by Rey Balor
“I’ll be grateful when this is over,” Olena nearly groaned. It was becoming a usual occurrence between the pair: Ranger would speak, and Olena would get a headache splitting up the center of her skull. Despite the fact, she kept her voice low as well, not wanting to draw attention to them before the elders were ready.
Ranger laughed loudly, startling the nearby crowd. Several of them carried weapons and clutched them close at the noise, and that was the only sign Olena needed that it was time to begin. She nodded her head to each of the three leaders who had come forward to participate, and it was strange to see the empty spot where her father would normally stand. He was still leagues away, pulling more of the Erie-folk together for a cause they all believed in. It was selfish to wish he was there, so she focused instead on the woman in the middle — her mother, looking to her as the leader she had always meant to become.
“I know it’s early,” Olena began, and even Ranger snapped her mouth shut for a moment to listen. “It’s early, and we have more important things to do than waste our time on a chained-folk like this, so I’ll be quick about it. She’s a spy sent from one of the Queens. I don’t know what she knows, but it’s clear she knows enough. She called Illias by name and knows what he means to do, and while that’s enough for me to slit her throat and leave her for the wolves, her knowledge could affect the rest of us as well. Selfish of me to make a kill when she might be the key to granting us the right to proper deaths in the future, and if there’s one thing King taught me, it’s that it’s moments like this that define us. So I brought her here for us all to decide what to do with her. We kill her and be done with it, or we figure something else out — for the information she holds or for an effort to avoid the crime of murder, take your pick.”
Throughout her short speech, whispers had begun, and as soon as it was clear that she was done speaking, the whispers grew. The three leaders and Olena were the only ones who were silent now, and while Olena remained with the prisoner in question, the three leaders began their walks through the crowd. They spoke to the people; they listened to the people; they carefully gauged the reactions of the people as they went. The sun pierced the clouds of dawn, and the leaders continued their journey through the group, people falling silent after they had been spoken to.
Olena felt alive watching it, as each part flowed together in chaotic order. Ranger’s fate was forgotten for a moment in the sheer magnitude of the trial, but Ranger hadn’t forgotten. Olena could feel her watching, gaze flickering between the crowd and Olena. It did not disrupt the warrior’s wonder, but eventually, silence was not enough.
“What are they doing?”
“You’ll see,” Olena answered curtly.
By the time the leaders returned to the pair, the sun had journeyed halfway through the sky. Ranger was laying on the ground, having given up on standing strong, but Olena had been on hunting trips that lasted longer than half a day and required her stillness for even longer than that. She offered the three leaders a tired smile, which they each returned in kind. Regardless of the outcome, they stood together, and it was enough. All she had ever wanted was enough.
“We have questions, and we have answers,” Savi began, stepping forward first. Talking to people had never been a difficulty for her, and she adopted a tone to soothe even the most anxious — something Olena hadn’t realized she was. “How are you planning on killing her, first of all?”
Olena had prepared for the question. “By fire. She’ll get her pure death.”
The second leader stepped forward, a fair-colored, older man named Trap who had traded with the Rivers family for as long as Olena could recall. His hair was thinning, but there was pride in the way he carried himself. That same pride carried over into his voice.
“Will knowing what she knows make any difference?”
“It tells us what strategies we need to change,” Olena said. It was another question she had prepared for. “Every fucking king we’ve sent into the Citadel has died and accomplished nothing more than adding to our legends. Do you want to join them? We find out what she knows, and we’ve got a one-up on the Queens. We find out what she knows, and we win this war faster. We can win regardless, of that I’ve got no doubts, but one’s messier than the other, if she’ll talk.”
“I can talk about a good many things,” Ranger interjected, to which everyone promptly ignored.
The final leader moved forward slowly, the years having been harsher on him than on the others. He was the oldest of the group, known to all by his trueborn name of Manton, and it showed in the lines on his face and the scars on his body.38 He was the only one who had been present for another king and another revolution, and so it was with patience that Olena waited for him.
“And if she escapes again?”
“I’ll find her, and I’ll kill her.”
It was another expected response, and Manton nodded in approval. He was not finished, however, and Olena had not prepared for him to continue. She blinked in surprise as he opened his mouth and pressed another question.
“How will you care for her?”
They watched carefully, and she could feel Ranger smirking beside her. She swore if she saw the woman so much as mouthing an answer, she would finish the trial quick enough. Shifting her weight from one foot to another, she decided to answer as bluntly as she did anything else.
“I’d treat her how I need to,” she began. “I’ll treat her humane unless she gives me a reason not to. If she keeps talking about Il though, I can’t promise she won’t get punched.” The leaders nodded understandingly at that, and Ranger scoffed. They moved back together to talk amongst themselves, and Olena looked to her prisoner. The end drew nearer to them, and she felt it prickle along her arms. Ranger hid her worry, if it could even be called that, under a roll of the eyes, and Olena lowered her voice to only the other once more. “What? Think I won’t do it?”
“You broke my damn hand, princess. I need that for all sorts of amazing things. Did you know I had the most beautiful hands in the Citadel, and that’s now ruined? I’m not so worried about you keeping your word on injuring me.” Ranger was less keen to quietness, and the leaders flashed her a look of annoyance. “Honestly though — and, at this point, why not be honest? It feels good! — you thinking you can break me is so… It’s cute. That’s a good word for it. Fucking adorable.”
“Never said I would try to break you.”
“Oh, how naive can you get? They always try to break me.”
Savi cleared her throat, shifting Olena’s focus back to the matter at hand. By the determination on each of the leaders’ faces, it was clear they had come to a decision. Whether Savi was speaking as a leader or a mother, Olena couldn’t be sure, but it was her that spoke for the rest.
“After talking it through with the people, with you, and then with each other, we think it’s best she stay under your care for the time being.” Olena gritted her teeth but nodded in agreement, to which her mother could only smile apologetically at. “We can’t decide this for you, but it might be time you find your spica again. Things have changed, and he has to know. If it’s not you, it should be someone close. For him and for us.”
“Illias can take care of himself, and so can I. I trust us both on that front.” Olena grabbed hold of Ranger’s binds and pulled the woman to her feet, unable to help the glare. Perhaps she carried that hint of bitterness over Illias leaving still, but that was not why she was so determined to see them both succeed. It’s my destiny to kill the stars; it’s his to save them. They would return to each other soon, whether he came back or she found him, and she would tell him everything. For now, however, she still had a revolution to plan.
Chapter 12: The Space Station
“Only by joining the cosmos can one truly find the ultimate purity.
It is one small step for the body and one giant leap for the soul.”
Death’s Lament, 10.8
In Pat’s dream, the world was on fire. It was not the station th
at quaked beneath her feet but the entire whole of space, bending and warping and pushing around her. Her world had turned red, and threads of the color weaved around her, far more crimson than even that familiar star in the close-but-far distance. She tried to open her mouth, but the vacuum around her robbed her world of all sound. She was only left to burn, and in a dream, one second can tick on for a hundred years — so it was that Hypatia burned for twice that long.
She knew the two prevailing theories for the death of the universe: a freeze, where the universe pulled itself apart to a distance so immense that the stars faded alone, or a crunch, where heat collapsed in upon itself only to reignite into something new. After her burn, the cold began to creep in, but the red did not retreat. Both theories were wrong. If anything, space began to curl around her, constricting her limbs. There was no escape, only the saddest form of acceptance. It was then that she realized where she had glimpsed such a shade before: it was the same color as the hair she had seen days prior, attached to a woman smiling in her death.
The bounds of the color tightened around her, but it was the presence of another in her dream that caused her panic. They were far colder than the already cold air, or lack thereof, and the thing did not step from the shadows so much as take itself from the light — a far crueler thing than any shadow could do. The outline of a form became the figure of a woman, and the color red suddenly had a place upon her head, crowning her with the glory of fire as if she was the most monstrous of things.
“I don’t know I believe you exist,” Pat spoke, trying to keep the tremble from her voice. To the people on earth, she may have been a child, but she had never been to earth. To herself, she was nearly as ancient as Nikola, and that was the only viewpoint that mattered. Perception carried her a far way, and she had read countless books about the power of such an idea. Her world, her rules.
“Worry not, never fear. Soon, the rest will be here.”
It was a song the ghost gave her, but Pat never much cared for songs. They were all sad things, twisted and warped and bent in the same way space was. Music was a thing of earth; space was only quiet and emptiness.
She frowned in answer and tried again: “I’ve got to be dreaming, I think. I’m sorry, but I’ll need to be waking up soon.” If it was not morning already, she hoped it would come soon. In the face of something so strange, it was the only thing she could do.
The woman with the red hair simply smiled at her. Her skin was still tinted blue with cold, and her hair still floated gently around her, as if she was trapped on the outside of the station. She did not answer Pat, and that lack of answer only helped reaffirm that it was a dream. What else would cause such a strange turn of events? As if sensing the question in the air, the woman held out her hand in offering.
It was the forbidden fruit of knowledge, Pat knew — revolution incarnate. Take the hand, and her questions would be answered. Deny it, and she would be left in the field of ignorance with nowhere left to go. How many similar myths had she read about similar choices? It was at the root of her species, and the two options hung above her impatiently. A hand stretched out, she reached, she paused.
The morning alarm sounded in the station, low and loud, and she awoke without any glimpse of the color red before her. Her hand was still outstretched, but it quickly fell to the mattress again. See, she thought. Just a dream, Pat. For once, knowledge did not reassure her, and she slipped from the warmth of her bed, already with a frown. As hard as she tried, she could not recall the face of the woman from her dream — nor the song she had sung that rang so soft and sweet.
There was a note waiting on her door from Nikola, asking for a moment, but she promptly ignored it. She knew what the old man would want, with the new space shuttle drifting ever-closer to their orbit. It was time for the group’s first and only trip to the ground, but she was not quite ready for the news. She had been born and bred for returning to the surface, but her thoughts were a swarm she could not calm as she walked toward the kitchen. Each step rang too loudly; each breath rattled too much.
Breakfast took the shape of a small pill and a few freeze-dried components to mask its flavor, and she placed it on the tip of her tongue and swallowed without hesitation. On the bottle of the prescription was a note: side effects may include vomiting, dizziness, lack of dreams, or suicidal tendencies. The warning burned as brightly as she had in the nighttime vision. Perhaps it was not annoyance alone that kept her from Nikola.
Isaac and Johannes promptly sat across from her, twittering about something she could not bring herself to care about. She did not attempt to hide the growing annoyance from her expression, but they hardly noticed. They rarely noticed anything at all, let alone the mood of a sullen girl.
“Isn’t that right, Pat? I know that there’re still creatures tall as the ceiling down on earth, wouldn’t you say so? I know there aren’t many, but…” Isaac tugged on her sleeve, expecting her to finish for him.
“No way! I keep telling ‘im that they all died in the Ash Wave, but he keeps on insisting,” Johannes cut in.
“I hate you.”
“I hate you more.”
“I hate you both,” Pat finally interjected, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Can you quiet for a moment? I’m trying to gather my thoughts.”
“Can’t be too hard,” Johannes said with a snort.
“Shut it, Jo.”
“Yes, shut it, Jo,” she mimicked.
Johannes huffed in his spot, twirling his fork. It was the only thing that morning that had managed to elicit a grin from Pat, and she shoved her food over to him in thanks for it. When he stuffed the powdered eggs into his mouth and tried talking, it only made her smile grow wider — something he let her know that he found worth the angry glare from Isaac.
“Anyways,” Isaac continued, nudging Johannes hard enough in the ribs to get him coughing, which only served to interrupt his tale once more. “I’m trying to tell a story about the earth creatures. Don’t you two care? Pat’s gonna be the first one off the ship, considering she’s captain; you’d think she’d care, at the very least. Don’t want to die when you coulda just listened to me, right?”
Pat’s laughter died as suddenly as it had appeared. “What do you mean that I’m the captain?” She could not quite describe the feeling that shot down her spine. Fear? No, too strong. Sadness? No, too heavy. It was as if she had suddenly become aware of her body as an organism. She could feel the tips of her toes and her stomach move in time with her breath. She could feel how her thighs rubbed against one another and the sweat beginning to form under her arms. She could feel her hair brushing against her neck and the odd shape of her tongue in her mouth. Everything came into hyper focus in the moment of doubt. “Nikola set a launch date then?”
It was Johannes who answered.
“You…didn’t know?”
She was to her feet before they could say anything else, and once more, she found herself sprinting down the corridor to an old man who only offered her cryptic riddles and the exasperated looks that supposedly came with wisdom. His door was open as it always was, and she leaned against the frame for a moment as she struggled to catch her breath.
“Nik, Nik, why didn’t you say anything? You know word travels fast — it’s the principle of gossip when there’re only twelve people on board — and I’m honored, of course I’m honored, but when do you mean to ship us off? I’m guessing we’ll be using the last ghost’s ship, and—” She paused abruptly, looking toward the man. He was leaning down over his desk, forehead against the surface. “Nik, I would really love to hear what it is you plan on me doing. I mean, I would really love for you to answer my questions, but you’ll just tell me to read, won’t you?”
There was no cryptic answer. There was nothing.
“Nik?”
She could hear the hum of the engines, the whir of the lights, and the sound of her breath. Nothing else.
“…Nikola?”
She knew what she would find as she steppe
d forward, but it was not her own emotions she thought of. She could only envision the color crimson. It had been an omen, hadn’t it? She was nearly certain of it as she gripped onto her mentor’s shoulder and gave a shake.
He did nothing but slump further onto the desk, no oxygen in his lungs and no spark in his eyes. The man had just celebrated his one hundred and second birthday, but in the station, Death had never been so kind as to allow people to live twice that long. Death had never left them, and in their failure to adapt, they fell prey to it far too quickly and without any warning. Of course, it would come for him now, when they needed him most. Of course, it would come for him before he could fill the birth chambers with life or pass on the necessary books or answer her questions or…or…or…
She stared, but still, he did not move.
The instant her eyes had popped open, she should have come to find him… Did that make this her fault? She could have warned him, and he would have known what to do! Nikola always knew what to do, even when he kept it from her. Her lungs did not seem to be working properly as she waited for something to happen, and it seemed impossible. Impossible, utterly impossible.
He had never intended to answer any of her questions, and yet she could still not help but think of all the answers he had in his brain — answers that would never see the light of their home. The panic of that knowledge settled in her limbs, and she did something she never thought she would: she began to rifle through the journals on his desk in a sort of fervor, searching for the information that had been deprived of her.
The sound of rustling paper warred with the smell of something she would not name, and she quickly skimmed over his writings. Her hands shook enough that it made it difficult to peel the papers away from each other, which only served to add to the fervor in which she worked. The sheets were much to be expected, and telling tales of repair from around the station, tracking the medicine intake of each of the children, and recording the motion of objects around the earth’s orbit were the subjects that seemed to appear the most frequently. Pat continued to shoot glances over her shoulder as she reviewed them.
