by Emily Colin
“I’m Eva,” my apprentice says, lifting her chin. “But you know that already. Let’s not waste time on the civilities. I assume Ronan is in charge? Bring us to him or do your best to shoot us, it makes no difference to me. Either way, we’re going to your camp today.”
The woman named Zoya laughs. “Ooooh, I like her,” she says, giving Eva an appreciative look.
“You would,” Adrien says, sounding disgruntled. “Okay, you want to play it that way? We’ve heard all about the Bellatorum. I’m sure you’re armed to the teeth. Fair warning: Don’t try anything out of line.” His hand drops to his holster, resting on his gun.
Eva gives him the look the comment deserves. “You think we went to all this trouble to hurt you? If that’s what we wanted, you would’ve been dead before you ever heard us coming.” There’s no arrogance in her words, just a cool statement of fact.
Adrien flinches. It’s not much—just a tightening of the muscles that bracket his lips—but I see it, and Eva does too. She smiles, pressing her advantage. “Ronan. Now. Let’s go.”
The four of us walk silently through the woods until a series of structures come into view, unlike any I’ve seen before—thin green material stretched across rounded poles so they form a dome. The structures blend with the trees and foliage, an effective camouflage.
“Welcome to Tent City,” Adrien says, the first time he’s spoken since he threatened to shoot us if we misbehaved. “A humble home, but our own.”
Close up, I can see at least twenty of the dome-like structures, people scurrying in and out of them. Adrien and Zoya move aside, flanking us. “Ronan,” she calls. “We brought visitors.”
Heads turn at the sound of her voice. Then the structure in front of us unzips, and a man steps out. He’s tall, about my height, with skin the rich color of soil after it’s been turned over for the harvest and hair twisted into thick, graying braids. His eyes are black and hard as obsidian, as if he’s seen too much.
“Ah,” he says, seeing us, and straightens. “So you have. Well done. Dismissed.”
Eva and I stare at him, wordless. We’d heard the southerners had darker complexions, but neither of us has seen anyone who looks like Zoya, let alone this man. He is no barbarian, and he is in charge here; that much is clear. If there’s one thing I am trained to recognize and respect, it is a chain of command. Authority radiates from him the way it does from Efraím—effortless and earned.
Ronan looks us over carefully, unsurprised by our silence. “Bellatorum,” he says.
“Your scouts called us members of a ‘creepy army,’” Eva offers at last, her voice neutral. “If you can’t call us by our names, then I suppose getting our title right is a satisfactory improvement.”
For the Architect’s sake, I think, giving her a dry look. We need this man. Aggravating him from the start is a dicey strategy.
Eva gives me the look right back and turns her eyes on Ronan. I half-expect the man to retaliate, but instead he laughs, a full-throated chuckle that takes me by surprise.
“Ah. Well, they were born in what you would call the Borderlands. What do they know of bellators?” He shrugs. “It’s all rumors and legends to them. Whereas I, like you, was raised in a Commonwealth. Not the Commonwealth of Ashes, of course—nothing so grand as that—but the Commonwealth of Scribes, a hundred miles west of here. Your ways used to be my own.”
“You escaped a Commonwealth?” Eva says, respect warring with skepticism in her tone.
“Not escaped, as such. Exiled,” Ronan says, frowning. “It was a long time ago. I’ve been in the Brotherhood since I wasn’t much older than you are now. But I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of your names. I am Ronan Blair, leader of this encampment.”
“Eva Marteinn. And this is Ari.”
“Ari Westergaard,” he says, turning to me. “I’ve been expecting you. But Kilían didn’t say you planned to bring a friend.”
I lift one shoulder and let it fall. “It seemed foolish to undertake an endeavor of this scope without backup.”
Ronan’s mouth twitches in what might be a smile. “I see. Well, we have a lot to talk about, and not a lot of time in which to do it. Come into my tent, if you would, and we’ll discuss.”
He holds the flap aside and Eva and I step through, scanning the interior for danger. But there’s nothing inside except for a small comp on a tree stump, a rucksack, and some hand-drawn maps. The place is bare, the temporary home of someone who expects to have to move at a moment’s notice, and now the fabric structures with their bendable poles—tents, Ronan and Adrien called them—make sense. They must be easily collapsible, and just as easily abandoned if need be.
Ronan steps through after us and lets the flap fall closed. He zips it shut, sets the comp on the ground, and gestures to the sleeping mat. “Please have a seat,” he says. “I apologize for the Spartan quality of the accommodations.”
Gingerly, we settle onto the mat. Ronan sits down on the stump in turn, his hands dangling between his legs, and squares his shoulders. “So. Do you want to speak first, or should I?”
“Go ahead,” I tell him. It’s standard interrogation technique—get your subject talking, and reveal as little of yourself as possible. I’m not interrogating Ronan—but I’ll be damned if I’ll give away anything he can use against me without gaining something first.
“Well,” he begins, “let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way first, shall we?”
I glance around the tent, puzzled. I’ve seen images of elephants before: Giant beasts, gray, with a long trunk and an affinity for peanuts. What one of those creatures has to do with our present situation, I can’t imagine—but for all I know, the Brotherhood expects to rise to victory on the backs of massive mammals, shelling nuts as they go.
Ronan laughs, seeing our confusion. “It’s an expression. Never mind. What I meant to say is—you’ve noticed, obviously, that I don’t look like you. Nor does Zoya, or many of the people in this camp.”
Eva opens her mouth, then shuts it again, at a loss. Forestalling whatever either one of us might say, Ronan holds up a hand, adjuring silence. “You’ve been taught, doubtless, that those who resemble us—whose skin is darker, whose eyes take a different shape, or whose hair holds a rougher texture—are savages. That we form greedy mobs, massing beyond your gates in an eternal effort to penetrate security, at which point we’ll fall upon you, massacring one and all and taking your resources for our own—after we roast small children over pyres and lick our fingers clean.” His tone is wry, sardonic—but beneath the surface I can hear an old hurt.
“Is this not the case, then?” Eva says.
Ronan’s dark eyes shift to her, taking her measure. “Not in the least. As with so much you have been told about the Fall and its aftermath, that’s a lie. We prize children. There aren’t enough to go around. I assure you, I would never compromise our resources by devouring one.”
Eva ignores his sarcasm. “Is that why you were exiled—for the color of your skin?”
“The Commonwealth breeds us, as you know, for the purity of our genetic material. Yet sometimes, an unexpected fluke sneaks through,” he says, shrugging. “That was the case with me. The Priests assigned me to increasingly menial tasks, alongside the natural born. The other children mocked me. When I was fourteen, they stoned me in the square, for no crime other than my appearance. The Priests exiled me then, saying I was a disruption to the peace. I might have died—had not the ones who lived beyond my Commonwealth’s fence found me and kept me safe.”
I can hear the truth in his words; so, I am sure, can Eva. Whatever Ronan is telling us, he believes it.
“I expected the barbarians Outside to set on me,” he continues, “to rip me limb from limb. But they were not barbarians at all—just people, trying to survive. They cared for me. They took me in. And when I grew old enough, I dedicated my life to fighting for their cause.”
I weigh his words, considering. “Go on,” I say.
Rona
n braces his hands on his knees. “Long ago,” he says, “in what you think of as before the Fall, it was not as they told you. The southern rainforests were decimated, that much is true, and the land drained of its resources. The southerners came north, seeking sanctuary. Instead, they found a massive wall—and when they sought to surmount it, dehydrated and starving, they were met with guns. Threatened, they fought back. And so the War began.”
He clears his throat. “By then, the ocean’s waters were already rising. Resources were at a premium. The northerners had a superior arsenal…and the leadership of the men who grew to call themselves the Priests. They imprisoned the southerners that remained, but many escaped, bent on freedom and revenge. And then something else happened—an event that will take more time to explain than the brief period you and I have together. Threatened in its aftermath, the Priests formed the Commonwealths—to keep their citizens in, and others out. And there you’ve lived, ever since.”
His eyes flicker from me to Eva, assessing. “As Bellatorum, you’re not the holy warriors you’ve been led to believe, trained to enforce the wages of sin and keep the peace. You’re trained instead to be the Commonwealths’ weapon against change and rebellion, to keep the people in line through threats of retribution. You’re their greatest weapon against the Brotherhood. And as such, you’re also positioned to be our greatest asset.”
He pauses, waiting for Eva or me to say something. Neither of us says a word, so he continues, as if it’s perfectly normal to be directing a stream of words at two mute, shocked individuals who are staring at you as if the stump on which you sit has suddenly begun to speak. “As you know, the Commonwealths control reproduction artificially, through the work they do in the gen labs. In the Commonwealth of Ashes, the high-level techs also engage in genetic manipulation, under the auspices of the Priests. We have reason to believe they may be working on new, highly sensitive technology that will enable them to enhance preferred genetic traits—speed, strength. That’s one reason we’re here—to learn if this is true.”
Eva pales. “Go on,” she says, her voice a croak. I want to ask her if she’s all right, but I don’t want to insinuate any sort of vulnerability in front of Ronan—who has taken her at her word and is still speaking.
“The Brotherhood is mobile. We have a series of bases across the country—what you call the Empire—with small advance groups settled temporarily near each Commonwealth to establish communication.”
“Where are these bases?” Eva asks at once. Geography is relatively meaningless to us, other than what we have been taught—but information is power.
Ronan shakes his head. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Why not?” I counter. “Because they aren’t real?”
“Oh, they’re real enough. But to put information like that in your hands, without knowing where your loyalties lie—” His mouth flattens into a grim line. “It’s worth more than my life.”
“Give us something,” Eva says, leaning forward. “Or we leave, now.”
“We’re already putting our lives on the line by being here, Ms. Marteinn. Should the Executor of your Commonwealth find out we’re camped nearby, he’d put a swift end to us. We don’t stay in one place more than two days for that very reason, even when we must remain near a single Commonwealth. We don’t light fires. When we leave a campground, we do our best to give no evidence we were ever here.”
“You mean,” Eva says, “that Commonwealth patrols go out here, beyond the fence?” She leans down, poking at something on the ground, near her foot. I can only imagine she wants to hide the shock I’m doing my best to conceal.
“That’s a smoke grenade,” Ronan says, sounding uneasy. “Safe enough, as long as you don’t pull the pin. It won’t hurt your opponent, but it does a great job of obscuring your position. Still, I’d prefer if you didn’t set it off in my tent.”
Eva picks up the grenade, toying with it as if she hasn’t heard a word he’s said. “What patrols?” she asks. “When?”
Ronan gives her an exasperated glance. “You didn’t think Kilían was the only one to know about that tunnel system, did you? All the Commonwealths have them. It’s an alternate form of egress, in the event of an attack. But it also forms a most convenient means to patrol your perimeter without being noticed by those who remain inside the City.”
As Efraím’s apprentice or a mentor in my own right, no one ever told me about the tunnels. Is this what the Thirty does, when they disappear on missions—venture to the Outside? Try as I might to maintain an indifferent façade, the slight rankles. If Efraím hasn’t told me about the tunnels, what else is he keeping from me?
“What you’re saying,” I say, staying doggedly on task, “is the Executor and the High Priests know the Brotherhood exists. And they’d wipe you all out, just because you threaten their way of life.” I knot my hands around my knee, squeezing until the knuckles whiten.
Ronan shrugs. “They’ve done their best before.”
“What do you want from us?” I say, when it’s clear he doesn’t intend to elaborate. “To defect? To fight for you?”
A smile curves his mouth, creasing the laugh lines that bracket it. “If you decide the cause is a worthy one, we would be honored to have two esteemed bellators at our backs.”
I raise an eyebrow, dismissing his flattery. “I’ve fulfilled my part of the bargain—I’ve come here, willing to hear you out. But what about yours? Do you actually have any information as to the whereabouts of my parents, or was that a lie designed to get me where you want me?”
Ronan folds his arms across his chest. “I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“Oh? Where are my parents, then? Halfway across the country, in a camp like this one, awaiting your summons before they rush to their son’s side? In the wreckage of one of the ruined cities, building a home where we’ll all live in happy harmony?”
My mocking tone is meant to goad him, and it does. He straightens up, his eyes meeting mine, a challenge asked and answered. “Your mother’s here,” he says, each word measured. “In this camp. And your father—he’s serving the Brotherhood to the north. In a place called Banabrekkur.”
Dimly, I register his last two sentences, wonder what Banabrekkur is and where, exactly it might be—but the majority of my attention is focused elsewhere. I stride toward the tent flap and step through it, emerging into the dappled sunlight with Eva right behind me. “Ari—” she begins, but I shake my head fiercely, not trusting my voice. All my life, I’ve had a deep-seated desire to be someone’s—a desire that drove me to make those overtures of friendship to the other children in the Nursery, to take Eva’s hand at Black Falls. To belong somewhere, if not with the Commonwealth and the Bellatorum, then to the parents who were sentenced to death, escaped against all odds, and then came back for me—nineteen years later, but still.
I palm my favorite knife, draw myself up to my full height, and turn to face Ronan, who’s followed us and is standing a foot away, regarding me as if I am a dangerous animal. “Where is she?” My voice is a growl. “I want to meet her. Now.”
He looks me up and down, assessing. “Of course,” he says at last, and turns toward the far end of the clearing. “Miriam,” he calls.
Adrien and Zoya are standing in front of one of the tents, their postures stiff. At the sound of Ronan’s voice, they glance at each other, and then Zoya leans over to unzip the flap. A woman’s voice rises from inside, agitated and jagged-edged: “He’s my son. My son! I don’t care if Ronan said to wait. The hell with your protocols. Let me go!”
The tent trembles as if it will come apart at the seams, and then a woman emerges from the flap, a man right behind her. I take him in, performing an automatic threat assessment—middling height, brown hair, muscular build, a few years older than I—but then my eyes settle on the woman and stay there.
Even at a distance of sixty feet, I can see it’s the woman from the photograph, blonde hair, olive skin, and all the rest. In person, there are even more
similarities: She has the same stubborn set to her jaw I get when I’m determined to have my way, and the air of impatience that rolls off her is all too familiar. Her face shows the marks of a hard life, but it still bears the high cheekbones I see every morning in the mirror, in the ninety seconds allotted to me to shave.
I stare at her, and she at me. My heart pounds skips speeds breaks.
I want to go to her, but I can’t move. I am paralyzed and she is staring at me and her lips curve up in a smile and I recognize it though I’ve never seen it before and in it there is a quality I can only define as love.
“By the Architect,” Eva whispers, sounding awed.
Her words release me. I start forward, toward the woman who is my mother, and she breaks away from the man who’s holding onto her and she’s running toward me with that smile still on her face, her arms open wide as if to embrace me. Her lips form words but I can’t understand them and she is forty feet from me thirty twenty and then there’s a horrible noise and the world goes up in smoke and flames and she’s gone.
At first I think Eva’s thrown the smoke grenade, though why she would do such a thing I don’t understand. I turn my head toward her and she’s screaming my name but I can’t hear her anymore and there is blood everywhere and pieces of people, I’m staring down into someone’s sightless eyes and the ground is moving or maybe I am, everything slides sideways and then the world shudders.
Shakes.
Stills.
25
Eva
We’re running.
I’ve got Ari’s hand in mine, pulling him behind me. He’s resisting—he wants to go back for his mother and the other people in the camp—but there’s no point. Either they got away or they didn’t. Whatever the case, there’s nothing we can do for them now.
Ari hasn’t come to the same conclusion. He tugs on my hand, his lips moving, his free hand gesturing frantically. My ears are still ringing from the aftermath of the blast, but I know what he’s saying nonetheless. Let go of me. Let me go back. He twists his hand in mine, trying to get free, but I am stronger than I should be, stronger than he is, and I won’t loosen my grip.
