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.

  Now he’s here, about to face execution.

  He looks straight up to the stands and locks on to Constantine. The hard glint in his eyes has changed to defeat, and I can see the fear sparking in him now at the sight of the Premier. Then his gaze flicks to me and catches on my face in recognition.

  His lips part, as if he wants to call to me, but no sound comes out. I stare back coldly, but somewhere deep bubbles a grim glee. It’s the same feeling I get when Karensan soldiers cringe at the sight of me. Talin, the Basean rat who never belonged in the Striker forces. Now I stand beside the Premier of the Federation, dressed in the black of an executioner, ready to watch this horrible man die.

  Immediately, my glee melts into disgust. In that small moment, I allowed myself to ally with Constantine. And in doing so, I have become the monster he has made me. I become a Karensan standing with him.

  Constantine senses the shift in my mood. A friend of yours? he asks me innocently.

  My hands curl into fists against our ledge and I refuse to answer.

  Of the other Maran prisoners, two of them are Strikers—their sapphire coats are still distinct even after so long in prison. I know both of them; they were on a patrol at the other end of the warfront, but I can still remember training alongside them in the arena, getting promoted and chosen for patrols on the same day. The girl is Sana, the boy Eres. They used to be nice enough to me. No crueler than most, at least.

  I concentrate on the lump in my throat. Some of these people were horrible to me, and some were kind. But it doesn’t matter. They’re still going to die by the end of the day.

  “Any final words?” General Caitoman calls down to them.

  There is a long silence. The rebel leaders stare back in defiance. But one of the Strikers—Eres—breaks down, sinking to his knees in sobs. I take a closer look at him and I can tell that every single one of his fingers is broken, the joints twisted and black with infection. He cradles his hands gingerly.

  I have a vague recollection of how elegant Eres’s hands had been. I can picture the dexterity he had with his weapons back during our training days. Caitoman is good at figuring out how to take away what matters to you most.

  Eres calls out for mercy. But he says it in Maran. So Caitoman just shrugs his shoulders and makes a mocking gesture at his ear, suggesting that he can’t understand.

  My heart breaks at the cruelty of it. I look away so I won’t see Eres’s pleading eyes turn to me.

  How will you do it? I ask Constantine through our link. When is your executioner going to arrive?

  Executioner? At that, the Premier shakes his head at me. Who said they were dying today?

  His words make me turn back to him. I look at him, and there, in his eyes, I see the answer.

  Of course they’re not going to die. They’re going to be transformed into Ghosts.

  And right as I think it, the gates at the other end of the arena open.

  I hear the familiar grind of their teeth even before I see them emerge, one by one, from the darkness, blinking in the glaring light of the afternoon. Ghosts, a dozen of them.

  Though the beasts won’t attack them, the Karensan soldiers stationed around the arena still shuffle uneasily at the sight of their approach. The largest of the Ghosts raises its head to the sky and sniffs, seemingly puzzled by its newfound freedom. Its long, tapered ears twitch, hungry for sounds to follow.

  Jeran’s father is a vicious abuser. But the thought of him turning into a Ghost that the Federation will then use to hunt down others makes me ill.

  No. The thought shoots through me.

  No? Constantine says, almost amused. You challenge this?

  Down below, the Striker Sana has moved instinctively into a fighting stance, sliding her feet against the dirt floor. Eres remains where he is, kneeling on the ground. Beside them, the noblemen cower in terror as the monsters wander closer, searching for humans. They shrink behind the Strikers, as if this might save them.

  But the rebel leaders don’t move. I find myself staring at them, drawing some small strength from their stoic faces.

  One of them raises her voice, her eyes on General Caitoman. It’s the rebel leader from Reo.

  “I have a final word for you,” she calls out, her voice clear and steady. “And I’ll do it in your language, General Caitoman, so you do understand.” Then she smiles a little at him. “I am not the rebel leader you think you have.”

  Nearby, Caitoman keeps his own smile casual. But I see the slight clench of his jaw.

  “I am just one of many. Remember that.” Her eyes turn to Constantine. “And your Federation will fall. It is only a matter of time.”

  I feel a sharp spike of anger come from the Premier, but he doesn’t respond.

  Near the rebel leaders, Jeran’s father lets out a strangled cry of terror as one of the Ghosts skitters closer to them on all fours. The Ghost snaps its head in their direction. Its milky eyes widen in anticipation, and it bares its jaws at the promise of nearby prey.

  The other noblemen lose their nerve. They scatter, chains clacking loudly, and bolt for the edge of the arena. They skid to a halt at the raised guns of the Karensan soldiers. Trapped.

  The first Ghost shrieks, and with it, the others raise their heads too. My fingers turn white as my fists curl. Every bit of my strength goes to slowing the beating of my heart, until the strain of holding back my fury feels like it might break me.

  This will happen quickly.

  The first Ghost lunges toward them. Its speed belies its size—in a matter of seconds, it’s reached one of the two Strikers.

  Sana hops to one side. Her hands still grapple instinctively for the weapons that normally hang at her hips, but they find only air. She ducks low as the Ghost snaps its jaws at her, then rolls under the creature and tries to jump on its back.

  But she has no weapons except her hands, useless for tearing at a Ghost’s neck, and prison has weakened her reflexes. Before she can make it onto the monster’s back, the Ghost whirls around and snaps its jaws at her again. This time, its teeth find her leg.

  Even now, as it bites down hard, Sana makes no sound. Our training runs deep. She opens her mouth in a silent grimace as it flings her halfway across the floor.

  I flinch. The still surface of my emotions ripples. I see Corian in his final moments, lips turning blue, signing for me to end his life.

  Stop this, I snap at Constantine through our bond.

  Why should I? the Premier replies coldly.

  Those were Strikers. Make them useful soldiers for you.

  My Ghosts are my soldiers.

  When I look at Constantine, I see an expression of steel. He watches the scene with a bitter determination churning in his heart, something that feels almost vengeful.

  The rage coursing through me stretches tight against my efforts to tamp it down. On the floor, one of the noblemen tries sinking his teeth into a Ghost’s neck as the creature picks him up. But then a second Ghost is upon him, and he disappears from sight as its jaws clamp down on his shoulder. Eres stays where he is until a Ghost tears through his neck. And the rebel leader who had spoken her defiance stares down the Ghost that finally hurls her off her feet.

  The restraint in me snaps. I can hold back no longer. I feel the rush of rage spill from my heart into the cavity of my chest, into my limbs and mind. The wings on my back click, metal scraping against metal, as they unfurl. All I have to do is launch into the air and hurtle into them. I could cut them all to pieces right now, and no one—not even the Premier—could stop me.

  “Talin,” Constantine says in a low voice, this time out loud.

  But I don’t care. I grit my teeth and feel the strength in my veins. Down in the arena, Sana has already begun her transformation, shivering uncontrollably on the floor, her body contorting in agony, her silence finally giving way to an anguished, inhuman moan.

  My wings shift down once. My feet leave the ground, and I feel myself lift into the air. Although I can’t see it, I know my eyes have begun to glow with a faint light, the same way I’d once seen Red on the battlefield, ablaze with blinding fury.

  “Talin,” Constantine says again, his voice cutting through me like a blade. When I glance down at him, he is staring at me with a chilling look of patience.

  He knows he’s gotten under my skin. He has forced me to unleash my emotions. The bond between us sings with the flow of feeling, and through it, I feel his triumph over me.

  Think of your mother, he tells me through our link.

  Think of your mother. Think of your mother.

  And it’s all it takes to control me. I think of my mother then, of where she might be. I see her hands working diligently to sew up a gash on my leg I’d gotten from climbing a tree. I see her figure haloed by lantern light as she makes her own thread from sweetgrass leaves, sewing deep into the night to mend my Striker uniform. The memories cut through my rage like shears through stems.

  My feet touch the ground again. My wings slide into place along my back. The tide of my fury continues to hum through my veins, leaving me in anguish. All this anger and no way to unleash it.

  Constantine casts me a satisfied, sidelong glance. Good girl, he tells me.

  I hate him. I hate him with every ounce of my strength, even as I force that hatred into a sheet of ice over my heart.

  Down in the arena, the Ghosts have reached Jeran’s father. He’s sobbing loudly now, and his cries echo through the space. Some of the Karensan soldiers snicker at his display.

  “I’m sorry,” he wails, all nerve gone in the face of the Ghosts. He looks not like a former Maran Senator, but a weak old man. “Forgive me. Forgive me.”

  I want to look at him and feel satisfaction as the jaws of one of the Ghosts sink into his chest, as he dissolves into shrieks of pain. To savor the end of someone who had tormented one of my closest friends. But there is no joy to be found here.

  Forgive me. Forgive me. Is that desperate cry meant for the son he had so mistreated? For Jeran? I will never know. Instead I watch the display and am grateful that Jeran, if he’s still alive, is not here to see it. He doesn’t deserve to have an image like this haunt him.

  This must be why Constantine had bothered coming to this execution at all, when he could be anywhere else in his territory, dealing with his endless responsibilities. It’s because he wants me to see this. He wants to be the one toying with my emotions, watching me break down. He’s brought me here to see me turn my back on Mara.

  Everything in me screams to tear it all apart. But instead, I stand idly by. I think of my mother and do not allow myself to feel.

  The horror of facing Ghosts has forever changed for me. I will no longer have to fear being hunted down by them in the woods along the old warfront. The gnashing of their teeth and the shriek of their voices no longer threaten me. Now I have to bear a different fear, the fear of watching them turn that same viciousness against the country I’d fought so long to defend.

  Once, I stood on the opposite side, facing them down. Now they are my allies, and I will watch them destroy everything.

  As the scene finally comes to its awful end, General Caitoman turns and speaks quietly to Constantine. This time, his voice is not full of cold humor. He is annoyed.

  “I will have that woman’s words investigated,” he murmurs. He means the rebel, I realize, who’d dared to speak. “They will not amass their army.”

  Army. I feel Constantine’s emotions surge again, then settle into a careful tension.

  And suddenly, with a start, I know the real reason why Constantine had come to witness these punishments. It isn’t because he is bored. It isn’t because he’s trying to discipline me—although I know he relishes that.

  It’s because he needs to see these rebels’ lives ended before his eyes. It’s because he sees them as real threats. Because he is afraid. And that means he knows there must be some truth to the woman’s words.

  I am just one of many, she had said. Your Federation will fall. It is only a matter of time.

  And I realize that maybe, just maybe, the reports of unrest inside the Federation are more serious than I thought. That the cracks might run deep enough to shatter it.

  2

  RED

  There’s a word in Maran that I like. Restitution.

  Adena explained it to me yesterday, when we were stripping the bark off a tree to fashion makeshift weapon harnesses.

  Restitution? Adena had said. It means the return of something lost or stolen from you. A correction of wrongs.

  There’s no equivalent word in Karenese. Inside the Federation, you’re told that those capable of claiming something for themselves are the fateful owners. If you’re too weak to hold on to what you love, the thinking goes, then maybe you don’t deserve it. Maybe it belongs in the hands of someone else.

  It’s nice to know that this isn’t what others believe. And I can’t help but wonder: What else do I not know?

  I crouch among the bushes lining the edge of a hill, my gaze following the double steel walls ringing Newage. This is the safest vantage point, a spot hidden in thickets and trees from which the train station set up by Karensan workers is clearly visible.

  Behind us is our crowded campsite. Not that there are many who survived the siege: Two dozen are uninjured, a dozen are wounded. Jeran, Aramin, Tomm, and Pira are among the Strikers I know here. Adena calls us—what was it?—a ragtag team. Not wrong, I guess—we are ragged. But everyone still keeps things tidy. Drying clothes are hung in a neat line. Shoes are lined up and polished to the best of our abilities. You have to keep morale up, right? Some sense of order.

  There must be clusters of survivors in other parts of the hills sloping around the edges of Newage, although none of us can reach one another given the way the Federation has positioned its troops in the forests. Even so, we’re enough of an annoyance that the Premier is still hunting for us.

  Specifically, for me. His first Skyhunter. His worst mistake. Maybe I should be proud of myself.

  I try to sit as still as I can. Behind me, I can feel Adena fiddling gently with my injured wings. One of them was mangled in the last siege, leaving a deep gash in the metal and severing a few of the wires and tendons servicing it. I’ll be honest—I didn’t think these wings would hurt if they broke. But they sure do, the wound leaving a deep ache that rings through my bones. Adena has tried to stabilize them as much as she can, but I can’t open them without feeling like some goddamn knives have stabbed through my back.

  “Their train’s ready to move out?” she asks me as she works.

  “Tomorrow, I hear.” I point down at the tracks that wind away from Newage’s walls and out into the hills dividing Mara from the rest of the Federation. “It looks like they have what they need on the cars.”

  “Cars?”

  “Carriages? They are loaded,” I rephrase, trying in vain to explain it in Maran. My eyes swivel briefly to the rest of our encampment, searching for Jeran. It is always harder to be clear without him translating at my side.

  Adena casts me a sidelong glance. “Your accent’s a little better.”

  I shrug. “As long as you understand.”

  “You still sound more formal than you need to be. You don’t have to emphasize every syllable.”

  “How should I say it?”

  She repeats the same phrase, and I try to concentrate on the differences. “See? I’m not straining each word the way you do.”