Then Constantine, the young Premier of the Karensa Federation, is staring at nothing at all.

  The strength that had magically held me up now ebbs to nothing. I’m aware of the agony coursing through me, the blood that’s still gushing from my back and staining everything red. I give in to it and fall to my side. The stone roof is cold and hard beneath my cheek. The world grays, turns muffled and tilted.

  Somewhere in it, Red emerges. Had he won his own battle? He is bloody and wounded, he is limping, but he is moving toward me. I smile at his approach, every part of me yearning for him. He kneels down beside me, his hands running gingerly down my arms, but he’s too afraid to lift me. He knows the damage that has ravaged my back. Off in the distance, I can hear the chants of the people.

  Red’s hands touch the sides of my face. I close my eyes for a moment, sighing, savoring the feel of those rough palms gentle against me. Maybe things will be all right now. I feel so tired.

  Talin. Talin. He is speaking through our bond to me, maybe because it is all I can hear right now. When I look up at him, there are tears in his eyes, running down his face, dripping from his chin. He bows his head before me and I feel his breath warm and shaking against my face.

  You did it. He says it over and over so that I finally understand him. He’s gone. You did it.

  I don’t know what I did. I don’t know what will happen after this. And everything in me grieves at the thought that I might never find out, that in spite of everything, I will not be able to leave this place and see my mother again.

  I manage to reach up and touch Red’s face with my hands. They are shaking so hard. He presses his own hands firmly against mine, and I’m grateful I can still feel their warmth.

  Stay awake, Talin.

  I’m trying, I tell him. I’m trying.

  There is so much ahead for you.

  I try to hold on to his words. There is so much that could be ahead for me, for us, for this world. Even when it is burning down, even when we are lying in blood, dying, too weak to do anything more than concentrate on taking one breath at a time. I blink, blink again. Red is still here. I pull him to me, think that I feel his lips touch mine.

  I love you.

  Save it, so you can tell me again later.

  I love you.

  I love you.

  Through our link, I can feel the strength and light of his life coursing into mine, his heart beating for mine, keeping me afloat. I hang on to him with everything left in me, even as the corners of the world finally fade. There is the scarlet sky, the sound of shouts from below. There is Red.

  Maybe there is nothing else ahead for us. Maybe there is only this.

  42

  RED

  Once, I’d thought this city was beautiful. Now it looks like the end. The sky is bleeding, fires rage against the horizon, and the streets are smeared with blood from rebels and soldiers and Ghosts alike.

  I can still feel Talin’s heartbeat through our link, and I take comfort in the fact that we are bonded. Down below, I think I catch a glimpse of Aramin and Jeran fighting side by side—and then of Talin’s mother cutting a line through the pandemonium.

  The people need to see—I remember thinking as I come back into my body—they need to know that Constantine is dead.

  I leave Talin’s side for an instant and drag Constantine’s lifeless form up, then carry him to the edge of the roof. There, I hold him up.

  No one sees me at first. Then, someone shouts and points up at me. Her cry alerts another, who does the same. Another person joins in, and then another, and then the soldiers see. The clashes around the palace turn stilted, halt, restart in fits of chaos. But more and more people see who I am holding.

  “Constantine is dead!” I call out, my voice harsh with tears. “The Premier is dead!”

  As the chant rises over the din of fighting and flames, I lay Constantine’s body down at the edge of the roof and return to Talin’s side. I hoist her up over my shoulder, trying not to further injure her back.

  Only then do I see someone familiar appear on the roof. It’s Talin’s mother, followed closely by Adena, the two of them bursting out from the stairway and rushing toward me. Behind them come a disorganized line of rebels. All I can think is that it must mean they have overtaken the palace.

  The thought sends me to my knees. I crumple slowly and wait as Talin’s mother and Adena reach us. I must have tried to say something to them—explaining what happened to Talin—because Adena immediately pulls off her own jacket and starts to wrap Talin’s back tightly. Talin’s mother leans over to me, shouting.

  “She needs blood,” the woman says. She and Adena help me steady Talin’s body as I gingerly lift her in my arms. “We need to get her downstairs!”

  We leave the roof. As I start to descend the stairs, I cast a final glance over my shoulder. Constantine’s body stays there on the edge of the roof, alone and undefended, just an object to be gawked at and pointed to by the crowds below. All the destruction he has caused, all the lives he has destroyed—but in the end, he is just a lone, frail figure, another body. And in time, like all bodies, he too will vanish into dust.

  Think of all that a single person can do. All the indescribable good. All the unspeakable evil.

  * * *

  There is a moment in the hospital of the inner city when I think Talin has died. Her heartbeat grows so faint that I can barely detect it. Outside, the city is flooded with the chaos that comes from the end of an era. When I look out the window, I see people tearing down a statue of Constantine’s father that has been in the center of the Solstice Circle for as long as I can remember. People from every conquered nation have dared to appear in the streets today, many of them crouched, weeping, before the monuments stolen from their countries and now adorning the main thoroughfare.

  As the chaos sweeps through the streets, I stay by Talin’s side. A nurse from the former lab institute has already come by to set up an infusion of liquids into her body. Sometimes her heart quiets so much that I have to lean my head against her chest to hear her pulse for myself. Her mother stands beside her, her steady hands carefully sewing the horrendous wounds that Talin has sustained on her back. Beside her, Adena assists, occasionally looking at Talin’s face in the hopes that she might wake up.

  I don’t know what time it is when Jeran and Aramin walk through the hospital door to see us. The day has come and gone, and night has fallen over the city again. Outside, Cardinia still sounds like a roar, but I see fewer soldiers clashing in the streets. Instead, there are arrests, and rebels waving the flags from a dozen fallen nations. The flag of the Karensa Federation burns everywhere.

  “I heard about what happened,” Jeran says as a greeting as they stop at Talin’s side. He is drenched in sweat and blood, but otherwise, he looks well, his face smeared with ash.

  Adena shakes her head. “She’s lost a lot of blood. I don’t know when she might wake up.”

  Aramin doesn’t say anything at first. Instead, he just watches her chest rise and fall, as if silently counting her breaths. I observe his face quietly before I nod at them both. “What’s happening out there?” I ask.

  Jeran looks at me. “Those still loyal to Constantine stood down almost the instant you brought his body to the edge of the palace roof. Everyone knows the Premier is dead.”

  “Now what?” Adena asks quietly, her eyes going from me to Jeran to Aramin.

  We are silent. None of us know. It doesn’t feel real that the capital of the Federation has fallen to rebels, the victims of all of those it had conquered and ruled. What happens after this? The Premier is dead; his brother is dead; there is no heir. Where do they go from here?

  Aramin is the first one to speak. His voice is hoarse, as if he has been crying. “We may not know for a long time,” he says. “Maybe that’s a good thing. Let the people feel. Only then can we stop to think about what comes next.”

  We sit, indulging in another round of silence. I find myself feeling grateful that there is no discomfort in this silence. It is the sound of friends who have been through everything together. And in this moment, we are all waiting for the same thing. Our eyes linger on Talin, watching her every breath, watching her eyes, watching for the slightest hint.

  Her hand is tucked in mine. But she does not squeeze back.

  * * *

  Talin’s mother stays the entire time. So do I. We never leave her side—even though her mother tries frequently to make me go.

  “Look at you,” she scolds, waving her hands impatiently at me one morning. “Get out of here, get some air, get some food.”

  “I could say the same for you, ma’am,” I answer, refusing to budge.

  She sighs and shakes her head at me. “Stubborn young things,” she mutters as she turns back to stare at her daughter’s face.

  “Weren’t you too?” I ask her after a while.

  She doesn’t answer right away, but I catch a faint smile on her lips. “Ah,” she says sorrowfully. “There is nothing in the world I can say to send you away, is there?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  She touches her daughter’s face gently, and I find myself imagining a small Talin and her younger mother.

  “I suppose love is a stubborn thing,” she finally says.

  Adena disappears for a stretch, off to survey the remains near the lab complex. She is still unsure what exactly happened when they detonated the cylinder, or what the blue shaft of light that shot into the air when it went off means. Already, several rebels have died, burning to death over the span of a day in the same way that I’d seen before with those poor workers. The land around the lab complex, she tells us, is charred so badly that everything—stone and steel and earth—has melted together into a single mass. Whatever the energy source was meant to do for the Early Ones, they had buried it deep in the earth, as if they’d never wanted it to be found again. Now I know why.

  Sometimes I see Aramin and Jeran outside the window, wandering the courtyard outside the hospital restlessly, their heads together as they talk. At one point, late in the evening, I see Aramin take Jeran’s hands in his and bring him close for a kiss. My hand tightens around Talin’s.

  At some point, I fall asleep beside her. In my dream, I am again walking down the bright, narrow tunnel toward the end, where I see Talin waiting for me. But I walk and walk and walk, and the tunnel goes on and on and on, and I never reach her. Somewhere down there, I can hear the faint steadiness of her breathing. She’s still there. But she doesn’t answer.

  I wonder if I will continue to walk in this dream forever. As I go, I remember the way she extended her hand to me in the Striker arena, then the way she reached for me on the battlefield. She had come to my rescue the first time we’d failed to escape the lab complex.

  Talin, I say, calling her name over and over through our link, listening for her response.

  I wait. The day changes again. Night becomes morning becomes night. Our friends rotate in and out of the room. Talin’s mother sleeps, exhausted, nearby. Outside the window, the chants continue. I drift in and out of my own dreams, and in every dream, I walk down the tunnel and call Talin’s name.

  I call and call and call.

  Then, finally, on the morning of the fourth day, I call for her. Talin, I say through our bond.

  And I stir awake to see her eyes open, clear and vibrant, staring directly at me. She smiles faintly.

  Hello, Red, she answers.

  43

  TALIN

  Steelstriker.

  That’s what Red says they’ve been calling me in the streets. The Striker from Mara, turned into a Skyhunter, reinforced by steel in her bones. A warrior. A savior. A human who is not human.

  By now, the news that I was the one who plunged a dagger into Constantine’s heart has spread: one of the Premier’s own Skyhunters, freed of her bonds, turned on him and ended the Tyrus rule in a single blow. The corners of the Federation—Tanapeg and Carreal and others—have already frayed in response to the Premier’s death. I’ve heard another territory is now claiming itself as independent.

  At night, I can hear chants of my name rise and fall in the streets outside. I can’t tell if I’m dreaming or awake when I hear them.

  Empire breaker. Steelstriker. Skyhunter.

  Another name to add to my list.

  It’s a strange feeling, knowing that Constantine is no longer on the other end of my mind. There is no one to tell me that my mother’s life depends on what I do. She is here, beside me. So is Red and Jeran and Adena and Aramin. They rotate in and out of my room at such regular intervals that I quickly begin to anticipate their arrivals, my heart quickening in a different way as each hour brings a different friend to my side.

  But even as the days turn into weeks, my mother never moves. Every time I drift off into sleep and wake, she is there, tut-tutting over the color of my cheeks or how much food I’ve left behind on the tray. A new bowl of porridge will be there, or a pot of simmering meat stew, or a savory bun filled with chicken and vegetables. I don’t know how she gets the ingredients or where or when she cooks, but somehow, like she did in Mara, she always finds a way.

  “They say you’re recovering well,” she tells me in Basean this morning, as I wake to the aroma of chicken stew and warm sweet rolls.

  The constant, searing pain in my back says otherwise. “They say I may never fight again,” I sign.

  “I sincerely hope you never do,” my mother signs in return, but her eyes are gentle. She knows that the war has left behind wounds in me that will never heal, but that it also brought me some of the greatest joys I’ve ever known. I’ve found the people who would stand shoulder to shoulder with me. We’ve made it, together, to the other side.

  My mother sits in silence as I eat. From here, we get a good view of the city center. Karensan troops are still everywhere, but they are busy directing workers to repair the damage from the fights and preventing scuffles from breaking out on the streets. Others are handing out food to lines of people who have seen their markets burn down. Still others stand idle, wandering restlessly from one end of the Circle to the other.

  Their expressions look lost. Who are they now, if not servants to the Premier? What do you do after the regime you’ve served topples to the ground?

  “Do you know what else they say?” she tells me after I’ve finished eating.

  I look at her. “What?”

  My mother rises, taking the empty food tray. As she does, she glances sidelong at me.

  “They say you should fill the Premier’s vacancy.”

  Then, before I can answer, she turns away, leaving me alone to gather my thoughts.

  My gaze shifts to the window.

  They have been without a dictator for mere weeks, and already they are prepared for someone else to step into their late Premier’s shoes. Karensa is a Federation where they have been taught to value the strength of their rulers. Well, they’ve seen that strength in me. A Skyhunter is a Skyhunter, seemingly invincible. They believe me capable of ruling them the right way, taking over a regime that had been evil and turning it good.

  I want to laugh, laugh, and laugh until tears stream down my face, until I cry.

  They don’t understand what they’re looking for.

  Goodness can be no single leader. No solitary person.

  Goodness is friends who stick by you, even when they fear you’re lost. It’s mothers who fight for their daughters. It’s believing in something better—and taking action to make it reality. It’s love, untainted and pure.

  Goodness is a garden that provides life to thousands of blooms. It does not rule. It gives.

  * * *

  Another week blurs by.

  One sunny morning, as my mother sits at my bedside and talks to me softly, I feel Red’s presence approaching us from down the hall. I turn away from my mother and toward the door, then straighten as Red walks in with several Karensan soldiers. The sight of him is a comfort, as always, but today, seeing the red coats still sends a flutter of fear through me. I tense.

  It’s okay, Red’s voice echoes in my mind. His eyes meet mine, then skip to the woman standing to his right.

  Mayor Elland.

  My mother narrows her eyes, annoyed with them for disturbing her daughter’s rest, and Mayor Elland clears her throat. I almost laugh at the way that my mother can make even the mayor hesitate in her boots.

  “Talin Kanami,” the woman greets us. “Glad to see you doing well.”

  I just give her a single nod, then wait for her to continue.

  She approaches us, then takes a seat beside my mother before facing me. “How do you feel?”

  I tilt my head slightly at her. “Strong enough,” I sign, letting Red translate. “I should be back on my feet soon.”

  “Good.”

  “Why is that good?” I eye her. “What do you need?”

  She glances briefly at my mother, who simply sits back in her chair and regards the woman with an icy stare. Then the mayor lets out her breath and leans forward on her knees. She fixes her eyes on me.

  “The Karensa Federation is leaderless,” she says. “I currently manage the affairs inside Cardinia, but there is a need to fill the Premier’s seat.”

  “The people are calling you Steelstriker, Talin,” Red adds. “They know what you did on the roof of the palace, and your name is on their lips at all hours.”

  I look back at the mayor, who gives me a nod. “I’ve heard the same in the streets. Many are calling for us to appoint a new leader soon.”

  A new leader for the Federation.

  I frown at Mayor Elland. “I’m surprised you aren’t stepping into the role.”

  She shrugs. “I have no interest in ruling the entire Federation,” she replies. “I’ll let that honor fall to someone else. I’ve done enough.”

  Red comes over to my bedside. His fingertips brush mine, and through our link, I hear his voice, followed by a rush of warmth.