Jeran glances back at me as we move quietly through the woods. “All good?” he signs to me.

  How can it hurt more, after so many months, to feel a phantom sense of Talin and then have it taken away? How can it be worse than not hearing from her for so long?

  I think about telling him this. But then the other voice in my mind turns on me, harsh and biting. It was just a trick of your mind, it says. Just the ache of Talin’s absence.

  I nod and sign back, “All good.”

  Jeran looks at me a beat longer, eyes searching mine, but then continues along our path.

  Over the past few months, we have learned all the ways through this forest. With Adena, I practiced how to step softly enough not to disturb the leaves on the floor. From Jeran, I mastered gliding from tree to tree like—how do the Marans say it?—a breath of air. They still move more stealthily than I do, but one learns survival techniques quickly when trained by the Federation’s army.

  By the time we reach a clearing overlooking the valley where Newage sits, the sunset has given way to twilight. Stars overhead are winking rapidly into existence. The train station’s construction site near Newage’s front gate is flooded with artificial light from their lamps, but otherwise, several bonfires burn across what was once the Outer City. From here, the three guard towers they’ve erected around Newage loom like pillars to the sky, casting long black lines of shadow in their wake.

  A short distance away, Adena stirs in the shadows of an engine in the grass beside the tracks. She signs at Jeran and mercifully keeps her movements to what I’ve learned over the months, so I’m able to understand.

  “Who’s watching the walls tonight?” she asks him.

  Jeran’s gaze roams the area before he finds the uniforms he is looking for.

  “Caitoman Tyrus and his patrols,” he responds to Adena in the darkness, using the new name sign we have developed to represent the Premier’s younger brother. Even though I can’t see Adena’s expression from here, I can tell from her silhouette that she winces.

  My own memory of the General is of him smiling at me on the other side of the jail cell that I—a boy of fourteen—had been thrown into before I was sent to the National Laboratory and given to the Chief Architect. He’d listened to me as I begged him for the lives of my father and sister.

  “And what would you be willing to do to save them?” he asked me.

  “Anything, sir,” I replied in desperation.

  At that, the General’s eyes widened, glinting with mischievous delight.

  He ordered me taken out of my cell, then led to the prison’s courtyard, where he handed me the leash of a young goat they were about to send to the kitchens. He gave me a knife and told me what he wanted me to do to it.

  So I did.

  That’s what it takes to become a Federation soldier. You do what you’re told.

  Afterward, when I asked him if he would now spare my father and sister, he started laughing. He laughed until he wiped a tear from his eye.

  “I just wanted to see if you would do it, boy,” he called over his shoulder before walking away down the prison hall.

  I swallow hard at the memory, shame filling me all over again. That is General Caitoman. I wonder what he’ll do to us if he catches us here tonight.

  Adena glances to where I am hiding and signs, “You have everything I gave you?”

  I nod once, my hand moving to the pouch strapped to my belt. Inside, wrapped snugly, are at least a dozen small spheres filled with chemical concoctions that Adena has stolen over the months, meant to explode when ignited. My job tonight is to place them strategically along the train tracks. The next morning, the striking of the train’s wheels rolling against the cylinders will set them aflame. One by one, they will light up in a spectacular show, damaging the track beyond repair. If done correctly, it should set the Federation back by months.

  In the chaos, I’ll attack the Karensan patrols while the others work to free the prisoners in the cars. If we move quickly enough, we can get out of there before the Federation hunts us down.

  Everything that happens next is about buying time.

  I creep closer now, moving from the trees to the stacks of rails that tower around the construction site. Their workers have stopped for the night, leaving the area patrolled only by a couple of guards, and I can crouch in the shadows to get a good view of the train station. My eyes linger on each of the soldiers.

  Seeing those scarlet uniforms always leaves me with a strange, nauseating familiarity. I can’t help but remember how that coat felt against my skin. The weight of the blades and rifles at the belt, the weary impatience at night duty. Now I find myself searching their faces, as if I might stumble across someone I once knew. Some old acquaintance.

  But they are all strangers.

  We wait there until the guards rotate, leaving a small window of time where no one is looking out from the guard towers. In the dark, I see a ripple of movement through the train yard as Jeran makes his way toward the closest tower to him. Even knowing that he is there, I still lose him in the shadows until I finally notice him settle into position in the shadows underneath the tower, a spot that gives him a wide view of the rest of the train yard.

  Once more, something stirs in my mind, the heartbeat of someone familiar on the other end of the bridge.

  I pause, frowning again. My hand comes up to rub the side of my temple.

  Talin?

  She can’t be in Newage. They took her to the capital months ago. But my breath still turns shallow in my chest. The wild hope stirs awake in me, and I search the grounds for a sign of her. But I see no one.

  I can’t afford to waste time. With all my strength, I force away the nagging thought and turn in the direction of the station itself, then pick my way through the train yard until I’m crouched in the shadow of the nearest tower. Guards on top of Newage’s walls have their attention trained mostly on the clusters of former Maran refugees wandering around outside the gates, picking through the destruction of their former homes in the Outer City. I see two of the refugees scuffle over something they have found on the ground. Is it some precious scrap of memories? Is it shoes? I don’t know, but the incident is enough to distract nearby Karensan soldiers into heading toward them to break it up.

  I don’t waste the opportunity. The moment the guards leave, I move into the shadow cast by the body of the train. There, I plant the first cylinder, tucking it underneath the wood of a track. Then I plant another, and another. The work is easy, if tedious, until the guards rotate back. When they do, I pause and hide again, my eyes turned toward Jeran’s tower for his signal.

  His silhouette in the long grass is almost impossible to pick out. I stare at him for so long that I almost believe he has vanished. At last, I see his head shift subtly, followed by the faint sight of his fingers moving against the moonlight.

  Anyone else would be unable to make out his signs from so far away, but I have extraordinary sight, and there against the night, I can decipher his words.

  “Wait thirty seconds,” he signs. “The guards will rotate to the third tower, and in the gap, you can move to the other side of the tracks.”

  I turn my attention back to the tracks. I wait the full thirty seconds, then take a deep breath and slip between the cars to the other side of the tracks. Sure enough, the space is empty, the guards gone for a breath. I move as quickly and quietly as I can, placing the spheres at careful intervals.

  Most of the cars of this train seem to be carrying back hauls of crumbled stone and twisted steel, remnants of Newage’s destruction that the Federation must want to recycle and turn into better things. I glimpse cars filled with nothing but glass shards or black stone or mangled sections of metal.

  Under the tower, Jeran signs again, “One minute.”

  I speed up my work. One sphere, then another, then another. On the opposite end of the train yard, Adena should be nearly done cycling around the station building itself. By the time we are finished and leave this site, no one will be the wiser that this entire site is rigged for destruction. The thought brings me a sense of grim satisfaction. Months of us hiding in the forest, rescuing the occasional prisoner, nothing more, while helplessly watching Karensa lay down these tracks and rebuild Newage the way they want, has eroded our confidence.

  But even if we’re captured, there are others out in the forest. This war is not over yet.

  Talin’s heartbeat comes through our link again. Stronger.

  Something has changed; there is a new darkness in her, something unspeakable. I feel the weight of it, and fear fills my every cavity. Because I know that feeling. That darkness. My eyes again go back up to the city’s walls, searching. She must be here. This is no longer a hallucination.

  And something has gone terribly wrong.

  Then, all of a sudden, I hear a commotion near the front gate leading into Newage, and I freeze, melting back into the shadows of the train.

  A patrol of soldiers heads out through the gate, pausing to split into two lines. I watch closely, then glance at the tower, wondering whether Jeran has another sign to send to me. No movement from him. My eyes dart to where Adena should be by the station. She doesn’t move either.

  Between the two lines walks the Premier, who looks like he’s here to carry out a night inspection of the grounds. But it is not his presence that opens a pit in my stomach, hollow and nauseating. It is not him who sends the world around me spinning. Instead, it is the sudden, overwhelming surge of her presence in my mind. The heart and emotion of a girl I have thought about every waking moment for the past six months. It is the figure I see walking alongside the young Premier as he speaks in a low voice to one of his soldiers. This figure moves in sync with the Premier, and her eyes stay forward, searching the darkness.

  No. I am scarcely aware of my breath hovering in the night air. The thought squeezes my chest tight. No.

  And that’s when I see her unfurl a set of steel wings on her back, just slightly.

  Talin.

  I know every line of her figure and the tilt of her chin, even behind the mask and helmet she wears. The evening light outlines the profile of a young woman whose face I’ve taken care to memorize.

  It’s her.

  But even as I wrestle with my disbelief, I see with horror the slight unfurling of her own wings as she faces the Premier. The way she bows her head to the Premier as he turns to her.

  You know what those wings mean. You know that black armor.

  In desperation, I reach out to Talin through our link. But all I feel from her is that tide of darkness, the awfulness of what has been done to her. Her anguish coats the bridge between us.

  The horror seeping in is a familiar feeling. It is watching your sister transformed into a Ghost, right before your eyes. It is knowing that your own defiance as a Karensan soldier meant the deaths of your family.

  When I rip my gaze away and toward the train station, I see Jeran signing at me. “What’s happening?”

  I can hardly bear to sign back. “Talin is alive,” I tell him.

  Even in the distant shadow, I can see Jeran’s face brighten at my words. “She’s here? Can we get to her? Is she one of the prisoners being loaded—”

  But I shake my head before he can even finish. “No,” I respond.

  “Why?”

  I turn my eyes back to the girl I used to know. “Because,” I sign, “she is a Skyhunter.”

  5

  TALIN

  Red. I’d sensed him.

  I’d felt his presence while I soared over Newage. I’d felt the lilt of his emotions seeping through our link as I toured the grounds outside the city walls with the Premier.

  I’d tried over and over again to call to him, but he must be too far away for me to speak to him. Still, I’d watched the grounds with my emotions pulled tight, my gaze sweeping for any sign of him even as I monitored the train tracks. Even as we returned to the National Hall that night, Red’s familiar pull lingered in the back of my mind, haunting me.

  He is here. He is here.

  If Constantine can tell that something has shaken my feelings tonight, he doesn’t say it. Instead, he walks beside me at a slower pace than earlier in the day. Even though he’d looked every inch the Premier at the arena, he finally falters as we head back into the city late in the night. I feel his weight lean slightly against me, then his voice coming through our link.

  Talin.

  Sir.

  Hold out your arm to me.

  I sense the slight fog of his emotions, the numbness of his mind as his aches plague him tonight. Even though everything in me wants to kill him, plunge one of my weapons into his chest and end his life, I instead hold out my arm and let him take it, feel his hand tremble against my armguard as he uses my strength to keep himself steady.

  I hate the way he turns his weakness into a weapon against me, forcing me to help him in his moments of need, as if he isn’t the tyrant of the Federation. A person who has the power to destroy every life around him. But I swallow my anger and assist him. As I do, I repeat to myself the silent promise I always make.

  Someday, his illness will kill him. If it doesn’t, I vow that I will.

  * * *

  For now, the Premier has turned our former Speaker’s chambers in the National Hall into his personal rooms. It’s a vast space surrounded by windows layered several panels thick, engineered to stop bullets from shattering them all the way through. There used to be Maran banners hanging on either side of the door, so I heard, but they’ve been replaced with maps of the entire Karensa territory.

  Tonight, as I wait for Constantine to settle into bed, I stare at the maps. The Federation’s land runs red on the paper, the color bleeding across an entire continent from ocean to ocean. Once, a long time ago, it covered only the northeastern part of this land. Then it leaked into Tanapeg and Hover, Kente and Larc. Basea. My eyes travel from the coast of the eastern sea across the continent to the west, across former nation after bloodied former nation, sweeping north until I finally reach Mara, newly scarlet.

  A lump sits heavy in my throat. For months, I’d witnessed teams dismantling parts of this city. A small but beautiful ruin in the center of Newage, the Waterfall, was removed piece by piece, its bones groaning as workers toppled it sideways. I’d watched, numb. When I was first accepted into the Striker recruits and paired with Corian, I’d gone to the Waterfall to give my own thanks. Mara doesn’t believe in gods, but we have always held up the Early Ones with a degree of supernatural awe. So I used to kneel there and wish for good fortune to guide me in the Strikers, to make it as a recruit, and to support my mother in the Outer City. I can still remember the cool breeze filtering between the structure’s gaps, the cold ground seeping through the fabric against my knees.

  All that’s left is a field of churned dirt and mud and grass. The Waterfall is now sitting on the train to be taken back to Cardinia. Another trophy for their collection.

  They’d taken the lintel from the Striker arena’s front entrance too, the most obvious symbol of Newage, along with two columns from the gate of Newage’s outer wall. Mara is like all these other bleeding territories, another spoil of Constantine’s war. These relics of our nation will be installed in the Federation’s capital for all to admire.

  My mind is pulled from my grief by the twinge in my link that I’d felt earlier in the day. Red had been out there, the tug between us unmistakable. Where is he? Is he with other Strikers? I swallow, trying to still my mind so the Premier doesn’t sense the emotions that the thought awakens in me. My eyes stay on the scarlet staining the entire map.

  How long before our paths will be forced to cross? If he’s close enough for me to sense through our weakened bond, then our reunion will be sooner than I’d like. And then what will happen?

  “Talin.”

  At Constantine’s command, I turn and walk toward his bedside. A servant is massaging his knees, while Mayor Elland of Cardinia is seated beside the head of the bed, still writing down some notes into her notebook. She peers up at me as I arrive.

  “Ah!” she says, looking at Constantine. “Your Skyhunter.”

  Her silks drape easily against her, and her hair is silver-gray, but it’s thick and luscious, piled high on her head in a series of curls. When I bow my head to her, I hear her snort. “Barely a Karensan citizen for a year, and already lowering your head to any Cardinian you meet. Eh?” When I look up again, she smirks and looks back at the Premier. Unlike the others, there’s no hint of fear in her face. Nothing about my Skyhunter status seems to intimidate her.

  “She knows her place,” Constantine replies as he accepts a bowl of medicinal soup from his food tester. It’s a recipe from the Chief Architect herself, designed to clear his head and soothe his muscles.

  “I should hope so.” Mayor Elland considers me before closing her notebook and standing up. She bows her head to Constantine. “I’ll make sure our facilities are ready for you, sir,” she says. “Everyone will want a look at those artifacts.” She winks at the Premier. “Maybe they’ll steal the thunder of your arrival.”

  I watch her go before turning back to the Premier. Through our link, I can sense the lingering ache in him. Only I really know what kind of pain lances through him on a daily basis. It is his illness that has consumed him in recent years, an ailment that eats away at his strength and leaves him unable to sleep well at night.

  As I watch him lying in bed, a deep weariness comes through our link. The day’s activities have exhausted him, and he will need a good night’s rest before we board the train tomorrow to head back to Cardinia.

  As his servants close the door and leave us alone, Constantine nods toward the maps. “You’re imagining the world before us,” he says in Maran. “The Federation.”

  His use of my languages is his way of signaling whether or not he’s happy with me. Whenever he uses Basean, it is because he’s upset and cruel, eager to taunt me with the sound of my old home. When he uses Maran, though, he is in a good-enough mood to dole out small kindnesses. Or he’s lonely and in need of a friend—even if it’s the illusion of one.