by Marie Lu
“You will each be confined separately.” His gaze goes to Red. I know Red could kill him, without question—that no one here can physically restrain Red or keep him in any bonds—but there’s no fear on Aramin’s face. “The Skyhunter will return to his old cell.”
Red glares at the Firstblade in disgust before shifting his eyes away.
We’re brought down the circular depths of the prison, lower and lower, to the damp floors where only meager shafts of light illuminate the darkness. Here, we’re each placed in a separate cell. Mine is small, smaller than my mother’s home, with a grating the size of my palm on the floor and one on the side of the wall. Through the floor grating, I catch brief glimpses of Jeran in the cell below me, pacing incessantly from one corner of the room to the other. There’s no telling where Adena is being held.
I lean back against the wall and close my eyes. Red is on the bottom floor, but he’s near enough that I can see fragments of his world through my own point of view, glimpses of the small army of soldiers surrounding him in a wide circle, watching him in his cell with their guns pointed at him.
Red, I try to say to him through our bond. He’s too far away to hear it, but I do sense his mood flicker with a ray of something light at my attempt.
Somehow, I savor the thought of him being able to sense me but not hear my words. So I decide to continue. I’m sorry you’ve ended up exactly where you began. The thought gets a bitter chuckle out of me, and as if in answer, I feel a brief spark of amusement come from Red. Well, I’m glad one of us is pleased by this, I tell him wryly.
He’s silent, but the space between us doesn’t feel empty, and I let myself sink into the comfort of his presence in my mind.
I’m sorry, Red, I tell him after a while. We wanted to avenge your family. You gave everything you could and withstood returning to the place that held you captive. We still failed you.
The weight of that realization sits heavy in my mind. I let myself stay very still in the darkness, trying to keep my feelings down, glad he can’t sense everything.
I don’t know what to do, I confess. I don’t know how we’re going to survive all this. Maybe we won’t.
His mood shifts again, somber now, but there is a current of something else there. Gratitude. And then … what?
Love? The thought makes me blush, but instead of pushing it down, I feel a surge of courage.
I’m most sorry that I won’t get a chance to know you better, I say. Maybe, in another life, we could have taken our time with each other. I … I hesitate, my pulse quickening. I would have liked that.
He doesn’t answer, of course, but his emotions sway with mine, warm and close. I imagine him pulling me into an embrace, his arms strong and steady, wrapping me tight. And somewhere through these walls, in a prison down below, he answers with a vague image of his face close to mine, eyes lowered.
The door to my cell groans open. I startle out of my reverie to see a soldier give me a brief nod. “Your visitor,” he tells me. Then he steps aside to let my mother in.
She’s carrying a small cloth package. From the messy way it’s tied, I know that the guards must have undone her careful knots to inspect everything inside the sack before tossing it back to her. She gives me a grim smile, her eyes roaming the chains shackling my limbs, before sitting across from me and unwrapping the cloth.
Inside are her handmade meat buns, still warm, and a large bowl of noodles with roasted chicken and carrots. There are ripe apricots from the tree beside her home, as well as sweet sticky cakes made from pounded seaflour and sugarweed.
My throat tightens with emotion at the sight. Chicken is not an easy meat to get, not even in the Inner City, and neither is the beef for the meat buns. I don’t know what my mother must have traded in order to make this food for me.
She waves a hand in annoyance at my expression. “The first thing I thought when I saw you led back through the city,” she signs, “is that you haven’t eaten enough the past few weeks. Your last good meal must have been the one we had before you left.”
Now I genuinely laugh, the sound coming out as a hoarse whisper. We had risked death on a train into Cardinia—I had looked the Premier in the eye, had broken into the Federation’s lab complex and lived to tell of our escape, had fled through the woods bordering both sides of our warfront. But my mother’s main concern is that I didn’t eat enough while in the Federation.
I want to hug her. “Thank you,” I sign before picking up one of the buns, then offering her the second one.
She frowns and shakes her head. “For you,” she says in Basean. “I just want to see you eat.”
I finish one of the buns and half of the bowl of noodles and chicken before my mother speaks again. “I’ve asked the Firstblade what they plan to do with you,” she signs. “He won’t tell me. No one else will give me any information.” She pauses to make a disgusted face. “They can’t do anything to you. Not with the Federation about to push past the warfront. They need you in your Striker coat, defending us.”
My best guess is that they will execute me, because the Speaker couldn’t care less about whether Mara survives the next attack, and he will want me silenced before I start spreading the truth about his treason. But I don’t want to tell my mother this, especially not with the knowledge that the Federation is going to invade soon. What good would it do for her to know about the Speaker’s betrayal, anyway? It will only give the Senate a reason to punish my mother if they find out that she knows too.
“They haven’t told me any more than they’ve given you,” I answer instead. “But it doesn’t really matter, does it?”
She stares at the cold, damp stones of the floor. “No, I guess it doesn’t.”
The grief in her posture is the acknowledgment that, no matter how hard she had tried to keep us out of the Federation’s rule, we’re going to fall to them anyway. When we do, anything the Maran Speaker chooses to do with me will be nothing compared to what the Federation’s Premier will inflict on me.
“You have to hide, Ma,” I tell her now. “When they come. Do you hear me? At the first sign, make for the forests. Stay there for as long as you can.”
“While you stay and fight?” she scoffs aloud in Basean. “I’m not running again. It didn’t do much good the first time.” She pauses for a long moment. “What did you see in there?” she whispers.
I know what she’s trying to ask. What kind of fate is in store for us all?
“Darkness,” I tell her. “Disguised as light.”
She doesn’t answer. After a while, she says, “I hope you bury it in the back of your mind. Sometimes, it’s better to forget.”
I look her directly in the eyes. “I love you,” I sign.
My mother takes my hands in hers, then kisses my fingers. “I love you,” she signs in return.
The words are foreign in our house, as unnatural a part of our lives as it is a part of Basean culture. The rarity makes it carry that much more weight, though—I can feel it in the strength of her grip and linger of her stare.
“Don’t give up,” she says to me in the tongue of our homeland as the guards finally return to escort her out. “You haven’t lost yet.”
* * *
As the afternoon stretches on, I fall in and out of a light slumber. Rumors overheard from the guards outside my door tell me that the Firstblade is going to visit each of our cells before the night comes. Maybe it’s to tell us what our fates will be.
Finally, as the afternoon dims into evening, I hear a commotion in Jeran’s cell below me. I come out of my half sleep, then crane my neck so I can peer through my grating to see Jeran rise to his feet. He taps his fist to his chest and bows low at the figure that strides through his door. In the torchlight filtering into our cells, Aramin’s face is washed in hues of blue and gray.
He doesn’t waste any time. “The Speaker has ordered me to arrange for your execution,” he signs to Jeran. I squint, paying close attention to the silhouette of his hands moving.
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Jeran doesn’t reply at first. He keeps his head bowed, waiting for Aramin to say more. When he doesn’t, Jeran seems to swallow and nod. “And what about Talin and Adena?” he asks aloud.
“They’ll receive the same sentence,” Aramin replies.
Jeran narrows his eyes. “What’s their crime?”
“Disobeying an order from the Senate and crossing enemy lines without authorization.”
“Aramin,” he says. It’s the first time I’ve heard him address the Firstblade by name since Aramin gained the position. “You know they don’t deserve their sentence.”
I can tell that Jeran’s words affect Aramin. He blinks, and suddenly, the energy between them seems to shift from a superior and a subordinate to two young soldiers, once ranked the same, once comrades in war.
“And why is that?” Aramin says tightly.
“When we became Strikers, we took an oath to protect this nation with our lives.”
“It was a direct order.”
“Sometimes you have to disobey an order to protect what you love.”
This is the closest I’ve ever heard Jeran speak against his Firstblade, and I can tell that Aramin feels the weight of it. He considers Jeran quietly. Finally, he says, “And what about you?”
Jeran hesitates.
At his silence, Aramin scowls. The black bones piercing his ears glint in the weakening light. “You’ve used all your strength and passion to vouch for someone else. What about you? Do you think you deserve your sentence?”
Jeran is silent for a long time before he finally answers. “No,” he replies. But he says it quietly, so quietly that I think even Aramin can barely hear him.
The Firstblade sighs and then draws one of his blades. He points it at his subordinate. Then he tosses the blade to Jeran and draws a second one of his own. “Disarm me, then,” he tells Jeran.
“What?”
“You’re nicknamed the Deathdancer for a reason. Disarm me, fight for your life that you deserve, and I’ll order your release.”
Jeran shakes his head. “I won’t fight you, Aramin.”
“We used to fight each other all the time. You were the best I ever sparred with.”
“Then I suppose I’m going to disappoint you,” Jeran says.
Aramin’s lips tighten. “You won’t even fight for your freedom?”
Jeran stays quiet, struggling against the words he wants to say.
Without warning, Aramin darts forward. His blade cuts toward Jeran in an arc. There is no mercy in the movement—but Jeran deflects it with ease, bringing his blade up in a flash and clashing once with Aramin’s before spinning out of the way. Aramin lunges again, this time striking high. Jeran ducks low and twists his blade with a smooth flick of his wrist. Again, Aramin’s hit only glances off Jeran’s blade.
Aramin scowls at Jeran’s flawless technique but his reluctance to retaliate. “Why won’t you fight back?” he says through gritted teeth. He aims to hit Jeran again, but again Jeran deflects the blow. Again, Jeran doesn’t lunge for Aramin.
There’s a grief in Aramin’s voice now. “You defend others, fight for their right to live. But you don’t defend yourself against those who want to hurt you. You won’t fight for yourself.”
“Just as you don’t raise your voice against a Speaker you disagree with?” Jeran snaps.
Aramin pauses in his attack, taken aback.
There’s a flash of something wild and fierce in Jeran’s eyes. “The Speaker refuses to allow refugees to join our ranks,” he continues. “He keeps rations secured only for his wealthy friends. And as we discovered, he’s willing to sell his own country to his enemy in exchange for his own safety. But you still fight for him. Are those the orders you want me to obey?”
The Firstblade is silent, his blade still. He’s staring at Jeran as if he’s seeing him for the first time and not recognizing him at all. I hold my breath, watching.
“What do you mean?” he says in a low voice. “About the Speaker selling his own country to his enemy?”
“Ask Talin,” Jeran responds. “It won’t change anything, regardless. What good is our word, as a group of treasonous Strikers? The Speaker will stay in power as long as Mara still stands.” He shakes his head. “Sometimes you have to disobey an order to protect those you love.”
“And who do you love?” Aramin asks him quietly.
Jeran says nothing. Instead, he throws down the blade Aramin had given him and bends his knee. He puts his fist back against his chest. His hair has loosened slightly from its knot, and messy, red-gold strands hang on either side of his face.
“I came back here,” he replies, “for you.”
Aramin doesn’t answer for a long time. When he finally does, his voice is subdued. “You should have stayed in the woods, out of the Federation’s reach.”
Even though Jeran doesn’t move, I can see the impact of Aramin’s response shudder through him and the tremor it leaves.
“I’d rather you stay alive than die at my side,” Aramin adds.
Then he turns and steps out of the cell, leaving Jeran kneeling alone on the floor.
* * *
I don’t know how much time passes after the Firstblade leaves Jeran’s cell. The night settles in earnest, and my cell plunges into darkness, lit only by the faintest trace of moonlight spilling down from the grating in the side of the wall. For a while, I try to count the hours in my head. I fall into a doze sometimes, but nightmares keep me from sinking into a real sleep. I can’t tell if the dreams are mine or Red’s.
Finally, at some strange hour of the night, my cell door opens again. This time, when I straighten myself against the wall, I see no guard accompanying my guest inside. Instead, Aramin emerges alone from the darkness to stand before me.
He doesn’t speak aloud. Instead, he kneels to my level and gives me a strange, severe look. It’s a warning that what we’re about to discuss is as dangerous as if we were hunting Ghosts at the warfront.
“What do you know about the Speaker?” he signs to me.
I search his gaze and see the young man he was before he became the Firstblade. This is the person Jeran had awakened—someone so brave and headstrong on the warfront that he’d been tapped to lead us at an unusually young age. I remember the letter he’d written to Jeran, warning us all so that we could flee for the Federation. Now Aramin has come to see me in secret, risking his standing in an attempt to get the truth.
Aramin sees my hesitation, but he doesn’t comment on it. Instead, he waits patiently.
“Our mission failed,” I sign, “but it would have succeeded. Adena’s discovery would have disconnected the Ghosts in the Federation’s lab complex from their masters. And for a while, we even saw it in action.”
“What happened?”
“The Federation knew, somehow, that we were on our way, that we had entered their territory and were on a mission to destroy their links with their Ghosts. Their Premier told me they had been expecting us, all along. He had been informed of our arrival.”
The Firstblade’s eyes pierce mine. He already knows what I’ll say next.
“Aramin,” I tell him, “our Speaker made a deal with the Federation’s Premier in exchange for his own life being spared after Mara falls.”
He looks away, pale with the realization, and fixates on the torches flickering outside my door. “What deal?” he asks.
“The Speaker warned them that we would try to disrupt their links with their Ghosts. He told them what we had discovered, and it gave the Federation enough time to create an antidote to Red’s blood.”
“You’re sure about this?”
“The Federation’s Premier himself told us.”
“Have you told anyone else?”
“No.”
“Good.” Aramin’s lips tighten. “If the Speaker hears about this accusation against him, there will be nothing I can do to save you.”
“Will you save us now?”
A wry smile appears on his lips. �
��Perhaps my chances are better.”
I return the smile with a somber one of my own. “There’s nothing you can do, is there?”
He’s quiet, and for the first time, I think that this soldier, who I’ve never seen weep, who is somehow capable of bearing the weight of leading us all, who gave me the chance to escape the Outer City, looks helpless.
“I’m sorry, Talin,” he signs.
I just shake my head. “We’re going to lose, anyway,” I respond. “Maybe it’s better to die at the hands of Marans.”
Aramin searches my gaze. Then he rises to his feet. “Well,” he responds, “if we’re going to lose, then perhaps we should do it right.”
31
The night passes. I twitch in a restless sleep. Every sound outside my cell door—echoes of the guards’ boots as they change shifts, voices and distant shouts from other prisoners—makes me stir, thinking that the Firstblade has returned to see me or that the Speaker has sent someone to have me killed. But no one comes.
Red. I reach out again through our link. I’ve been calling for him regularly through the night, in the hopes that he might somehow hear me, but if he does, there’s no answer. I imagine him breaking loose of his bonds, cutting through all his chains and slaughtering the guards. But he won’t do such a thing, not when our lives might be at risk, when we need everyone to push back against the oncoming Federation.
What will happen, though, if they do choose to execute us? Will Red be forced to save us and carry us to safety in the wilderness, abandoning everyone we know here?
Even though Red can’t hear my exact words or thoughts, I summon the hope that he can feel what I’m thinking. A moment later, I sense the push of his emotions through the bond, his undercurrent of anger at the thought of us being led out to the arena to be killed. He would do it, I realize. He would stop at nothing to protect us.
The day drags on without any visitors. I start to wonder if something has happened to Aramin. What if the Speaker had him arrested—or murdered? In the cell below me, Jeran paces, his wrists flicking as he practices his forms. Sometimes he glances up through the grate, his eyes searching for mine. When he finds me, his gaze is hollow with despair.
