1
TALIN
The place where my mother’s house once stood is now a field of scorched dirt. I have a memory of her rows of green plants, fat pea pods hanging from their vines, water dewing on the lemon-scented leaves of her sweetgrass. That’s all gone.
The rest of her old street is gone too—every leaning shack, every pot steaming over a fire. The narrow alleys crowded on either side with makeshift vendors, draped with faded fabrics and rusted tin sheets, arrayed with bags of spices and salvaged tools from the scrapyards for sale, the air pungent with the smell of frying fish, grease, and raw sewage. All gone.
The slums of Newage’s Outer City were never a beautiful place, but now they’re nothing more than mud and earth and debris. The only footprints are those of Karensan boots, the Federation coming through for their inspections. Off in the distance, their workers are hammering down new train tracks leading straight into Newage—once Mara’s capital—now another city fallen to the Federation.
The National Plaza has been taken over by a sprawl of pallets, nurses caring for injured Federation troops and Maran prisoners of war. The apartment where I used to share quarters with Red has been converted into barracks where eight Federation soldiers are bunking together. And the underground prison pit, where Red was once kept and where I’d been held upon our return to Mara, has become a massive excavation site. I can see Mayor Elland of Cardinia standing beside the churned earth, talking with the head engineer about the logistics of shipping their findings back to the capital.
The Federation believes that the Early Ones left behind a powerful, ancient source of energy in the land underneath Mara, and Premier Constantine thinks they’ve found it here, in the depths of what used to be our prison. Karensan engineers have exploded open the entrance and sent their drill teams down into the silo. The lowest floor is now a pit leading into darkness, the space cut by dozens of ropes and pulleys.
The changes extend to everything. The wall where I used to crouch as a small child, eyes shining and legs swinging, as Striker patrols headed out to the warfront, is completely covered with papers from Marans searching for lost loved ones. It has looked like this since the city first fell six months ago.
Lost: Damian Wen Danna, beloved father.
Has anyone seen Kira Min Calla, daughter, twelve, separated from mother in flight to the tunnels?
Errin An Perra searching for her baby, Seanine Min Perra, blue eyes, brown hair, 19 months old, separated near the south walls.
Torro Wen Marin looking for his parents, Karin An Tamen and Parro Wen Marin, both missing since the day of invasion.
On and on. The papers pile so thick on top of one another, a stack of anguished searching, that it looks like the wall itself is made of paper. I wonder if Basea’s walls were like this, too, after the smoke cleared. I wonder if there was even anyone left to search for us.
Every home has a door hung with the Karensan seal. Every storefront has prices written in Karensan notes. Every corner has at least one or two Karensan soldiers, most of them looking bored as they shove their hands into the pockets of their scarlet uniforms and complain about the chill.
Six months was all it took for my memories of a free, independent Mara to fade away. I had settled into the routine of life here, hopeful that things would stay the same, until I was reminded once again of how quickly everything can vanish. One instant, there is a society, a set of steel walls, and a home. The next, there is ash.
I stand beside Constantine Tyrus, the young Premier of the Karensa Federation, in the arena where I used to train with my fellow Strikers. This place, too, has changed—its sides draped with enemy banners—but its purpose remains the same. We’re here today to oversee the punishment of prisoners.
Constantine’s brother, General Caitoman, stands on his other side, the two speaking in low voices. Other soldiers stay at attention near us. I cast a brief glance toward them. A few catch my eye—immediately they lower their gazes to the ground in terror, their heads hanging in bowed deference to me.
I feel a tug of satisfaction at their fear. Then revulsion washes over me. They’re afraid of me because they see a monster created by their Premier.
From the corner of my eye, I can make out where the soft skin on my forearm between my wrist and elbow now has armor running underneath it. The bones of my body are now fortified with the essence of steel. My hair has taken on the same metallic sheen that Red’s has. The backs of my hands bear a tattoo of a diamond shape, the symbol of something indestructible.
I am indestructible. I am stronger than any living human should be, and I can feel that strength every time I move. Where I once only saw grass, I now make out a sea of blades. The air looks like it ripples with wind. The world vibrates with a thousand new movements. My back has been torn open and rebuilt, my limbs laced with steel, my face partly hidden behind a black helmet and mask.
Only my eyes remain exposed. They are still as large and dark as ever, though they have been broken down and rebuilt into something new and superhuman. And now I see something different reflected in them whenever I pass a mirror—the presence of someone else haunting the back of my mind.
“Half of them are Marans,” Caitoman says to Constantine. After the many months I spent in captivity in the labs, I have picked up enough Karenese to get by.
“And the other half?” he asks. The question sounds disinterested, but through our bond, I notice the Premier’s attention pique, as if he had been waiting impatiently for Caitoman to tell him more about the prisoners.
Caitoman’s lips curl into a thin smile. He is all that Constantine is not: thick muscle and height and strength, full brown hair and mischievous eyes. But even Constantine’s eyes don’t possess the void that his brother’s have. When I look at the General, all I see is the ocean at night. Merciless and churning.
“Rebels we caught at the border states,” Caitoman replies. I struggle to keep up with his rapid Karenese. “Two of them were leaders of the recent unrest at Tanapeg. One of them is from Carreal. She was heading the attempt to break Carreal from the Federation.”
Rebels from the border states, Tanapeg in the west and Carreal in the south. I’ve been hearing about them for months, ever since I first started shadowing the Premier and protecting him. Through our bond, I sense a deep satisfaction coming from Constantine at his brother’s report.
“I assume you’ve questioned them thoroughly,” Constantine says.
Caitoman lifts an eyebrow at his brother as an unspoken understanding passes between them. “You should know that,” he replies.
My hands clench and unclench, even as I tell myself to control my emotions. I have directly witnessed how General Caitoman interrogates his prisoners. Seen with my own eyes how many tools and weapons he uses, how creative he can be, how good he is at keeping people alive through it all. How that thin smile remains even after the very end.
I force my thoughts of the General away and instead look around the arena, always watchful for any threats to the Premier.
If Constantine dies, my mother dies. This is the only thought that fuels my concern for the Premier’s life and health. If he is killed, a message gets relayed instantly to whatever secret location they’re keeping my mother. A sniper shoots her. By the time Constantine’s heart has stopped beating, so will my mother’s.
So I watch for any potential assassins, spies that might harm Constantine, danger waiting in the shadows. I watch, even though it makes me sick to my stomach.
You’re angry with me.
Constantine’s voice in my mind jolts me out of my watch. I still haven’t gotten used to this new bond between us. The Skyhunter and her master. He sounds different in these secret conversations to me from when he speaks aloud. His voice is smoother, less hoarse and more refined, perhaps how he’d sounded before his illness took hold.
I’m always angry at you, I respond to him through our link. I glance over to catch him looking sidelong at me with an expression that I hate. His eyes tell me he can sense the roiling tide of emotions, my fury with him for making me stand here and oversee this. So I fold my emotions ruthlessly back, as if I were squeezing the muscle of my heart to force it smaller.
It’s one of the first things I learned after my Skyhunter transformation: My bond to the Premier’s mind draws much of its strength from my emotions and his. It is why Red and I had always sensed each other’s feelings so acutely, why our emotions seemed almost to feed each other. Why Red was the most powerful on the battlefield when consumed by his rage. I’ve found the colder I can make myself, the harder Constantine has to work to sense anything through our link. The more I hold back my emotions, the less Constantine can sense of my mind.
And Red …
The less I allow myself to feel, the more distant I grow from Red.
Though I can still sense the steady, faint beating of his heart from some great distance, that is all. I haven’t felt a ripple of emotion from him since my transformation. Since I started to pull myself back like this. It’s almost a relief. The less I feel, the less Red can feel of me. And the safer he and any surviving Strikers will be from the monster I’ve become.
It seems to amuse Constantine, the way I struggle to keep him at bay. But if he’s aiming to get a reaction out of me, he’ll have to dig harder than this.
Half of these prisoners mean nothing to you, Constantine goes on. They are from countries you’ve never visited. The others are those who never treated you right. Maran nobles. Strikers who resented you for being on their patrols. Are they so sacred to you?
My lips twist. You’re one to talk about what’s sacred.
Why? Because I’m going to make Mara a better place?
He knows what he’s doing. I grit my teeth and fight to hold back my anger. It doesn’t belong to you.
He folds his arms across his chest and nods down at the turned earth. The ornate headpiece he wears today over his shaved head sways, strings of jewels clicking and tinkling. The energy source from the Early Ones is rumored to be so powerful that it can bring warmth and light into every house across the land, he tells me. Worth digging up a jail, wouldn’t you say? And the people we’ll execute today are war criminals, scoundrels who hoarded wealth, and zealots who pledge themselves to a nation that is no more. Worth executing, wouldn’t you say? He casts me a knowing look. Tell me I’m wrong, Talin.
You’re wrong.
Tell me Mara would do anything differently in my position.
Wouldn’t change anything if I did, would it? I bite back. I can hear the snarl of my answer echo in his mind. You only do what you want. You ask me only to taunt me.
He runs his fingers along the hem of his sleeve. Truth sounds like a taunt when you don’t want to hear it.
I rest my hands against the ledge before me, waiting for my emotions to still.
Let me tell you a truth, then, I tell him in the most serene voice I can muster through our link. You are afraid to be seen as a weak ruler.
In an instant, I know my aim is true. He looks away from me, but through our bond, I sense his amusement flicker briefly into annoyance. We can play this game from both sides and sometimes, just sometimes, I’m the one who wins.
The hint of his irritation disappears, and he settles back into his cool demeanor. Careful, Talin, he tells me before looking away. Remember who drapes you in wealth.
I look down at my new outfit. Where before I wore the somber and refined sapphire uniform of Strikers, now I have clothes dripping in foreign luxury. Black wool and leather layered underneath with fine linen and trimmed with silver fur now covers me from neck to toe, and over my ornate sleeves are armguards fashioned in the strongest, most beautiful black steel I’ve ever seen, all branded with the Federation’s seal.
Constantine wants his war machine to look good.
Did they dress up Red in fancy things like this too? Had he been paraded around like a puppet before he managed to escape? I find my thoughts drifting, as they often do, to the memory of him at my side. His figure, strong and seemingly invincible, crouching protectively behind me. His face, outlined by late-afternoon light in Newage’s bath halls.
Is Red thinking about me out there?
I pull my thoughts harshly back. Let myself go too much, and Constantine will sense the twist of my feelings. He’ll know I’m dwelling on Red again. I’d learned this the hard way early on, when I was still recovering at the National Laboratory and wept an entire night, yearning for Red. The next morning, Constantine had shown up in my chambers, interrogating me on whether I’d felt Red’s location. He’d sent Caitoman scouting in the woods where I thought Red might be. I’d been wrong, luckily—my transformation had put me in such a state at the time that my mind was a haze. But it was enough of a warning.
I’m relieved the Premier can’t yet compel me to obey him. The Chief Architect, the one responsible for my transformation, tells me you can’t erase someone’s mind without also destroying it. The kind of obedience Ghosts show so quickly to the Federation is more difficult to replicate in the mind of an alert, intelligent human. The Architect hasn’t figured it out yet, but her teams are working on it.
Still, the Premier knows there’s more than one way to control someone. He showed me that the day he brought my mother before me, bound and gagged, a knife at her throat. I follow his commands not because I must but because I fear what could happen if I don’t.
My mother remains under guard at all hours of the day and night. Constantine has her moved to a new location every two weeks, depending on my behavior. If I am obedient and do as he says, she will spend those weeks in a luxurious place. If I displease him, he will move her somewhere much worse.
I’m allowed to visit her once every two-week period. He pretends to do this out of benevolence, but we both know it’s only so I can see with my own eyes how my actions directly affect my mother’s life. To make me watch her live comfortably or miserably, knowing it was my doing.
Constantine has eyes watching me everywhere, making sure I do as I’m told. So I do. I force myself to follow his orders for my mother’s sake.
But my mind itself is not trapped. Not yet.
The Chief Architect warns me this won’t always be the case. Every day that passes, our bond strengthens a little more. My clamp on my emotions is a little less effective.
When we return to the Federation’s capital of Cardinia tomorrow, the Architect will continue to work on me in the National Laboratory. Slowly, steadily, my mind will fade, until I won’t be able to tell my emotions from the Premier’s.
In another year, I will no longer have control over my own mind.
Karensan troops have lined up along the rim of the arena floor, two soldiers deep. At one end of the space, a gate slides open to reveal a cluster of prisoners being shoved forward into the light.
I recognize who they are based on the rags of their former clothing. The captured rebel leaders stand out, although their heads are nevertheless still held high. I secretly feel a sense of satisfaction at the sight. One of them has a severe limp, while another is still covered in dried blood. But even Caitoman couldn’t break their spirits.
Others wear remnants of Maran silk coats and fine linen shirts. Constantine hadn’t been lying when he said there were noblemen among them. Six months of wasting away in prison, laboring to clear the land around Newage and hauling supplies off Karensan trains to drag into the city, being questioned by Karensan interrogators and sentenced before Karensan judges, and then waiting, waiting, waiting for their execution dates to finally come.
A part of me is surprised that Constantine bothers coming to a mass execution like this. Surely he must have better things to do as Premier of the entire Federation than hang around Newage, delivering death sentences to Marans. And yet, here we are.
Maybe he just enjoys seeing a country fall to its knees. Maybe he wants to watch with his own eyes as rebel leaders are put to death.
Leaning against the balcony, General Caitoman smiles without smiling. I stare at him, both curious at what he must be thinking and grateful that I will never be bonded to that man’s mind.
As the prisoners draw nearer, I suddenly recognize one of them. His Maran robes are in tatters, sapphires and reds now stained brown. His shoulders, once proud, are now hunched in defeat. Prison and hard labor seems to have aged him decades in mere months. The lines of his face, though, are a crueler version of Jeran.
It’s his father.
My head swims at the sight of him, and I have to grasp my emotions tight to keep them from running away. Before Mara’s defeat, I’d witnessed his cruelty countless times, striking Jeran with his fists or dragging his son away by his hair. I’ve seen Jeran’s arms and face and neck bruised black and purple from this man’s abuses, heard Jeran try in vain to make excuses for his father and shy away from fighting back. I’ve dreamed of sliding my own sword between his ribs, had to have Adena talk me down from lunging at the man.
Copyright © 2021 by Xiwei Lu
Copyright © 2021 by Rodica Prato
