by Marie Lu
Another ripple of murmurs crosses the table, followed by a few scattered grins from the other Baseans. I snap back to the conversation around me.
“Hm,” Mr. Oyano is grunting at the end of the table, casting glances at Red. “So what if he’s a prisoner of war?” he says aloud in Basean, shutting my Striker mates out of the conversation. “Doesn’t make him less of a Karensan. Besides, why aren’t these Strikers all at their mess hall inside the city? Who wants to spend a night out here?”
My mother glares at him. “Is it strange to you that my daughter wants to see us on the first night of Midwinter, before they set off to the warfront?”
“I think it’s strange that the rest of them are here, yes.”
“They’re here all the time,” his wife intercedes, shooting me an apologetic look.
“So?” The man shrugs and leans toward us, pointing his flatbread at me. “What kind of Basean is allowed to become a Striker?”
“Pa,” Decaine mutters, his face turning beet red. “Stop.”
“What?” Mr. Oyano ignores his son and continues. “They don’t even permit us past the walls, let alone into some prestigious uniform. But I’ll tell you this. Last week some guards came and took my neighbor Pason for questioning. Thought he was hiding tax money behind his business in the markets and confiscated a canister of cash he’d buried under his doormat. How would they know that?”
“What’s going on?” Adena signs to Jeran as she nudges him.
“They think we’re spies,” Jeran signs back to her.
Mr. Oyano narrows his eyes at them. “And stop doing that,” he snaps, pointing at their hands. “Using that spy language of yours. Speak to us. I know you can,” he adds to Jeran.
Nana Yagerri rolls her eyes at him. “Maybe you should just learn theirs,” she says to him as she signs the same words.
“Talin isn’t a spy from the Inner City,” Kattee speaks up, in Maran so that we can all understand, and I feel guilty for being annoyed at her interest in Red. “Can’t we just enjoy their company? I never get to see so many Strikers up close.”
Mr. Oyano doesn’t pay her any attention. He just grabs another slice of flatbread and dips it in his stew. “It doesn’t matter much anyway now, does it?” he grumbles, although now he switches to Maran too. “We’re all going to be under his rule soon.” He glances at Red as he says this, but seems too intimidated to keep his eyes locked.
“If you don’t feel comfortable at this table,” my mother says stiffly to the man, “you’re welcome to leave.”
The silence settles over us as we all wait for Mr. Oyano’s answer. He stares at each of us in turn. Decaine looks like he wants to disappear. I glance at Adena, who’s currently leaning her head close to Jeran as he whispers translations for her about everything happening at the table. Red has stopped eating, and even though he doesn’t know exactly what’s been said, he senses enough of the tension hanging between everyone to know we aren’t exactly celebrating. He looks uncertainly at me.
I nod back, then reach for his hand under the table. Our fingers touch, his skin always warmer than mine. Thank my mother for her cooking, I tell him. She’ll appreciate it. Then I pronounce the words in Basean to him.
He listens through our link, ignoring the others at the table who watch him communicate in silence with me, and then turns to my mother.
“Thank you for our food,” he says to her in halting Basean.
Everyone at the table murmurs at the sight of this former Karensan soldier speaking our language.
My mother gives him a tight smile back. “You’re welcome,” she replies.
“His accent sounds funny,” Kattee’s mother says before Kattee nudges her into silence, but it’s enough to make a couple of the others at the table chuckle.
Nana Yagerri leans forward on her elbows and puckers her lips slightly at Red. “Thank you for our food,” she says for him, emphasizing the correct pronunciation.
Red tries again, getting it a little closer, but his enunciation is so exaggerated that now everyone laughs. He blinks, startled at the sound, and smiles. I nudge him teasingly under the table for it, and this time, he reaches for my hand and laces his fingers with mine. I try not to react, but heat creeps into my cheeks at the intimacy of his touch, and I realize that we’re sitting so close that my body presses slightly against his.
“I could do better than that,” Adena says with a raised eyebrow, and then goes on to completely butcher the Basean intonations. Everyone groans.
“Marans always make the r’s too heavy,” Kattee says to her. “You have to roll your tongue.”
Adena tries again, this time with different phrases that everyone throws at her and Red.
“Merry Midwinter to all.”
“To all. You say it like that and it’ll sound like you’re saying, ‘to hit a wall.’”
“Have a good night.”
“Good luck on the warfront.”
The phrases go back and forth, quicker now, and slowly, the tension at the table eases. Mr. Oyano still doesn’t look thrilled by our presence at the table, but even he grunts a few times at Red’s sillier pronunciations, shaking his head at Red’s attempt to say “This food is delicious.”
As Adena tries the same phrase, Red grins at me. I think I’m getting it, he thinks to me, and the outrageous pride in his emotions is enough to make me laugh.
A few hundred more dinners here, and you’ll be speaking fluently, I reply.
He glances at me, lips twitching with his amusement. I accept, then. A few hundred dinners here with you.
I hesitate, suddenly unsure I understand him correctly. Maybe he’ll have the chance to sit here with me, at my mother’s home, for dinner after dinner, year after year. Maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll get to grow older at each other’s side like this. As Shields, perhaps. Or as something more.
It’s an arrangement, I respond, unable to resist smiling back at him.
My hand is still entwined with his under the table. What a silly assumption to make, I scold myself in embarrassment, to fantasize about some distant future that might never happen, with someone I’ve only begun to know. But in his eyes, I see a hesitant mirror of my thoughts. It’s the wild hope of someone who dares to think we all might live long enough to be here again. That it’s not foolish to want.
“Your turn,” Adena says to him now, breaking the moment between us. “It’s only fair. What do you want to ask us, Red?” She’s relaxed now, her plate empty, and a glow seems to cast her dark skin in warmth. “Tell us something in Karenese.”
There’s a slight pause at the thought of hearing the Federation’s language at the table, but no one stops her. Instead, everyone leans in.
I look at Red. You don’t have to say anything, I tell him, but he shakes his head and returns Adena’s stare. Then he says something in Karenese.
Jeran clears his throat and looks quietly at Adena. “He asked why do we fight,” he says, “as Strikers. Why we risk our lives.”
The merry tone at the table turns somber at that. I wait, watching Adena’s face dance through several different emotions before she straightens to respond.
“For my brother,” she says. When silence follows, waiting for more from her, she continues, “My brother’s name was Olden, and when I was a little girl, he would tease me about my name. Adena, you see? In Maran, it means ‘the curious one.’ My mother used to say that my eyes were wide-open when I was born, hungrily drinking in the world. She said I tilted my head early on to show my interest in things, so my brother would tilt his head exaggeratedly at me all the time. It made me laugh like crazy, so I hear. I don’t remember any of it—I was so young when she died.” She shakes her head. “After she was gone, my brother started taking me to his Striker practices, to keep my mind off things, and when I became interested, he helped me train. I was jealous of him for a long time, you know?” She fiddles with her hands. “I was my mother’s baby girl, but he was my mother’s favorite. I think I always resente
d him a little for that, until he was captured at the warfront and held hostage with a dozen other Strikers.” Here she looks at Red, and even though I can tell she’s trying to hold back her hatred for the Federation from him, there’s still a small part of her that blames him for being Karensan. “They were never going to let him live, you know, but they let us believe it anyway. I could tell the instant they let the prisoners try to run across the border. They shot him twice in the back, took their time with each hit so he could still try to run. He died before I could reach him.”
Adena looks down at her hands. “So,” she says in a loud voice, taking a deep breath, “I fight because I like the idea that my random talents and interests, the things my brother encouraged in me, can now be used in the hopes of avenging his death. That’s why I do it.”
Her shoulders slump when she finishes, as if this had taken all her strength, but she offers Red a weary smile. He gives her a grave smile in return. It’s an acknowledgment, I realize, that Adena understands what Red might have gone through. That they’re on the same side.
Red nods at Jeran. “And you?” he asks.
“My father once said that the Senate was the place for the most esteemed young men,” Jeran replies, looking at his hands. “He had high hopes for Gabrien, my older brother, to join him in the Senate. Gabrien has a sharper mind than I do. He remembers things more quickly and can deduce the intentions of people before I can, so when he took the qualifying exams for Senate candidates, he scored high. But I kept failing my exam. No matter how long and hard I studied, I couldn’t do it. After my third try, it became clear that qualifying to become a Senate candidate wasn’t going to happen for me. It was frustrating for my father, who thought me a disappointment. So I tried out for the Strikers instead. I thought that if I could prove myself among the Strikers’ esteemed ranks, it might put me on a footing that could rival my brother. Maybe footing that my father will love.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I’m decent at it, fighting Ghosts, but it’s not my natural state. I still get sick after every battle. Still can’t eat for days after a visit to the warfront. So there it is. I love my country, will gladly die to keep us safe for as long as we can—but that is my honest reason.”
He doesn’t mention a word about his father’s abuse or his brother’s constant, cruel jests. I look at Adena, but she just appears resigned. It’s a conversation she’s had a dozen times with Jeran. Your father beats you, Jeran, she’s told him before, gently, then firmly. Sometimes to the point where you can’t walk across the arena. You have to stop trying to earn the love of a monster.
But there are only so many times we can say it to him. Jeran waits, bracing himself for the rebuke from Adena and me, but Adena just shakes her head and looks away.
Red’s eyes fall on me. My reason to fight.
And I hesitate. I’m not sure why I do it, to be honest. Here we are, eating a Midwinter feast in front of a shack in the mud, when my mother should be living in somewhere dry and warm. Mara refuses to let her into their walls. They call us rats. We are seen as the invader.
But Mara had been the country to open her doors for us when we were at our most desperate, when she had a nobler leader. She had saved us from our fates in the Federation. We may be rats here, but we are alive. And here I am, wearing the sapphire coat of a Striker. Mara is imperfect, but it is not the Federation. I had seen the fires of hell on the night they invaded Basea, have witnessed what they are capable of. And if they cross here into Mara, if they swallow this nation too, then what will they do?
“I fight because there are good people in Mara,” I finally decide to sign. “Because when we all left Basea and came here, we brought with us everything and everyone we loved the most. They’re here.” I look pointedly at those around the table. “Doesn’t our presence make Mara home? Isn’t that worth fighting for?”
The table is silent as Jeran translates my signs aloud. No one speaks for some time after he finishes. We refugees had all seen the Federation’s darkness firsthand. Perhaps everyone is imagining what this place will look like when their red-and-black banners hang over the walls, when their Ghosts are led, chained, through the streets in victory, and when our families are split apart and sent to various destinations inside their territory.
It’s during this silence that a messenger arrives from the National Hall. I turn at the sound of steps sloshing along the path and look up to see a young Maran grimacing at the grime of the shanties. A look of relief crosses his face at the sight of us.
“From the Firstblade,” he mutters, thrusting an envelope at Jeran with the Firstblade’s seal. Then he turns around without bidding any of us farewell, as if he couldn’t wait to wash the infection of the Outer City from his body.
Jeran leaps up before anyone else can say a word. He breaks open the seal and pulls out the letter. Then he reads it in silence, his eyes fixated on every word.
My heart contracts at the expression on his face. A cold sweat breaks out on my brow.
“Tell us, Jeran,” my mother says in the silence.
Jeran folds the letter and looks around the table. “The Speaker has refused our mission,” he answers quietly.
Red hisses through his teeth at the same time Adena leans forward on the table with a slap of her fists. “What?” she says.
“There must be some miscommunication,” I sign.
Jeran shakes his head. Then he unfolds it again and reads it aloud. “‘Jeran,’” he says, his voice hoarse. “‘The Speaker and the Senate have rejected your mission to take the Skyhunter into Federation territory. They believe we will be handing the most invaluable weapon we’ve ever gained back into the hands of our enemy. They have ordered you and your team grounded within the Striker complex, while Red has been ordered to the labs to be bled in an attempt to inoculate as many soldiers as possible. You have until morning to comply.’” His voice drops to a near whisper. “‘Eyes forward, my Deathdancer. Yours, Aramin.’”
Signed not as the Firstblade, but as his own name. Jeran blinks back tears as his hands tremble against the letter. He doesn’t even seem to care that, in reading this letter aloud, he has all but revealed to us the feelings between himself and the Firstblade.
I curl my hands into fists so tight that my nails threaten to cut through the skin of my palms. The Senate is unwilling. Unable to see. Too afraid to take a chance, even when the solution is right before their eyes. This is the same kind of irrational decision that has kept other refugees from serving in the Striker ranks.
“This is idiocy,” Adena snaps. “The Speaker has sentenced Mara to death. Every child. Every civilian. This country will burn down in flames.” She whirls, holding her hand out to Red. “The potential answer to defeating the entire Federation, sitting right here with us. And the Speaker is going to turn his back!”
“More than that,” I add, and the others turn to me. “They’re essentially arresting us. We’re confined to the Striker complex until further notice.”
“They won’t even let us fight,” Jeran says, pale. “They think we’re going to resist the order and they’re going to keep us from helping on the warfront. They really think Red can survive our labs and then take on the entire Federation army.”
Red narrows his eyes. I will not bleed for your Speaker, he says through our bond. Not like this.
No, you won’t, I reply.
He glances quickly at me as I stand. I point to the Firstblade’s writing on the letter. “Don’t you see?” I sign. My finger underlines his sentences. “You have until morning to comply.” I look up and meet Jeran’s eyes. “The Firstblade cared enough about you to write this,” I sign gently. “What does he mean?”
“Aramin is warning us,” he signs back before running his fingers carefully over the Firstblade’s signature. “He’s risking arrest himself by having this message delivered to us twelve hours early. He’s telling us in the hopes that we’ll escape while we can.”
“Escape? Where?” Adena says before the realizat
ion dawns in her eyes. She meets Jeran’s bleak gaze. “You don’t mean—”
The Firstblade is trying to give us a head start to the warfront, buy us a night to travel there and cross into the heart of the Federation before the Senate sends troops to arrest us. But there is more in his message. He knows, in doing this, that his letter may be his final words to Jeran.
Eyes forward, my Deathdancer. He is giving us his blessing and bidding him farewell.
I look at my mother. We exchange a silent, knowing gaze. As a Striker, I have had a hundred moments that might have been the last time we see each other, but this time, I’m not just heading out with my patrols to face the monsters. This time we are the hunted, by ally and enemy.
Something in my mother’s eyes reminds me of the way she’d looked on the night we’d fled into Mara, that light of panic and desperation. I wait for her to tell me not to go, for me to argue it with her, but it never comes. She doesn’t flinch. She can see that it will do no good, because my mind is already made up.
“We’re going on this mission,” I tell the others. “We are going into the heart of the Federation. But we have to leave now. Tonight. Before they come for us.”
The rest of the table watches in silence as the reality sinks in for each of us. Even Mr. Oyano, who moments earlier had sneered at Red, now says nothing. I know, without speaking, that these Basean refugees will protect us and pretend that we never received such a letter, that they never saw us here tonight.
Finally, Jeran speaks. “To honor Mara, then.”
“Honor is a thankless thing,” Adena mutters. “They’ll hunt us in the morning, like we’re criminals.”
“Sometimes a crime is an act of heroism,” my mother answers quietly. She looks at me as she says it, and I know she is telling me she loves me.
I force my breathing to steady in order to keep my tears from spilling out. Her words ring around the table, silencing us all, and Adena lowers her eyes for a moment at the truth of it. I look at my mother and suddenly wish I hadn’t decided to go, that I didn’t think this was the only way to save us.
