Beside the table, Talin’s mother grabs her limp hand and leans down to whisper continuously in her ear. On her other side, Adena stands helplessly, looking on while Aramin keeps a hand on Jeran’s shoulder and watches, the two of them pressed gently to each other side by side. I can only watch.

  After a while, I step out. It’s too much to see Talin like this. She had seemed unstoppable, had saved me so many times that, even after all she’s suffered, I’ve come to see her as invincible. And yet, here she is, pale and blue, her skin as cold as the ground.

  “She’ll make it,” the mayor says as she approaches my side.

  “I know,” I answer, my voice a growl. I still don’t dare look back.

  “Raina told me how few of you make it into the Skyhunter program,” she goes on, folding her arms in front of her and giving me a stern look. “None of you go easily. It’s your defining trait. She’ll pull through, if only by sheer force of will. And if she’s anything like that mother of hers, she’ll be up and ravenous by dinnertime.”

  “And then what?”

  The weight of the loss of her allies seems to pull her shoulders down, and for a moment, the mayor looks lost.

  But the hesitation lasts only for the blink of an eye. Then she turns her attention back to me and sniffs. “And then we do something about the mess that you are,” she retorts, glancing at what must be a mass of burns and dried blood on my back.

  The mention of my injuries seems to suddenly remind me, and I wince as if on cue as the pain of it finally hits me. My back feels like it’s been set on fire.

  “I’ve got a makeshift infirmary set up in the back courtyard,” she goes on. “Tend to yourself as needed. We’ll gather this evening to discuss our next steps.” She reaches up to touch my chin, and the motherly confidence of her gesture sends a pang through me for all the missing pieces of my family. “You may be a Skyhunter, if a broken one. But you still need to rest up and eat. Understand?”

  “Understood, ma’am,” I respond.

  “Ma’am,” she scoffs, releasing me. “I haven’t been called ma’am in a decade.” She nods toward the dining room, where the workers administer to Talin. “Go on. I know where you want to be.”

  I head back into the room and hurry to the side of the table, where Talin still lies unconscious, breathing slowly. The lab worker who had first seen her is now injecting a white tonic into Talin’s arm. Talin’s mother calls for a basin of hot water, then presses a wet cloth to her daughter’s forehead and chest to warm her.

  I take Talin’s hand and squeeze it. Through our bond, there’s still only silence—but the beat of her heart comes through. At least that sounds strong.

  Talin, I say to her, even though I’m not sure how much she can hear. We’re all here. All of us.

  I hesitate, pushing down the lump that rises in my throat.

  And I love you, I add to her. She doesn’t stir. I love you.

  34

  TALIN

  I love you. I love you.

  I hear Red as if from a vast distance. I try to turn toward him, but everything in me feels made of steel.

  Other voices are familiar too. Jeran. Aramin. And Adena—her rapid talk, her falling into her meticulous habits in times of stress. Everything in me yearns to wake up to see them. What is she so scared of right now? They are talking about me. I can hear my name on their tongues.

  And suddenly I am on the warfront again, the memories hazy around me. I am a young Striker, newly anointed, and Corian and I are returning from an exhausting day patrolling the border. I am sitting around a fire, laughing with Adena and Jeran until tears stream down my cheeks. I am practicing with Aramin, who is showing me a complicated maneuver with my daggers. I am pointing at the stars with the others, all of us lying in a row, picking out constellations and wondering if the Early Ones had left to live there.

  I am younger, full of anger and hope, and surrounded by friends. I am with the first true friends of my life. I am home.

  I yearn now toward their voices hovering above me. It doesn’t matter where I am. They are all here. We are all together. This is home.

  “Talin? Talin!”

  And now I can see Adena’s worried face, the way her eyes light up at the sight of me. The world blurs, sharpens. Jeran has the biggest smile I’ve ever seen, one that highlights every last bit of his beauty, and nearby, Aramin lets out a long breath of relief.

  They are here.

  I look at Adena and want to move my fingers, tell her how sorry I am for being unable to save them from the train and the arena. My limbs feel like they’re dragging through mud. But it doesn’t matter, because Adena throws her arms around me in an embrace. All her warmth hits me at once, and I’m fully awake, I’m laughing through my tears, I’m pulling my groggy arms around her in a hug.

  “Damn it all to hell, Talin,” she exclaims, “but you sure like to take your time.”

  “Leave her alone,” Jeran says. He’s holding one of my hands. “She’s just coming to.”

  There’s a scuffle and more squabbling, and I want to laugh at the music of it.

  “All of you, give her some space,” Aramin says in his gruff voice, even though I can see his smile too.

  And Red. Red is here, his smile shyer, his eyes locked on mine. He is holding my other hand, I realize, and I squeeze my fingers tight around his.

  Hey, he says through our bond.

  Hey, I answer, relishing this bridge of ours.

  “Oh!” Jeran suddenly straightens and steps back. “Step back. Let her in.”

  It is the last voice that I hear the clearest, that pulls me completely out of this strange fog of my mind. It is a voice that I’ve talked to over many a simple meal of fragrant rice and chicken, of steaming buns and hot tea. It is a voice that has come home humming, a deer slung over her back. It is a voice that I followed out of a burning homeland and across a dark plain, over a bridge that led us to safety. It’s a voice that once told me, It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.

  It is my mother, and she is right here, hovering somewhere over me, her warm, familiar hand encasing mine.

  I turn my head and find myself looking up into her eyes. Her white hair. The smile that breaks across her face at the sight of me.

  The mayor had told the truth. My mother is here. Alive and well.

  The tide in my chest crests and everything in my heart breaks wide open. The anguish that has held me tight since we were first captured loosens in a single go. I am a little girl again. I manage to lift my arms to her as she bends down to embrace me with her good arm. My tears come in a rush.

  Mama. My lips form the word silently, and a hoarse whisper of a sob emerges from my throat. Mama, mama.

  And she wraps me in her warm embrace.

  “It’s okay, baby,” she whispers in my ear as I weep. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

  35

  RED

  I don’t even realize how many injuries I have until I start getting them treated in the mayor’s courtyard. They pour stinging liquid down my back and somehow I stay stoic through it all, my fingers clawing against the ground in agony. They wrap me in tight bandages.

  I don’t care. It doesn’t matter, because Talin has woken up. She’s survived.

  Hours later, I see her picking through the people scattered across the steps leading out from the estate’s back door, her arm still looped through her mother’s, the two of them inseparable. Beside them, the mayor speaks to her in low voices. Some color has returned to Talin’s cheeks, although she looks paler than she should.

  For a while, I say nothing. I just admire her as she goes. Even after everything, she moves with that grace trained into her by the Striker forces, as if she is gliding through a forest floor without a sound. Her dark hair is pulled back up into a messy version of her warrior knot. A few strands fall around her face, framing it.

  I can’t look away from her. I never want to look away again.

  Jeran grins from beside me. “This is the happiest you’ve been since we left for Cardinia,” he says. “And we’re all gravely injured and losing a war.”

  I give him a bemused look. “I’ll take what I can get,” I say, nodding slightly at Aramin sitting beside him, sipping gingerly at a cup of hot tea. “Eh, Jeran?”

  Jeran blushes, but he doesn’t look away. Instead, he seems to shift unconsciously in the Firstblade’s direction.

  Nearby, Adena straightens from sharpening a dagger incessantly. “Save up your strength, boys,” she tells us, her eyes roaming over the white bandages looping around my torso. “We won’t get to stay up here for long. The mayor won’t be able to hide her involvement with these rebels forever, and soon Constantine will be on us. We don’t have infinite rebel guards at the gates, you know.”

  As she speaks, Talin catches sight of us. Her eyes go straight to me, and the link between us pulls tight. She smiles faintly. My heart leaps.

  She and her mother come to a stop near us.

  I haven’t even finished nodding to them both in greeting before her mother unloops her arm from her daughter long enough to tilt my chin up with her good hand. She turns my face slightly, frowning.

  “So many cuts,” she mutters to me in Maran.

  “I’ll be okay, ma’am,” I reply, shrugging off my healing scrapes from the prison district battle.

  She just studies me some more before shaking her head. “You need some poultices. Young soldiers like you never seek out enough help. I’ll ask the mayor if she grows any yarrow.”

  Talin looks on, seemingly amused, as her mother then turns away from us to check on Adena’s bruises. Then she sits down on the step beside me and gives me a smile.

  Hello, she says to me.

  To be close enough to her again that I can communicate, to once more hear her voice through my bond, strong and steady.

  It brings tears to my eyes. I laugh a little and look down, embarrassed, and blink rapidly as if to get rid of them.

  Hello, I answer back through our link.

  The sound of my voice in her mind must startle her too, because her smile widens and her eyes gleam in the fading light. She looks like she wants to tell me something more, hesitates, then smiles again, shyer this time.

  Your mother’s doing well? I ask her. Her hand…?

  Talin glances over her shoulder to where Adena is now complaining gently about her mother’s concern. She will be, she answers. She never tells me about her pains. But she’s happy to see us all here.

  My lips twitch in a small smile. If the Federation let her, she could have this entire nation sorted out before sunset.

  I believe it, Talin replies with a whisper of a laugh. Then she glances with concern at my bandages. Your back, she says.

  I just turn so that my bandaged back is facing her. Why? I ask, glancing over my shoulder at her. Does it look bad?

  She tilts her head playfully at me. Not your best look.

  I’ll grow out of it.

  She smiles, then looks over to where Adena moans halfheartedly as Talin’s mother rewraps a bandage around a cut on the Striker’s arm. On impulse, I reach out to take Talin’s hand gently in mine.

  Touching her. The real her, here, in the flesh. It feels so good. My hand tightens around her fingers, and she squeezes back.

  Thank you, Talin says after a pause. Her smile is gone now, replaced by a grave expression. I never thought I’d see her again. And then you got her out of there.

  I hesitate, bashful now myself, unsure what to say. We needed you here, I say. With the rebellion, not at Constantine’s side.

  Talin’s emotions waver through our bond, and I suddenly curse myself. Nicely done, Red. Tell her more about how the only reason you saved her mother was because you needed her to fight for the rebellion.

  I clear my throat and prepare to tell her the real reason—but the mayor is taking a seat near us in the courtyard, and everyone around her hushes, turning in her direction to hear what she has to say. My moment passes. I force my answer down as Talin turns toward the mayor too. Our hands slide free.

  Mayor Elland looks weary, tired in a way that seems unlike her. Still, when she speaks, her voice is strong and steady. “The Premier knows the edges of his Federation are crumbling,” she tells us. Beside me, Jeran translates in a soft voice to Aramin and Adena. “He knew the rebellion was stirring here in the capital, poisoning his authority. That’s what he meant the slaughter in the arena to be—a warning.”

  A slaughter, Talin’s voice comes through our bond, alarmed. And I remember that she wasn’t awake during the killing.

  I give her a grave nod. A slaughter, I answer. I decide not to recount the way Constantine blocked the entrances and exits of the arena, then sent his soldiers in to do his bidding. How many dead there were.

  Talin’s heart twists, and I feel the twinge of agony from her.

  “How did Constantine know we planned to make a move today?” someone asks.

  “Because I told him,” the mayor replies.

  There’s silence. Some in the crowd know; I can tell because they don’t react. Others suck in their breath sharply.

  “I told him about the betrayal of his Chief Architect and his brother,” the mayor goes on, her eyes narrowing. “Raina’s mistake was in keeping her alliance with General Caitoman a secret. We are not here to hand power over to another Tyrus.”

  There is a murmur of agreement.

  “His mistake,” Jeran chimes in at the mayor’s words. “Without killing every rebel, he has simply made them martyrs.”

  “But where do we go from here?” Adena asks as Jeran translates. “We’ve lost the element of surprise, now your original plans have been scrapped.”

  Another rebel nods and speaks up. “She’s right. Constantine has retreated to hell knows where. We’ll have to find a way to root him out.”

  “I know where he is.”

  Talin signs her words in Maran, and Jeran speaks up for her, interpreting for everyone to hear. At that, every eye turns to her.

  The mayor watches her. “You feel him right now through your bond with him?” she asks.

  Talin’s signs are cutting and angry now, and within them, I see hints of all she has suffered under the Premier’s control. “When he wants to be alone, he retreats to his greenhouse across from the palace grounds.”

  The mayor nods in understanding. “Of course he would,” she says.

  “Why do you say that?” I ask.

  The mayor is quiet for a moment, as if remembering something from long ago. Finally, she says, “The Premier’s mother ordered the building of that greenhouse. It was her sanctuary. I remember Constantine playing along the paths inside.”

  The Premier’s mother. I hadn’t thought much of who she must have been. A silence follows her words, and in that silence, I hear the truth of how the mayor might have hated Constantine’s father, and why she has come to support the rebels’ cause.

  There’s an unspoken understanding that passes between Talin and the mayor, although I don’t know what it is. Then Talin signs, “Constantine has a private chamber in that greenhouse.”

  “A private chamber?” the mayor asks as Jeran translates.

  “I wouldn’t have known if I didn’t stumble upon him there myself,” she answers.

  “Are you sure he would be there now?”

  Talin’s eyes flutter closed for a second, then open again. “I can feel his heartbeat,” she replies. “I’m willing to bet on it. It’s too close for him to have left the capital.”

  Aramin nods at that. “We saw the number of patrols still stationed around the palace. Too many for there to be no one to protect.”

  “We still have many supporters in the city,” a rebel tells us in a low voice. “Many who are alive and strong enough to fight. They’re all out there in the streets. What can we do to help them?”

  “Arm them,” the mayor replies. “Send out equipment, weapons and food, medicine and bandages.”

  “There are too many of Constantine’s loyalists still in the city,” another rebel says. “What happens if they come targeting these gates? They’ll find out soon that you’re harboring us all here.”

  In the momentary silence after, Talin’s mother speaks up in Maran. “Well then. It means we have to root the Premier out before he can do the same to us. Isn’t that right?”

  Jeran interprets her words to the rest of us, his voice ringing out clear in the air.

  The mayor nods, smiling at the woman’s words before addressing the rest of us. “You heard her. We do what we can control. We will get to Constantine. There is no alternative.”

  “You once said you pitied the Premier,” Talin suddenly signs. “Do you still feel that?”

  As the mayor listens to Jeran repeat the question in Karenese, everyone quiets. The mayor stares listlessly into space, thinking her answer carefully through. Then she looks back at Talin. “The boy I once pitied is no more,” she says. “We are going to end his regime.” Her lips tighten. “And end him.”

  If Constantine dies, the Federation goes with him. There is no one else now. No Caitoman, no heir. Without Constantine, the Federation’s standing on the Tyrus name will end.

  “I will get to him,” Talin signs.

  Jeran looks sharply at her, then translates her words for all to hear. Talin doesn’t flinch from the attention around her.

  “It has always been my fate to face him in the end,” she adds.

  “I will go with you,” I say aloud. Talin stares at me, searching my gaze, but I just nod and repeat it. “I will go with you, and we’ll make sure to end this once and for all.”

  “Rest first,” Mayor Elland says, and we all quiet, as if she has just reminded us how tired we all are. “The palace is too thick with soldiers right now, and you’ll do no one any good if you’re exhausted. We’ll make our decisions later.”

  36

  TALIN

  We gradually disperse after the mayor’s servants bring us dinner on the courtyard terrace. As evening falls, I rise and pick my way back through the clusters of rebels. The mayor is speaking quietly with several of those leading the other rebels. Her voice remains steady, but I can see how this has all taken a toll on her. She had been the one who’d grieved her servants in the palace atrium, the three lives I’d taken in order to satisfy Constantine. At the memory, I feel the shame and trauma heavy in my own heart. My hands still feel stained with blood. How must she feel? How many friends had she lost in the arena’s massacre? All those lives, sacrificed likely because of Raina and Caitoman’s betrayal.