Chosen Ones

by Veronica Roth

  “Stitch it back on, but—”

  “Fuck,” she whispered, and she shoved the window up as hard as she could. It slammed up in its frame, and she stuck her head out. She was two stories up. High enough that she would break a leg if she jumped.

  She looked over her shoulder again. She couldn’t see anything, but the voices had stopped. Sloane held her breath as she waited. There was a whine, the pressure of a foot against an old floor. The squeak of linoleum.

  “Okay,” she whispered to herself. “Okay, okay, okay.”

  She put her legs through the window and positioned herself on the windowsill.

  Then, bracing herself for pain, Sloane jumped.

  Sloane didn’t look down at her right ankle. She didn’t want to know.

  Her eyes swam with tears. She bit down on her fist and limped as fast as she could, leaning against the alley wall for support. In a few yards, she would run out of wall, and she would have to put all her weight on her right foot.

  Sloane stopped to wipe her eyes. She felt like someone was stabbing a knife repeatedly into her right leg. All her thoughts pulsed in time with the aching. She stepped away from the corner and screamed.

  One more step, she told herself, gasping, even though she was at least one hundred paces from the river, where there was a railing she could put a hand on. She looked behind her, through a haze of tears, to see if any cars were coming. She saw nothing. Sloane stepped again. And again.

  She walked all the way to the river, where she finally saw headlights.

  EXCERPTS FROM

  At Long Last: A Collection of Essays About the Chosen One

  From the essay “Like a Dream”

  by Laura Bryant

  And it was there, watching my groceries spill across the street—

  the onion rolling into the gutter

  a bottle of milk broken and spilling into the cracks in the sidewalk

  —that I first saw him.

  The Resurrectionist’s destructive gale had begun, the pull, the shredding, chewing of matter. And all around it, people screaming, screaming,

  running.

  Running for their lives.

  I had toppled, twisting my ankle. One of the weaker ones of the herd, now vulnerable to attack by our world’s most horrific predator, our would-be destroyer, our devil-made-flesh. My death was certain—

  And yet.

  Like a dream—

  The Chosen One came forth. Golden hair glinting in the sun. The seal of the Army of Flickering beneath his shoulder, a tribute to his fallen comrades, his massacred men. A simple metal cuff around his throat, his siphon, his sword. A whistle clamped between his teeth, his shield. A new army, rebuilt on the ashes of the dead, at his back.

  Our defender.

  The Chosen One of Genetrix.

  From the essay “My First Thought”

  by Xevera Ibáñez

  I saw a picture of him in the newspaper the day after the attack on Cordus. He had fought, sung powerful workings into being, shaken windows, rattled doors in their frames, but he hadn’t won, and he hadn’t lost. He was still among us, so we were glad, but we were disappointed too. That he had not saved the world with one whistle.

  It meant that more anguish awaited us. More streets split down the middle, more stonefaced mothers, children walking alone, men sitting on curbs and staring at nothing. More buildings torn apart by supernatural wind, more picking through rubble, torn curtains, shattered windows. More of all of this; more losing, more of having less.

  I saw a picture of him standing next to a stop sign, golden hair, golden chain around his neck, golden band across his throat, lips pressed together, cheek dimpling, hand clasped in the mayor’s hand in greeting.

  My first thought was I thought he would be taller.

  27

  SLOANE LIMPED INTO THE STREET, waving her arms. The taxi screeched to a stop and she opened the door before the driver could decide she wasn’t worth the trouble.

  The driver, a clean-shaven, pale man in his early twenties, twisted in his seat to look at her. She propped her leg up next to her.

  “Ma’am,” he said, eyes wide, “are you—”

  “I need to go to the Cordus Center,” she said.

  “I’ve gotta take you to the hospital, ma’am—”

  “No,” Sloane said, teeth gritted. She didn’t want to navigate a Genetrix hospital by herself. “And if you call me ma’am again, I’m going to tuck and roll out of this car.”

  Sloane stared at the charms dangling from the rearview mirror for most of the drive back—a saint medal, half of a heart, a tiny plastic whistle. The radio was set to a Christian station, and one song’s chorus—“Jesus, You did a working on my heart”—made her feel very far from home.

  It was only when the car pulled up to the curb in front of the building that she remembered she didn’t have any money. She was bickering with the driver at greater and greater volume when Cyrielle ran outside. Sloane had never been more relieved to see bright orange lipstick.

  “Oh my God,” Cyrielle said as Sloane stuck her swollen—very swollen—ankle out of the car. Cyrielle took a coin from the sack at her waist and thrust it at the taxi driver, then put an arm around Sloane to help her out of the car.

  Sloane realized only then that she had done it. She had escaped.

  She let herself relax once they were inside the Camel. Cyrielle sat her down on a bench near the main entrance, and Sloane watched orange diamonds scattered across the floor as the sun burned through the tiny panes of glass above her. The air was warm, and people rushed back and forth in front of her, stomping in heavy boots or snapping in fine, pointed shoes or squeaking in sneakers with marshmallow-white soles. Her right foot was bare—she had taken off the boot in the taxi upon realizing that the leather was pinching at her massive ankle—and turning purple. She hardly felt the pain anymore.

  Something pricked at her attention. She lifted her head to see Matt half walking, half running across the lobby. His eyes were red—he had been crying. When their eyes met, he burst into a run, almost bowling over an old lady with tight gray curls. Sloane used the wall to push herself to her feet just in time for him to collide with her.

  His arms wrapped around her middle, and he lifted her to her toes. It felt good to have his solid body against hers. The last time they had slept together, she hadn’t appreciated it enough. Not just because Matt was all lean, finely tuned muscle, but because he was warm, and familiar, and kind. For the past few years, he hadn’t exactly set her alight, but she had burned for him low and steady. She missed it, that fire, a pilot light that never went out.

  Her hands had come up automatically to the middle of his back, which was damp with sweat. He set her down gently but didn’t let her go. It struck her, suddenly, that he was trembling.

  “Hey,” she whispered into his ear. “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

  “It was—all I could think was—” His voice was muffled by her shirt. He had buried his face in her shoulder. “All I could think was Not again.”

  Not again. She had been thinking the same thing since they’d gotten to Genetrix: Not again, not another Dark One, not another kidnapping, not another escape. But she hadn’t thought about what it might be like for Matt to watch her taken away a second time, not knowing if he would ever see her alive again, not knowing what she was enduring.

  She hadn’t actually thought about what he went through the first time either. Matt had been the leader of their group, unquestionably, and two of the people he led had been taken and tortured by their enemy. There was no way he hadn’t blamed himself for it. He probably blamed himself now.

  Sloane turned her face toward Matt’s and spoke into the small space that separated them. “It wasn’t the same,” she said. She ran her hand over his short hair. “No one hurt me. Okay? I’m fine. Just . . . really smelly, probably.”

  A gurgle of a laugh—somewhat hysterical—was Matt’s response. He relaxed his grip on her, and she offered him a s
mall smile. She felt the first flicker of hope since she had returned the ring to him—hope that one day, when the pain dulled, they might be friends again.

  Esther was waiting a few feet away. She had discovered Genetrix textiles, and she was wearing them all at once, a paisley scarf around her shoulders draped low enough to reveal her throat siphon; a checker­board blouse; pinstriped pants; orange herringbone socks. When Matt and Sloane separated, she came forward and hugged Sloane a little more delicately than Matt had.

  “Kyros?” Sloane said as Esther pulled away. The name came out soft. She could hardly stand to say it.

  “Alive, but not conscious. They’re not sure he’ll ever wake up. I did a working. The breath. Got his lungs going again,” Esther said, a sharp glint in her eyes that looked like pride.

  An ache in Sloane’s chest eased a little. She hadn’t been able to think of Kyros since she was taken, but the sight of him falling at the Resurrectionist’s hand hadn’t left her.

  “You’re hurt?” Matt said, pointing to her bulbous ankle.

  “Jumped out a window to escape,” Sloane said. “Pretty sure I need a doctor. Or maybe a new leg.”

  “Cyrielle went to get one. A doctor, not a leg,” Matt said. Sloane hadn’t even noticed that Cyrielle was gone, but there was no orange haunting the edges of her vision. “She said someone could come to you.”

  “Good.”

  Esther stood on Sloane’s left, Matt on her right. Both wrapped their arms around her waist to support her as she hobbled toward the elevator bank; she hardly even needed to put her feet on the ground. Esther sang the right note to summon the elevator.

  There was relief in this too—that despite what she had kept from them and despite what they had all been through, they were still with her.

  Not all was lost.

  That night, she dreamed about stumbling barefoot across a field, her arm wrapped around Albie’s waist as he wheezed in her ear. Her arm was slippery with his blood. She stopped, adjusting her grip on his body. Albie screamed into his teeth.

  It was dark, but she knew it was morning by the dew on the grass. It wet her ankles.

  She woke with a throbbing jaw, from gritting her teeth, and swallowed her last benzo.

  Two days later, Sloane found herself in Aelia’s office with crutches tucked under her arms.

  The doctor had set up his equipment in Sloane’s sparse room the night before and crouched at the foot of the bed with her foot in his lap. He had an elaborate whistle between his teeth, a modified oscilloscope that told him the frequency of the sound he made to the third decimal place, and a siphon over his eye that looked like half a visor. He’d used all three in concert, puffing the whistle to find the pitch on the oscilloscope and then gesturing to begin the working that let him see the break in her bone. In the haze of her sleep deprivation it had felt like a holy ritual.

  He had set the bone with strong, cold hands and little apology and promised a cast the following day—and a siphon that would speed the healing of her bones.

  Now both siphon and cast were wrapped around her leg, and she’d been told to use crutches for two weeks.

  She was scrubbed clean of the soot and dirt of the Drain, but the feeling clung to her still, like a lucid dream.

  Aelia’s office was, in a word, clean. Wood floors, white walls, a single shelf with color-coded books. There were white orchids in large white planters by the window. The door closed behind Sloane with a heavy thump.

  She had passed by Nero’s workshop on the way to Aelia’s office, and his doors were the same: thick and wooden, with heavy metal hinges and knobs, locked by magic. Their intimidating appearance made her wonder what was kept in the two spaces that required such tight security.

  Sloane still caught phantom whiffs of sulfur every few minutes, even though her hair now smelled like the rosemary shampoo Cyrielle had brought them. She detected it now as Nero came forward to take her crutches and lean them against the wall so she could sit down. He settled in the chair beside her.

  Aelia folded her hands on top of her clean white desk, the delicate metal plates of her wrist siphon tinkling as they touched each other. Her fingernails were painted a matte rose and filed into perfect half-ovals.

  Sloane had written her statement the day before and passed it along to Aelia and Nero through Cyrielle. But they had summoned her here this morning anyway, citing the need to ask her a few follow-up questions. She couldn’t imagine what more she could say about what had happened. She had already ripped herself apart for them.

  “So,” Sloane said, because no one had spoken for a few seconds. “You had some questions for me?”

  “How are you feeling, Sloane?” Aelia’s smile had to be forced. Sloane wasn’t someone people smiled at, and Aelia wasn’t someone who smiled.

  “Peachy,” Sloane said. “Your questions?”

  Aelia glanced at Nero, who cleared his throat. He leaned toward Sloane, his legs crossed at the ankle. His socks had small magic wands on them. Sloane suppressed a smile.

  “We were concerned for you because we detected a certain . . . sympathy in the tone of your statement,” Nero said.

  “Sympathy for the Resurrectionist, that is,” Aelia clarified.

  “What?” Sloane scowled. “He had me kidnapped; of course I don’t have sympathy for him.”

  “But in your statement, you said something about him seeming . . . troubled.”

  “He’s just different than I expected, that’s all.”

  “Different how, exactly?” Nero cocked his head, reminding Sloane of the therapist she had seen after the Dive, all furrowed brow and tilted head.

  “He’s not the Dark One,” Sloane said. “I thought maybe he was the parallel version of the Dark One from our universe. I see now that’s not the case. That’s all.”

  “Our concern is not without foundation,” Aelia said. “The Resurrectionist has swayed people to his cause before. He has—a particular charm.”

  “Charm?” Sloane raised her eyebrows. “Where in my statement did you see a goddamn thing about him being charming?”

  “Well, it doesn’t begin that way,” Nero said. “We suspect he may use some kind of persuasive working—”

  “Who did he do this to before?” Sloane interrupted.

  Nero and Aelia exchanged a look.

  “Who she was is of no import,” Aelia said.

  “She was obviously of import or you wouldn’t be warning me about it,” Sloane replied.

  Nero glanced at Aelia again. “As I said, we just wanted to check in with you to ensure that—”

  “Well, I wanted to talk to you, actually,” Sloane said. “Because it sounded like the Resurrectionist had dealt with someone in my position before. Another Chosen One, I mean. Did Genetrix’s Chosen One ever meet him? You know—before dying?”

  “We did not oversee our Chosen One’s activities as much as we should have, perhaps because we believed everything would go according to plan, as the prophecy indicated,” Aelia said. “As you can plainly tell, we won’t be making that mistake again.”

  “But I notice you’re still not volunteering to fight him yourself,” Sloane said.

  “It’s not wrong to know your own limits,” Aelia retorted, her cheeks going pink.

  “Isn’t it?” Sloane shrugged. “I’ve never had the luxury of knowing mine.”

  “Then you are as unwise as your predecessor,” Aelia snapped. “She, too, believed the Resurrectionist was merely wounded, that an accord or some kind of reconciliation was possible. She was incorrect, and she paid the ultimate penalty for it. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

  The words crashed into Sloane, one at a time. She was incorrect.

  But when Aelia, standing in the rubble of the old Drain site, had told them that Genetrix’s Chosen One was dead, she had called him “he.” He was valiant and a talented worker of magic. He is dead. He was defeated.

  “So the person the Resurrectionist manipulated before . . . it was your Chosen One
,” Sloane said, trying to sound casual. “You could have just said.”

  “Well, I didn’t want to alarm you unnecessarily, particularly so soon after a traumatic event.” Aelia straightened her crisp shirt.

  Sloane leaned back in her chair. She had just caught Aelia using two different pronouns for the same person. But she didn’t want to call attention to it—not yet.

  “Do I seem alarmed?” Sloane said. “Or do I seem pissed that you’re trying my patience when all I want to do is kill this asshole and go home?”

  Aelia pursed her lips.

  “Cool,” Sloane said. “Now, if you’ll hand over my crutches, I’ll be limping back to my room.”

  “That’s . . .” Esther furrowed her brow. “Odd.”

  Sloane sat in the doorway facing the elevator so she would see if anyone was coming toward them. Her right leg was stretched out on the broad boards of the floor of Esther’s room; her crutches leaned against the inexplicable holy water stoup fixed to the wall that Esther was using to hold her jewelry.

  “Odd is not the word I would have chosen,” Sloane said. “Alarming or suspicious, maybe.”

  “I don’t think I understand what’s so alarming,” Matt said. He had unbuttoned his shirt cuffs and was rolling up the sleeves. He wore his siphon all the time now—he and Esther both did. That morning Sloane had caught them turning their breakfast coffees into ice. “People misspeak all the time. It probably doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Have you ever randomly started referring to me as ‘he’?” Sloane said.

  “Well, no,” Matt said. “But maybe they were trans and Aelia just slipped up with the pronouns, or maybe she didn’t really know them at the time, or—”

  Esther interrupted him. “Why didn’t you just ask her about it when it happened?”

  “I figured if she told one lie, she might tell another,” Sloane said. “Seemed safer to hold it in for the time being.”

  “I still think—” Matt began.