Jeran looks around. “Where do you think they would bring Striker prisoners during all this?”

  “They’ll either be at the National Laboratory,” I reply, “or held in the rooms underneath the arena seats.”

  At that, Jeran glances sharply at me. “Arena seats?”

  I nod once. “Karensans love sport,” I tell him. “The Premier likes to hold the events to keep the people happy, and they especially like to do it with prisoners of war. The events are always a secret. The audience gathers in the arena each day without knowing what they’ve come to witness.” My voice halts, and when I speak again, it sounds hoarse. “The Strikers will be either qualified for some experimental program at the lab complex or used to entertain the people.”

  Jeran’s silent, but when I look at his eyes above his mask, they shine with a grave light. There is fury there for what Karensa will do to our friends—but there is also a twinge of guilty understanding. Mara did something similar with their prisoners, after all. I’d been one, hadn’t I? It’s never as entertaining when you are the one sent into the stadium to die.

  We look away from each other, two soldiers from enemy nations, and the silence settles awkwardly between us.

  When we pass by the lab complex, I can tell immediately that the Strikers aren’t there. No crowd has gathered in front of its gates, peering curiously for a look at the new prisoners of war. So we move on in the direction of the arena at the center of the city.

  All around us, people are dressed in the colors of Karensa. They’re happy and laughing, hungry as they wait in lines at the food stalls, giddy to see what’s going to happen in the arena on each day. I watch them go about their celebrations with a surreal sense of shame. I used to be that little boy, waiting in line for fried cheese. I used to be the one running into the arena, curious about what new entertainment they would have for the day. Now I’m here, heart in my throat, waiting to see if my friends will be the ones forced to amuse this crowd.

  The masses thicken as we draw closer. The structure is a perfect circle. Through a dozen different gates embedded into its curved outer wall, there are a dozen different holding rooms that then lead into the main arena. With the sheer number of people here today, the Strikers must have already been ushered inside. They’ll stay in there until the day they’re selected to go into the arena.

  Until the day they’re scheduled to be killed.

  We edge close enough to the first gate to see the details of the sliding metal door. The crowd moves around us in a swarm of festivity. No, too many people here. I glance ahead through the throngs to get a better look at the second gate.

  That’s when I notice the rectangular metal slabs on the sides of some of the pillars. Vents. Memories flash back to me as a child walking through the gates, feeling the draft from overhead. Long air ducts tunnel throughout the halls underneath the arena, under every seated row. And where there are vents, there are open spaces to hide.

  The metal grilles over the vents are high, near the ceiling of the curved gates, too high for an average human to reach. But for Jeran and me, they’re within reaching distance. If we worm our way inside them, we can travel undetected through the ducts to search the holding rooms.

  I tap Jeran once and, without explaining, let the crowd sweep us toward one of the gates. Fewer people gather under these shaded entryways, which means Jeran and I can slip in behind the pillars on either side of the gate, partly hidden and forgotten as the rest of the crowd mills restlessly around the entrance doors to the holding rooms on the off chance of glimpsing the prisoners.

  Jeran looks puzzled by what I’m doing, but he doesn’t react. Instead, he watches me as I study the metal grille above us. Then, hidden in the shadows behind the pillar, I pull myself up stone by stone and then push off with my boots as hard as I can. It’s enough for me to reach the edge of the grille. I take a knife from my belt and worm it between the grille and its frame, then push.

  My wings may be damaged, but my strength is still intact. The force of my shove is enough to pop off the grille so it can swing open. I lift myself higher to peer into the dark tunnel it reveals. Sure enough, it’s an air duct, its cool, circulating breeze combing through my hair.

  I look down at Jeran, who has caught on. He climbs lightly up the pillar, his boots finding the tiniest footholds. I crawl into the vent, then move forward to give him room. A moment later, Jeran appears behind me. I hear the faint clink from him replacing the metal grille.

  We exchange a brief smile. Then I turn forward and begin making my way through the duct.

  It’s cool inside the hall of holding rooms. The duct curves, following the arc of the wall, and we move with it. All along the way, thin slats in the side of the duct give us a faint view of the corridor below.

  Two guards stand at each holding room’s door. We stay quiet in the shadows of the rafters, looking through the slats as scarlet-clad soldiers march by in regular intervals. None of them bother to look up at the duct running along the ceiling—none of them seem concerned.

  We listen for a while, catching bits of their conversations as they go. Their focus seems to be on the prisoners who’ve just arrived, but as they talk and laugh, I see them do what I used to do—passing bets on slips of paper between them. Likely on whom they think will win the games over the next few days. As they tease one another, I study the rest of the hall.

  The number of soldiers at the arena is numerous—but not as much as I’d expect. That’s a surprise. Back when I lived in this city, there’d be at least a dozen patrols of six, all assigned to this area of the arena alone. Now I count three. Where are the rest?

  I wait carefully until there’s a brief pause between clusters of soldiers, then continue without a sound along the tunnel. Jeran moves in a silent crouch as he glances inside each of the rooms across the hall below, looking past the grates for any sign of someone familiar. He has been the more careful one of us, but now his movements take on urgency that’s rare in him. I have only ever seen it once. It was on the battlefield during our final stand, and it was to protect Aramin.

  He stops abruptly. Everything in him freezes. Then he glances over his shoulder at me and nods once.

  The door is a series of wide metal bars, and through them, I find myself looking into a dimly lit room at the shadowed faces of Adena and Aramin. No sign of Tomm or Pira, who must be kept in a different room. Both of them are so heavily chained that it looks ridiculous; shackles on their wrists and ankles, waists and neck, all of them connected to the wall, while half a dozen guards stand outside their door—three facing them, three facing the hall.

  My heart sinks. Constantine fully intends for them to participate in the game tomorrow.

  Being held here, they will be hard to get out. The keys that unlock these prison doors and their chains are not keys at all, but strings of numbers input as a code. The codes are kept at the palace itself, accessible likely only by the Premier’s personal guard.

  One of the soldiers is saying something to Adena, but she doesn’t pay him any attention. Neither she nor Aramin looks up where we are crouched in the shadows, watching from our small opening. Instead, they sit across from each other in the room with their arms weighed down, leaning against their knees as they ignore the guard speaking to them.

  A knot sits thick in my throat. I can only imagine the emotions coursing through Jeran, but even in the darkness, I can tell that he is trembling all over. He keeps his eyes fixed on Aramin, his gaze darting slightly about as if he is studying the chains and wondering whether there is any way we can break them free.

  The thought crowds my mind too. But I know it will be impossible. The crowds today are too thick, and the focus on these prisoners too strong. Everyone is here to watch them perform. Too many eyes.

  But what if you could cut through the guards, past those cell doors and their chains?

  No. I can’t fly. My wings are too far damaged, and without reliance on my flight, it will be too hard to force our way in, cause a commotion, and then try to get them out of the city without attracting the attention of every guard in the city. The Premier will know—he will probably send Talin to face us. Ghosts will be released from their pens around the city’s military complexes and the lab.

  I shake my head in silent frustration as two of the guards rotate out. Beside me, Jeran glances at me and seems to guess what I’m struggling with. His hands flicker in the dim light.

  “Smaller shifts,” he signs to me, pointing down at the moving soldiers below. “More frequent.”

  I nod grimly. There is a pattern to the soldiers they’ve positioned. And when I glance up to the corners of the ceiling, I notice curved rims of mirrors strategically placed. They are designed so that there is no inch of this floor unseen by the guards, no matter where the soldiers stand. They can see a reflection of every curve against this wall. We’ll have to knock them out if we’re to set foot outside this vent.

  I do my best to sign this to Jeran. He shakes his head, frowning a few times, but eventually gets the gist of my efforts when he looks at the mirrors.

  We settle back to study the soldiers again. No matter how we look at them, we both reach the same conclusion. There is nothing we can do to get them out right now. We are as helpless as if we were standing on opposite shores of an ocean.

  Eventually one of the guards stops trying to talk to them and turns his back. Jeran moves slightly against the opening in the vent. One of the buttons at his collar gleams in the light.

  A moment later, Aramin’s eyes slide up the wall opposite him. His gaze travels to the soldiers standing outside, then go up to fixate on the slits in the ceiling vent, right where Jeran’s button must have glinted.

  At first, the Firstblade doesn’t seem to see us.

  But even as Aramin’s gaze breaks away, he comes back again and again to look up in our direction. Jeran does the same each time, shifting just enough for a tiny bit of movement to be seen from outside the vent.

  A small, sad smile appears on the edges of Aramin’s lips. Maybe he knows it’s us.

  I look to Jeran. He does not utter a sound, is so still that even I think he has blended in with the shadows, but when I take in his face, I see tears streaming down his cheeks. His gaze stays locked on Aramin. Neither of them makes a single gesture, but something passes between them, a conversation I cannot understand.

  As I look on, I see Aramin’s fist clench tight. He looks back down at the floor, but in silence, he presses his fist to his chest in the Striker salute. The gesture is subtle and quiet. But, as with everything about the Strikers, the silence is not silence at all. He is telling us that he knows we are here. He is reminding us that they are alive, that we still have time.

  Adena, too, catches the gesture. She knows better than to react, but I can see her recognition in the slight widening of her eyes. She follows the turn of Aramin’s body to look at the vent. The ghost of a grin touches her lips.

  “Jeran,” I sign gently, until he glances at me with grief in his eyes. I nod once. “We’ll come again.”

  Jeran nods, as if snapped out of a daze. We can’t stay camped in these ducts forever, hoping to catch a whiff of soldiers’ gossip. But Aramin and Adena can, at least until they’re forced into the arena. They might hear something that will help us.

  When Jeran can’t tear his eyes away from Aramin, I touch his shoulder softly. “Tomorrow,” I sign. “More time then.”

  Jeran’s eyes are still locked on the prison door below. “What will happen to them?” he signs back.

  I shake my head. “I don’t know.”

  And I genuinely don’t. Like many of Karensa’s punishments, this is designed to be a game. A surprise. Something the crowds are forced to look forward to in morbid curiosity. What will happen in the arena tomorrow is anyone’s guess, although rumors must have already begun to spread.

  “I can tell you this.” This time, I lean closer to Jeran so I can whisper in his ear. “Constantine will give them a fighting chance. No one goes through this much trouble to bring prisoners to the solstice games without making a sport of it.” I nod down to where Aramin and Adena sit. “Mara’s Strikers are legendary. People will be clamoring to see them. The Federation will stretch this out for longer than a day. They will still be here tomorrow night. And that means we’ll still have a chance to rescue them.”

  “Rescue,” Jeran signs as he forces his eyes away from the prison. He meets my gaze. “Is that possible?”

  “Any other year? No. Their keys and any duplicates are too hard to get.” I give him a small smile. “But this year?” I whisper. “We may know someone on the inside.”

  Talin. If the palace holds the key, then she might be able to get her hands on one for us. If.

  The other voice in me perks up all of a sudden.

  You hate using that word with her. As if she might choose to betray you instead. As if she isn’t someone you can trust.

  I don’t know what Jeran sees on my face, or how this boy constantly notices everything said and unsaid, but something about my words must agree with him, because he nods numbly at my words. “Tomorrow night,” he signs.

  I cast a last look down at the holding room too. Now Adena is standing, snapping at the guards over something, and Aramin has turned his attention away from us. He doesn’t dare look at us again, not with the guards’ attention now fully on them. As they argue, I start to make my way back down the duct.

  It is only then that I overhear something the guards say. It freezes my blood.

  “If they’re lucky enough to survive, they’ll eventually face the Skyhunter.”

  Jeran hears it too. We halt, our eyes locked in a shared moment of horror.

  I don’t know what the games will ultimately be. But Constantine is going to force them to take on Talin.

  14

  TALIN

  The celebratory games in Cardinia are set to begin tomorrow. For now, the streets are a whirlwind of red tissue raining from the balconies and street vendors filling the air with the smell of roasted meat and sticky sugar. The occasional scrawl still appears on sculptures here and there, but they are gone by the end of the day, hurriedly scrubbed clean, the damaged sculptures removed and replaced with others.

  But I remember them. And that memory reminds me that all is not as it seems in the city.

  This morning, I walk in the midst of the ongoing festivities with a small patrol of guards behind me. Here in the capital, I typically spend some of my days protecting Constantine during his official duties. Other days, I’ll patrol the city, following leads about unrest or violence, ensuring everyone keeps the peace. My watches follow a pattern: I go through the streets; I check on specific shops; I attend some of the official announcements that happen weekly in the city square in order to observe the public’s reactions. I report anything suspicious or arrest lawbreakers. Anyone stirring up trouble. I go to the National Laboratory at least once a week—sometimes to report on how the experiments are going, sometimes to meet with the Chief Architect myself in order to get enhancements for my ongoing transformation.

  All it takes on most days is for people to simply see me coming down the street. It is in Constantine’s best interest to show off his most fearsome weapon for his people. Everywhere I go, I can see people parting for me like a tide, followed by hushed murmurs and averted eyes, their heads bowed instinctively in fear. Their gazes linger on my black armor and the two flat stripes of metal along my back.

  Skyhunter. I can hear their whispers in my wake. That’s the Skyhunter.

  Today, I’m assigned to visit the Laboratory. As we turn in the direction of the complex, my mother’s signed words run repeatedly through my mind.

  Someone there is working actively against the Federation.

  Did my mother tell me this as instructed by Mayor Elland, or against her wishes? If a lab worker is secretly part of some rebellion, what are their plans? Are they one of the victims currently slated to be transformed into a Ghost—or a Skyhunter? One of the workers or an assistant? And how are they keeping themselves from the ever-watchful eyes of the Chief Architect?

  I take in a deep breath. It’s likely my mother would never tell me this directly—but maybe she is a part of the rebellion herself. She knows the slow torture I’m experiencing, doing the Premier’s bidding. She has seen the results of my awful transformation. She is as angry as I am, probably feels the fire churning in her chest just like I do.

  If my mother’s in on it, then I am too.

  So I turn my attention in the direction of the lab institute. To my guards, I just signal simple commands in Karenese sign language.

  “You,” I sign, pointing at one of them, then another. “You. Come with me.” Then, to the others, I gesture to the multiple points around the estate’s gates, indicating for them to take up their typical shifts at the gates while they wait for me.

  The guards don’t hesitate at all. They bow and move immediately toward their assigned positions, their obedience to me as unflinching as that of Ghosts.

  One of the two guards chosen to stay with me bows her head and gives me a questioning look. “I’m not a scribe, Skyhunter,” she says to me in Karenese. “Is that all right?”

  Sometimes the guards are tasked to record the conversations I have with the Chief Architect, or write down notes of interest about how specific victims are doing in the lab institute.

  I shake my head. “It’s fine. No notes today.”

  The soldiers don’t know Karenese sign language except the handful of commands they’ve been required to learn since I joined the Premier’s side. But it’s enough to convey our messages to each other. I think Constantine is also satisfied with how limited it keeps my control over them. There’s only so much I can say.

  The soldier bows her head. “Of course, Skyhunter,” she replies.

  During the celebrations, the lab institute’s gates have been draped almost entirely in festive red cloth. Rains from the night before have left them soggy. I stare at the line of water left beneath them as we step through to the front gate, where the institute’s guards bow low to me. Dread has begun a slow churn in the pit of my stomach. It doesn’t matter how many times I set foot in this place. I always hate it.