?
Adena catches it too. “I think it’s worth a try, sir,” she answers defensively.
“You won’t have long to work,” the Speaker warns.
“We won’t have long to fight, either,” I answer with my hands. Jeran translates my words, and all eyes turn to me. “The Federation has pushed back our warfront. We have reached the end of our choices,” I finally sign. “If we don’t act now, we will fail.”
