by Chele Cooke
Keiran dropped his spoon back into the bowl and stared at Dhiren with narrowed eyes. He rubbed his fingers into the bridge of his nose, shaking his head.
“Why did you even let me suggest this plan whilst knowing that?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because getting the Volsonnar’s approval to detonate the Mykahnol kind of defeats the point, doesn’t it?” Georgianna said.
Keiran jabbed his thumb at her and nodded.
“You said the ship needs a Cahlven to pilot it, right?” Dhiren asked. “Something about biology?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, if this is the same, then maybe it’s that tletonise stuff E’Troke was going on about.”
Tletonise was the way Edtroka had explained how children had their parents’ eye and hair colour, that it was the code they were made by. Apparently, the Adveni only bred from ‘good’ code. Those who were found to have undesirable code were branded Zsraykil and sterilised. Georgianna had no idea what they considered bad code, but in her opinion it was disgusting that a bunch of scientists decided whether someone could have a child or not.
“That doesn’t help us,” Georgianna said.
“Maybe, maybe not. If it is tletonise, then E’Troke might have been able to work it.”
“Congratulations!” Keiran said as he leaned back onto his elbows. “How about we go collect his corpse and drag it to the Mykahnol, see what happens?”
Georgianna flinched and scratched her cheek. She didn’t want to hear Keiran labelling Edtroka as dead so casually. The hole opened up in her stomach again and she stared down at the map as Dhiren leaned closer.
“Which means Ehnisque might be able to work it,” he said.
“So what, we just go and ask her nicely?” said Georgianna.
Dhiren shrugged and collected up his bowl, scraping out the last of the food. He let his spoon hang out of his mouth, looking like a dog particularly pleased with a bone.
Keiran, on the other hand, was fixed on the map, his gaze roaming across the surface. He scratched his neck and the back of his shoulder, deep in thought.
“I might have a way,” he said.
“What is it?”
He clambered to his feet and, as Georgianna moved to follow him, he waved her back down.
“Keep working. Figure out where we want this barrier to fall and maybe bring the tech in to determine whether the shield will even do what we need. I’ll be back soon.”
He strode from the room without another word. The front door opened and closed and, when Georgianna got to her feet and ran to the window, Keiran was striding away through the rain, back towards the main body of the camp.
“Do you know what he’s thinking?” she asked Dhiren.
“I’m hoping it’s something to do with capturing Ehnisque and holding a gun to her head until she does what we want, but I doubt it,” he said, sighing.
Georgianna doubted that, too. With nothing to do but wait for Keiran to share his idea, she returned to Dhiren to help decide how much of their city they would wipe off the map.
Georgianna closed the door against the rain, huffing and shaking off the water. She returned to the window. On the other side of the glass the sheets of rain reduced visibility to the length of her arm. The world was a wash of grey under dark clouds. It had rained all through the night, and the rising sun made little difference to the darkness spreading over her view.
“Will you sit down, please?” Dhiren said. “You’re making me twitchy.”
He was sitting against the wall, a shirt rolled up and propped behind his head. His eyes were closed and his arms and legs crossed. Georgianna rolled her eyes and returned to pacing.
“Why isn’t he back yet?”
“Without knowing where he was going or what he planned on doing, I don’t know.”
Georgianna huffed again and balled her hand into a fist, punching the side of her leg.
“Why didn’t he tell us what he was doing?” she asked. “He’s so secretive.”
Cracking one eye open, Dhiren tracked her progress back and forth in front of the window.
“The plan was to have different people know different things so that—”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. So that I can’t spill all our secrets again.”
“Nobody blames you for that,” he said.
When she snorted, he opened both eyes and abandoned his idea of sleep. Sitting forwards, he grabbed the shirt and shook it out, laying it across his lap.
“Anyone could have broken, George.”
“But they didn’t,” she said, striking her leg harder. “I did.”
“What’s your point?”
She turned away from the window and leaned against the wall. Her palms were clammy as she rubbed her hands over her face.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I just feel like… oh, it doesn’t matter.”
“No, come on, tribe mate.”
When she looked at him through her fingers, he was grinning. Behind the smile, his eyes were shrewd and calculating. Georgianna sighed.
“Even before Maarqyn, before Edtroka and the compound, they always treated me like someone to be protected and looked after.”
Dhiren rubbed his jaw and rested his head in his hand, gazing up at her. He didn’t say anything, he just stared, his lips pursed and an eyebrow arched, waiting. Georgianna wiped her sweaty palms off on her trousers. She looked anywhere but at him. He just kept right on staring.
It was true. Alec had always been this way, even when she was young. She wasn’t allowed to go on hunting trips because she was too young and might get hurt. Her brother didn’t want her away from camp for too long and didn’t like it when she went to help other tribes with medicine. All of them wanted to keep her in one place so she wouldn’t hurt herself.
That was it. They didn’t do it because they thought someone else would hurt her. They did it because they thought she would hurt herself.
“I’m not a child!” she said. “And I’m not Maarqyn’s little bird, either. I don’t need to be kept in a cage, protected from everything.”
Dhiren still stared.
“Of course you’re not.”
Georgianna touched the top of her shoulder, brushing her fingers back and forth over her shirt. Maarqyn had branded her a caged bird and that was exactly how her own people were treating her. Edtroka had done it too, she realised. He’d given his life because he didn’t think she could survive outside those bars.
She shifted her weight and dragged her fingers through her hair.
“I don’t need looking after!”
“Clearly.”
“Will you stop agreeing with me?”
Dhiren’s thoughtful stare turned into a grin as she turned away from him. Leaning over his knees, he picked up one of the stones that secured the map and rolled it along his fingers.
“Alright, let’s say they treat you like a child,” he said. “How do you want them to treat you?”
Slumping down against the wall, Georgianna stared into her hands.
“I want to be their equal. I want—”
“That’s your problem.”
“What is?”
“Wanting.”
She raised an eyebrow and stared back at his crooked grin.
“What?”
“You want them to treat you differently, but have you done anything to make them treat you differently?”
“How can I? They won’t tell me anything! Keiran runs off any time he has an idea. Probably to talk to Beck or someone else he considers useful.”
“And you let him.”
His smug smile made her want to punch him, but apparently, wanting was wrong.
“So what? I stop him from leaving? Force him to tell me things?”
“No, that would just make you petulant.”
Placing the stone back on the map, Dhiren got to his feet. He held up his hand and left the room, leaving Georgianna sitting against the wall. She listened to his footsteps
and the rustling from the other room, wondering if she should have followed. That would probably make her petulant, too.
When he returned, he came to stand in front of her, keeping his hand behind his back.
“You really want to fight?” he asked. “You want them to treat you differently?”
She licked her bottom lip and drew the flesh back between her teeth. She wasn’t sure she would like what Dhiren had in mind, but it had to be better than this.
“Yes.”
He brought his hand out. He had a gun, loaded and ready. For a moment all she could wonder was where he’d been keeping it.
“Stop simply wanting things to change. Change them yourself.”
Now, his smirk was a challenge. She was sure he thought she’d shrink away from it.
Getting to her feet, Georgianna looked down at the gun in his hand. Her gaze flickered up to that doubting smile.
She took the weapon, and Dhiren’s smile grew broader.
“You and I are going hunting. If I’m going to be in a tribe with you, you’re gonna be useful. You ready to break out of the cage, little bird?”
For the first time in days, the smile that came to her felt honest. She was truly excited.
“Ready.”
The Oprust district bore some of the worst scars of the fighting. Windows had been blown out of most buildings and there wasn’t a single shop that was open for trading. The streets were so quiet that Georgianna and Dhiren had to duck from alley to alley to avoid being seen, without the crowds to hide in. The rain had settled to a constant drizzle that clung to their bodies. The Heat was truly dying. Cold winds had set in and would stay for the weeks until they froze, along with everything else on Os-Veruh.
Dhiren hadn’t told her what the goal was, and the longer they walked, the more she considered the possibility that he didn’t have one. Instead, they just kept moving and he gave her helpful tips as they went.
“I swear, he stood in there for an hour before I finally told him he wouldn’t find any fish in a Wash river,” Dhiren said, sniggering.
“You let him stand there for an hour?”
Dhiren held his hand out in front of Georgianna, bringing her to a stop at the mouth of an alley. He peered around the corner and, after a moment, waved her onwards.
“He was so determined to do it himself and, let’s face it, those Tsevstakre uniforms don’t roll up in the legs.”
Glancing sideways at him, she raised an eyebrow.
“Are you saying he’d stripped down and you were just enjoying the view?”
He rocked his head from side to side.
“That Nsiloq was pretty good to look at.”
Georgianna snorted and decided she didn’t want to know any more. She’d known that Dhiren and Edtroka had some sort of history since the moment she’d seen them fight the guards in the compound. They worked together too well, complemented each other in such a way that couldn’t be a coincidence. Even so, it was hard to think about the fact she’d lived with Edtroka and realise she knew next to nothing about his life. Now, she had offered to stay with Dhiren, and she knew nothing about him, either.
Running her hand along the brickwork as they walked along a row of shops, Georgianna glanced frequently at Dhiren, wondering. From what she’d seen of him, he was incredibly private, only sharing things when he absolutely had to. Even when she had asked him what he’d done to get thrown into the compound, he’d only told her why the Adveni had caught him. She didn’t know which tribe he’d come from, if he’d ever had one. She knew nothing about his family or even if he had any friends before Edtroka had come along. She didn’t even know how Dhiren and Edtroka had met.
She opened her mouth to ask the question but changed her mind, looking down the road, instead. Dhiren paused and looked both ways.
“What is it?”
“We’re never going to get anywhere from down here.”
Georgianna followed his gaze.
“What do you suggest?”
Rubbing his hand over his mouth, Dhiren squinted through one of the windows into a shop.
“We need to get higher.”
“I know where we can do that.”
Ducking into an alley, Georgianna led Dhiren to one of the main roads through the district. She’d always avoided this path if possible, but, as Dhiren had said back at the house, if she wanted to stop being protected, she needed to act like someone who didn’t need it. If that meant facing some uncomfortable memories, that was what she would have to do.
The gilding on the door was flaking away and the moss-green sign that was once a fixture in the window was missing. A large hole was left where the handle had once been, and the door swung open with the lightest touch. Their boots left prints in the dust across the floor and up the stairs.
Georgianna led Dhiren into the shop where she had been captured, up to the second level and to the back corner where another door led out onto the roof. He had to barge his shoulder against it a few times before it swung open with a creak, and they stepped out onto the row of flat roofs.
They walked carefully and Dhiren looked around so frequently that she thought his head might pop off. It was only as they came to the corner and turned left, clambering up onto a higher roof, that she realised they were heading towards Javeknell Square.
“How many Adveni have you killed?”
Dhiren glanced back at her.
“I’m sorry?”
“You said you were imprisoned in the compound for killing three Adveni, and Edtroka said there were a lot more bodies they could have pinned on you.”
“Oh.”
“So, how many?”
“Does it matter?”
Georgianna shifted the gun into her other hand and climbed over a ridge of wall separating two buildings.
“Don’t you remember?”
“I remember,” he said.
“Then why won’t you tell me?”
He stopped and turned to her, using the barrel of his gun to scratch his jaw.
“Because when I tell people, they only see me as a killer.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“You saw how people reacted to me back at Nyquonat just for being in the compound. Cartwright thinks I’m some kind of monster.”
“But I know you’re not,” she said. “You weren’t doing it for fun, right?”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“So, how many?”
Frowning, he glanced along the row of roofs.
“Thirty-four.”
Georgianna blinked and stared at him.
“Wow!”
He set off without another word and she was left to hurry after him, watching her feet.
Entrances to the buildings below spiked out of the rooftops the same way the entrances to the tunnels speared from the street. They passed five before reaching a corner doorway. When they stepped out from behind it, Georgianna realised she could see down into the square, where the stones, cracked and uneven, were stained with blood. They stood in silence, staring down at the same spot, right in the centre: the place Edtroka had died.
“They’ll pay for what they did to him,” she whispered.
“They can start now.”
Georgianna looked at him in surprise and he pointed down the row. She edged around the doorway and saw a soldier standing on the roof, a large rifle hanging down his back. Dhiren adjusted his grip on the gun and drew his knife.
Scanning the rooftops, she spotted at least five more soldiers stationed around the square. Dhiren stalked past her, rounding the entrance. She grabbed him by the arm and yanked him back.
“What are you doing?” she hissed.
“What we came here to do.”
She peered out from behind the entrance to the building below. The soldier paced along the edge of the roof, watching the square from above.
“There are five other guards on these roofs, Dhiren. Even if we get this one, they’ll shoot the second they spot us.”
“You wan
ted to fight, didn’t you?”
Georgianna glared at his crooked smirk and yanked him back further.
“I wanted to fight, Dhiren. I didn’t come here to die.”
He pushed her away easily, his humour now gone. Georgianna stumbled back a step, bracing herself against the wall.
“There’s always a risk of death, George, that’s what war is,” he said, sneering. “And if you’re not going to take that risk, then maybe it’s better that people keep treating you like a child, because it’s certainly the way you’re acting.”
She didn’t wait to hear any more. Yanking the door open, she ran down the steps, not caring what she would find at the bottom. She needed to get away from the roof, away from the square, and away from Dhiren’s revenge-fuelled death wish.
It didn’t take long for Georgianna to realise that Dhiren was following her down the steps. She checked behind at every turning to make sure no Adveni were onto them, but instead she saw Dhiren, keeping his distance and not saying a word. Part of her wanted to tell him to go back and start his revenge, since he seemed so keen on it. But she felt comforted, knowing he was at her back.
For all he had said, claiming that she should be treated like a child who needed protecting, he didn’t catch up and check the corners himself. He left it to her, and she was grateful. Perhaps this was only a small step in truly joining the fight against the Adveni, but she was glad she was able to take it on her own.
The longer she walked, heading back towards the camps, the more she realised that Dhiren may have been right. She had always known that there were risks to fighting and she’d paid the cost of that risk with her family’s lives, but she’d never walked willingly into a fight before. She didn’t even count the moment when she had faced Ehnisque outside her home. She’d been gradually giving up, and now was the time to change that. Five soldiers would not turn the tide of a war, and she didn’t regret walking away this time. Soon, though, she knew she would have to push towards the fight instead of turning her back.
Of course, that didn’t mean she was entirely ready to forgive Dhiren for calling her on it, or to overlook his reckless desire for revenge.
As they entered the camps, he fell into step at her side, slotting his weapons into his belt and pushing his hands into his pockets, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. If he was feeling bad for the things he had said, he didn’t show it. That only made Georgianna angry, and she held the silence, keeping the gun in her hand as they walked through the rain.
