* * *
—
I take the train home with Mirabae and Akia. I look out the window, smiling and nodding as they talk about the day. I can’t stop thinking about what Magister Sethra said…or who I’m up against. I walk into the house and collapse onto the couch, waiting for the stress of the day to fade away.
“Li!” Zo calls from the doorway of her room. “I’ve been waiting for you!”
She runs down the stairs. Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes shine.
“You’re never going to guess what happened,” she says breathlessly. “I saw Braxon on my way home. He’s getting some people together to celebrate Assessment and he invited me. You have to come.”
“He’s throwing a party tonight?” I ask incredulously, though I shouldn’t be surprised. “On the first night of Assessment?”
“It’s not a party,” she corrects me, looking apprehensive. “It’s just a few people hanging out.”
I hear Sethra’s words in my head, telling me to concentrate.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” I say uneasily. “Training starts tomorrow, and it’s going to be intense.”
Zo puts her hands on her hips, her eyes pleading. “I’d do it for you. Come with me, please.”
“I don’t know, Zo,” I say slowly.
She flops down on the couch next to me, giving me the look she always gives me when she wants me to do something for her, arching her eyebrows and smiling.
“You don’t know, as in, yes, you’ll definitely come?”
I sigh. Zo has had to give up so much for me, it’s hard not to feel guilty. If it weren’t for me, she’d have a normal Abdolorean life, with a father who wasn’t consumed with worry, always thinking up new physical challenges and trials to test me. Before I can say anything, she throws her arms around me.
“You’re the best,” she says into my neck, her breath warm on my useless gills. “This is going to be awesome, you’ll see. I promise you won’t regret it.”
* * *
—
We wait until midnight, then slip downstairs and out the back door. We cut across the forest, slinking through the trees to the far end of the Bay. Our feet press against the mossy earth, and our clothes catch the light of the moon. The trees part to reveal a small stretch of beach. Braxon’s house sits at the edge of the shore, raised high above the water. I look through the windows, my heart sinking. There are at least a hundred kids here, laughing and shouting, dancing around the house.
I follow Zo inside. Glowing orbs are strung along the ceiling, playing music, their light flashing with the beat. The floors are made of glass, like we’re standing on top of the ocean itself. Almost at once, Zo disappears into the crowd. I stand along the edge of the room, searching for someone I know. From a distance, I see the flash of Mirabae’s hair. I’m about to walk over to her when Braxon comes up beside me.
“Li,” he says. “I didn’t think you’d make it.”
“I made it,” I say, watching as Mirabae slips out the door, following Cailei onto the beach.
“I’m glad you did,” he says. “I like seeing you around.”
He takes a step closer and slips his arm around my waist, his fingers brushing my hip.
“I wouldn’t mind seeing more of you,” he says, running his hand down my body. I step away from him, untangling myself from his grasp.
“Zo’s here somewhere,” I say, my voice pointed.
Braxon’s eyes flicker, a shadow passing over them. He smiles at me, but something about it is sharp and insincere. He reaches into his pocket and holds his hand out, a translucent tab of Kala in his palm.
“You want some?” he asks.
Kala enhances Abdolorean senses, making them even more intense. Colors grow brighter, shapes change form, every sound grows louder, deeper. At least, that’s what I’ve heard. I’ve never taken it. I don’t know what it could do to me.
“No, I’m good,” I say.
Braxon shrugs. “Your loss, Cadet.”
He pops the tab into his mouth. Almost at once, his eyes start to glow. I look across the room. All around me, people dance wildly, their eyes closed, their arms up, their bodies pressed together. Outside, people swim in the water, splashing through the waves. Everyone here is on Kala, I realize. Everyone except me.
“I’ll see you later,” I tell him, and walk away. I have to find Zo. We need to go.
I move through the crush of bodies, searching for Zo, finding her nowhere. I’m about to go look for her outside when I hear someone call my name.
I turn around and see Ryn leaning against the wall. I peer into his eyes to see if he’s on Kala, but they’re the same green as always.
“Hey, you,” he says.
“Oh. Hey,” I say, a smile escaping my lips.
Ryn looks around the room, disbelief on his face. “This is pretty crazy.”
The music swells. Everyone is shouting, throwing their hands up in the air.
“Yeah,” I say over the music. “It’s not really my thing.”
Ryn nods, taking in the chaos around us. “Do you want to get out of here?”
“Yes,” I say. How simple that word is, I think. How good it feels to say.
We walk down the beach until we reach an old train bridge. We climb up the beams and sit on the tracks, letting our feet dangle over the edge. Ryn looks up at the sky, tapping his knee against mine.
“If you could be anywhere right now, where would you be?” he asks. I think about the places this galaxy holds, all the planets, all their moons, and find that there’s only one place I really want to be.
“With Zo in our garden.” We would lie by the hydrangea bushes like we used to when we were younger, shaking off their petals and pretending it was snow. “How about you?”
“Karabdis,” he says. “We lived there for a few years when I was younger. Its ocean has these bioluminescent starfish that light up when you touch them. It’s how they scare off predators. It’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen.”
I look at the dark, empty water before us and wonder what it was like to swim surrounded by those starfish, their neon glow pulsing, alive.
“You’ll miss her a lot when we leave for placement,” Ryn says. “Your sister, I mean.”
“I really will,” I say, more to myself than to him. “I won’t see her for seven years. Eight years, really, after her Conscription. We’ll be entirely different people by the time we come back.”
Ryn swings his legs slowly and looks down at his hands.
“I was happy when my brother left,” he admits, lifting his shoulders in the slightest shrug. “We aren’t close. We can barely even be in the same room.”
He stares at the stars like he’s waiting to see something, but all they do is glow.
“He was never nice, even when we were kids. I mean, he was nice enough to me, he just ignored me most of the time. But I would see the way he treated other people, like he was so much better than them.”
I study his profile, the focused look in his eyes. “How so?”
“It’s not that he’s cruel or mean. It’s more that he’s distant. Cold. He holds himself apart from everyone else, including me. By the time he left, I didn’t even miss him. It was like he was already gone.” Ryn takes a breath and lets it out slowly. He shakes his head. “I used to feel bad about it, not liking my own brother.”
“What changed?” I ask. I can’t imagine my world without Zo. I know how lonely that world would be. Maybe she and I are closer than other siblings are. Maybe our secrets have bound us in different, unbreakable ways.
“I did, I guess,” Ryn says. “We grew even further apart when he was gone. He was placed on Utula and never left. He’s working his way from officer to commander, just like my dad wants.” The tiny muscle under Ryn’s eye twitches.
“You don’t have to be like your brother,” I say softly, remembering what we talked about yesterday. “Or your dad.”
“I’m not sure it’s that easy.” He looks into
the distance; then his gaze flits back to me. “Let’s swim,” he says suddenly. “Let’s go, right now.”
He jumps down from the bridge, then smiles up at me, his face full of light.
“You coming?” he asks, and I can’t help but smile back.
“Are you trying to distract me from this intense and depressing conversation about our families?” I laugh, then jump, stumbling slightly as I land. Ryn reaches out to steady me, his hands on my hips. His fingers press against my skin, just under the hem of my shirt.
“Sorry,” he apologizes. He drops his hands, but still I feel their warmth on my skin.
“That’s okay.”
We stare at each other until I break eye contact. He pulls off his shirt, dropping it onto the shore. Moonlight falls onto the hollows of his collarbones, spreading across his chest. He dives below the surface of the waves. I strip down to my underwear and run into the water, swimming out to meet him. We float on our backs, staring up at the sky.
“I thought about staying on Tularu,” Ryn says, breaking the silence between us. “Just skipping Assessment altogether.”
He moves his arms and the water ripples around us.
“Defecting, you mean?”
Ryn smiles. “Not defecting, really. More like disappearing into the mountains and never coming back.”
“So why didn’t you?” I ask, turning to look at him.
“I didn’t want to have to hide for the rest of my life.”
I know how you feel, I think, but say nothing at all. He closes his eyes, and I wonder if he’s imagining a life in the mountains. I wonder if he’s thinking of me.
“I’m happy I’m here, though,” he says. “I’m happy I came.”
He opens his eyes, looking up at the sky again.
“I thought you hated this,” I say.
He grins.
“Not all of it,” he says.
For the rest of the week, there are no more parties. I throw myself into training, leaving early each morning to go to base, staying late each night. I see Ryn at training and tactics class, but I try to stay focused. I feel myself grow stronger with each passing day, my muscles tight, my body powerful.
The walls of the compound are lined with targets shaped like bodies. A gun rests by each one. Conditioning stations fill the room, stacks of free weights and circuit machines. This late in the afternoon, the compound is mostly empty. Only a few other cadets move through the stations.
Along the ceiling is a series of metal bars hanging at different heights. I climb up to the platform beneath them and walk to the edge. I reach up and grab the first bar. I breathe in and push my feet off the platform, taking flight. I swing in the air, finding an easy rhythm; then I let go, stretching my arms out in front of me. I catch hold of the next bar. My palms sting, but I tighten my grip. I don’t let go. I fly from one bar to the next, spinning in the air until everything blurs away.
I reach the last bar and pull myself up, curl my legs around it, and flip my body over. I hang there, swaying, the world upside down and strange, then straighten my legs and fall. I land in a crouch, my heart pounding, my feet firmly on the ground.
I look across the room. Ryn and Mirabae stand together at one of the conditioning stations, lifting weights high above their heads. I walk over to meet them.
“Hey,” Mirabae says, working to catch her breath. She drops her weights to the floor. “I asked Ryn to help me train.”
“Is there anything in particular you want to work on?” Ryn asks her. I’ve noticed that Mirabae hasn’t been as confident as she usually is. The week has been harder than she expected. All the years of training with my father have prepared me completely. I’m used to intense physical activity; I’m mentally prepared for the challenges we’ll face.
“Combat tactics,” she says. “I need to be able to protect myself better.”
Ryn lifts the weights from the ground and puts them back in their place. He’s stronger than he seems, I realize, watching the easy way his body moves.
“Let’s start with some target practice,” he says. “Get you used to handling a gun. Li, you in?”
“Sure,” I say, and together we walk over to the targets. Ryn picks up a gun and shoots a line of bullets straight down the target, from head to neck to chest. I shoot just once. The bullet hits right where the heart would be. Mirabae aims her gun at the target, but it’s unsteady in her hands. The bullets hit the body in the shoulder, the neck.
“Not bad,” Ryn says. “Try again. Aim for the chest.”
He stands beside her, showing her exactly how to point the gun. The next shot she takes hits the body right in the middle of the chest.
“Nice,” he says, clapping. “See how much better you are already?”
Mirabae flushes happily, bringing her gun up to shoot again.
“Do you want to know the secret to making all your shots?” Ryn asks. “Deep breaths and mindfulness, but mostly deep breaths. Always make sure you’re calm before you shoot.”
Mirabae laughs. “Seems a little contradictory.”
“Let’s not worry about semantics,” he says. “We’ll just work on making you a better shot for now.”
She keeps shooting, each shot a little better than the last.
Next we follow him to the mats. He rolls up the sleeves of his uniform and puts his fists in front of his face, bouncing lightly on his toes. He shows Mirabae the right way to hold her fists, how to get her weight behind her while throwing a punch.
“Always go forward, never retreat,” Ryn tells us. “That’s the most important defense tactic there is. Moving backward gives your opponent a chance to get into your space, to really get at you.”
They circle each other, Mirabae stepping close enough to land a punch on his shoulder. He steps back and drops his arms, surprised, and she swipes at him again. She hits him across the other shoulder, then again in the chest, and Ryn throws his hands up in the air.
“That was good,” he says. “I surrender.”
Mirabae drops her fists, her arms loose at her sides.
“You,” he says, pointing to me. “Get over here.”
I stand in front of him, my fists up. I throw out a light punch, catching him against the side of his arm. He reaches out and grabs my wrist. He steps back, and I stick my foot behind his. He falls backward, pulling me down with him. I lie on top of him, our faces nearly touching.
“Never retreat, remember?” I say breathlessly. “I took you down.”
“Yeah,” he says. “But I took you with me.”
He puts his hands over my hips, shifting my body off his. He sits up and rests his arms across his knees.
“You realize I’m still here, right?” Mirabae says, laughing.
My face flushes. I stand up and reach my hand out to Ryn. He grabs hold of it and pulls himself up. Mirabae catches my eye and smiles.
Ryn stretches his arms above his head. “I think that’s enough for today.”
“Thanks, both of you, for real,” Mirabae says. “I feel so much better than I did before.”
“Anytime, Mir.” Ryn smiles.
She swings her pack onto her shoulders. “I’m heading home,” she says. “See you two tomorrow.”
Ryn looks at me. “Do you have anywhere you need to be?” he asks, and I shake my head.
“Good,” he says. “Because there’s somewhere I want to take you.”
He takes my hand, and I feel the subtle beat of his pulse, the heat of his skin against mine.
We walk across the base until we reach a slice of beach surrounded by trees. Their branches stretch out over the ocean, bursting with flowers. Petals cover the sand and float across the surface of the water. We could be on some undiscovered planet, someplace far from here. Ryn walks to the edge of the water and gathers a handful of petals, pale pink, holding them out to me.
“We lived on Vesunia for a few years when I was a kid,” he says. “The whole planet is covered in these trees.”
“They’re magnol
ias,” I say, taking the petals from his hands.
Ryn smiles. “Vesunians call these trees Hinthia,” he says. “It means ‘soul of the dead.’ Everyone there is born with white hair, and when they turn seventeen they go off alone for a month. When they come back, they dye their hair pink with these flowers, marking the end of their youth.”
“What happens if they don’t survive the month?” I ask.
“Their body is burned to ash and buried at the base of a tree,” he says.
We walk barefoot along the edge of the shore. The petals part as we move slowly through them.
“So it’s a life-or-death ritual,” I say. “That’s intense.”
“It’s not that different from what we do, really,” Ryn says. “We get sent away from our homes, out to some other planet. We have no guarantee that we’ll survive, either.”
He leads me away from the water, over to one of the trees. We sit in the curve of its branches, our bodies close together.
“You’re a good fighter,” I say. “You know what you’re doing. You’ll be able to survive.”
“You too,” he says.
I can’t tell him that I’ve worked every day of my life just to stay alive. “Where did you learn to fight like that?” I ask instead.
“My father taught me combat skills when I was pretty young,” he says. “He wanted me to be prepared, I guess.”
“Mine too, actually,” I say. “Sometimes I feel like it’s the only thing I know.”
This is the closest thing to the truth about myself that I’ll ever be able to share with Ryn. A certain kind of sadness fills me. I think about the things I want, the things that I can’t have. Ryn’s leg brushes against mine, and I wonder, just for a moment, how it would feel to tell him everything.
“Do you ever think about dying?” I ask, my voice quiet.
“Of course,” he says. “Especially now. Don’t you?”
I nod, feeling the beat of my heart through my bones.
“I worry more about being captured by the enemy,” I say. “Living the rest of my life being tortured, or something like that.”
My mind flashes to Ava, bound to her bed, her body used and discarded, death the only thing that freed her.
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