I stare back at him without moving a muscle, hating the way he can interpret my emotions. At least he can’t read my mind—yet.

  He gives me a subtle, sidelong smile as he settles back against his pillows. “You must be wondering how much lovelier it was in the past.” He sighs. “Before we expanded, you know, this continent was covered with warring nations. Tanapeg quarreled with Hover every decade. Larc tried to invade Kente. Everywhere, people hid behind their walls and died throwing themselves against their enemies. It’s like that across the oceans too.” He raises an eyebrow at me. “Did you know that?”

  There’s little we know about the rest of the world’s nations, other than that they war too. I remember hearing about the breaking up of a country across the ocean that now exists as a dozen separate territories.

  “I know you survived horrors in Basea during our invasion,” Constantine tells me. “I know what you witnessed. But since the Federation united all the nations on our continent, there has never been another war. No blood shed, no battle fought. No lives lost. Do you understand?”

  A lie, I want to say. There have been uprisings and riots in every country conquered by the Federation. And if today’s punishments in the arena are any indication, they have only gotten worse.

  I understand, I reply through our link.

  “You understand, but you don’t agree.” He sweeps his hand idly in my direction. “The Federation has brought peace, regardless of whether you choose to believe that.”

  Annihilation is not peace.

  “My father didn’t annihilate anyone,” he replies. “He saved failing nation-states by uniting them under one flag.”

  I think about the soldier who shot my father the night Basea was invaded, and a helpless rage floods me.

  Constantine sighs, and just for a moment, I see him as a young man, slowly dying from the inside out. “Peace is a good thing, however it’s bought,” he whispers.

  Is it peace if there are still so many rebels out there?

  The topic is a thorn in his side, and I feel a brief satisfaction at the prickle of irritation that darts through our link. He narrows his eyes at me.

  It is. And it will stay.

  You’re wasting your time trying to convince me of anything.

  “Maybe it’s a waste of time,” he agrees. He closes his eyes. I can sense pain still pulsing through his body. “Or maybe you’ll find yourself dwelling on my words at night, until they make sense.”

  Why do you care?

  He opens his eyes briefly, and for a moment, I sense something tragic in his mix of emotions. “Everyone wants someone to believe them,” he replies.

  Then he turns his head away, and I head toward my adjoining room. Even as I close the door, I can still sense Constantine as if it is open, can envision his room as he might see it. The ache in his body is still there, loosening his tongue. As his exhausted mind finally lulls itself into sleep, I get the curious feeling that he meant every word.

  It must be lonely, living in a world of your own lies.

  * * *

  It takes me hours, as always, to drift off into a light, troubled sleep. Corian, my first Shield, had always teased me about my deep sleeping habits—I used to wake in our shared Striker apartment every morning at his cheerful calls from the kitchen, followed by a pillow flung at my head.

  Those happy days are only a memory now.

  As my mind finally, mercifully, gives way to unconsciousness, the rope of a bridge tightens against my thoughts, tugging at me from some faraway, invisible anchor. Anxiety flitters down my chest to settle in my stomach, hollow and bitter, as I wonder if the Premier can sense this too.

  I travel down the bridge. When I look down, I see a chasm extending down into nothing, cut only by a silver ribbon of a river. It reminds me of the bridge I’d crossed with my mother on the night we escaped from Basea, of the river winding below us. I feel an inkling of the same terror as I look over my shoulder, certain that the Premier is chasing after me.

  But he isn’t. Instead, I travel alone across the bridge until I reach a land of gray, and there, the pulse of Red’s heart wraps around me, pulling me to him. Everything in me lifts in hope at the feeling. He’s here, all around me. I’m standing inside his consciousness. And slowly, the world he sees in that moment comes to me, as surely as if I’m beside him.

  And then I am Red, seeing from his point of view, standing at the edge of the foothills ringing behind Newage. He’s staring without a word at the smoke still billowing from the city. Beside him are glimpses of a few other Strikers—maybe a dozen of them, their uniforms dirty and charred—settling in the darkness without fires to keep them warm or heat their food. They gnaw instead on handfuls of roots from the forest and what little provisions some of them had managed to take from the city.

  Are these the only soldiers that escaped?

  Beside Red comes a familiar voice. My heart surges as Red turns to look at Adena beside him, who nods down at the ramparts of Newage’s steel walls. She’s hunched over a Karensan gun, taking it apart bit by bit.

  Even the sight of Adena’s slouched figure sitting on the ground makes my throat constrict. Tears well behind my closed eyes. I’ve thought about her so often since my captivity, had ached for her quick smile and her homemade remedies and thoughtful inventions. I miss her even more than I thought I did.

  “—not nearly enough of us to mount even the semblance of a rebellion,” Adena says. “But we have to free those prisoners. We need more than just this small crew.”

  “How much time can they really buy for us against the Federation?” Tomm says.

  Tomm had hated us not long ago, back when the Maran warfront still held. Now here he is, sitting side by side with Adena. All I can feel is gratitude at the sight of his blue coat. I suppose desperate circumstances can unite anyone.

  “A month? That’d give us enough to think of a way to push back, maybe even force them out of Newage,” Adena argues. “We can’t defeat the entire Federation. We only want them to think Mara isn’t worth the trouble.”

  “You don’t understand,” Red responds. “What we saw at the train yard changes things. None of us knew that the Premier would be on that train tomorrow. That means he will be out at the yard in the morning, when we are supposed to make our move, and Talin will be the one protecting him. She is a true Skyhunter, Adena, one loyal to the Premier.” His voice quiets. “I am no match for her. None of us are.”

  She straightens and shakes her head at him. “Waiting isn’t a luxury we can afford. You said that yourself.”

  If they had been near the train yards, then they are definitely close. No wonder I felt Red’s pull today. And he had seen me there. He knows what I’ve become.

  Then I notice Red is wearing my armguard from the last battle we’d fought and lost. Except this is impossible, because I’d never taken them off. I blink and look at Adena, whose hair also seems too long given the time that has passed.

  This is, after all, still a dream. I don’t even know how much of what I’m seeing is real and how much is just a fantasy. Maybe only fragments are real. Maybe I can’t tell what is and isn’t. There were times, back during my transformation, when the agony of steel instruments working against my back and on my limbs and in my eyes had sent me into shock, had filled my head with hallucinations. Maybe I am still confused.

  Maybe they’re not alive at all. Maybe this is my imagination.

  Red sits back, frustrated, but unwilling to argue Adena’s point. At his silence, one of other figures sitting nearby stirs, and Red turns to look at him. I suck in my breath. Aramin.

  “You’re both right,” the Firstblade says, his eyes reflecting the night. When he speaks, everyone else hushes. “Talin as a Skyhunter isn’t something we bargained for. We can’t fight against her. But if we’re lucky, we won’t have to. If everything goes as we plan, we can destroy the tracks and escape with those prisoners before she can hunt us all down.”

  “It isn’t worth it,” Red snaps. “A ruined train track and a few prisoners, for your lives?”

  At that, the figure beside Aramin speaks up. It’s Jeran. He looks like he has a fresh wound on his face, a scar running along his cheek that changes his beauty. His uniform is worn, fraying at the elbows, but he still looks so much like himself that I can hardly bear seeing him.

  “I think there’s another reason why you’re holding back, Red,” Jeran says in his soft voice. “I know what Talin means to you.”

  “Talin is not a human anymore,” Red replies. His words are stated in a cold, vicious way that I recognize. It’s his defense against the grief that might otherwise overwhelm him, the same habit he had when I first met him and he seemed ready to give up his life. “She is a war machine. She is designed to do one thing—carry out Constantine’s orders, whether they are to protect him or kill everyone in sight. She will do as he asks without hesitation. Why do you not understand this?”

  His words pierce me as painfully as a blade. My own grief wells up in me now, surging through my chest and up my throat until I can feel the pressure of a cry wanting to burst from me. Red, I try reaching through our link again, but he doesn’t react at all.

  “We understand just fine,” Aramin says, his voice just as cutting.

  “For what? A brief delay of the Federation’s plans?”

  “Do you really think we will stay here, camped safely, for another month?” Aramin narrows his eyes. “Two months? Three? How long? Meanwhile, they hunt for us in the hills. Do we let them capture us like frightened children? Or do we do something?”

  “Something would have to shift the odds in our favor,” Red mutters. He looks down at his feet, and now I can feel the fear flowing through him. With a start, I realize it’s directed at me.

  Not because he’s afraid to go against me in battle. He’s afraid to come face-to-face with what I really am. To be unable to help me.

  “You are our odds,” Adena tells him. “You are a Skyhunter too.” She shrugs, her gaze going momentarily toward Newage in the distance. “We have to believe in something.”

  Red’s silent. A wave of his emotions roils over me, and I gasp, drowning for a moment in his grief. He’s thinking of the last time we saw each other, and the flash of that memory appears sharp in my own mind.

  “We are going to do this,” Aramin says in the pause that follows. “And we are going to do it quickly. In and out. Let’s keep this efficient.”

  Red doesn’t answer at first. Then, finally, he nods, his jaw tight.

  “And then what?” Adena asks quietly.

  “Step by step,” Jeran says.

  Before them, the first rays of dawn scatter purple and orange streaks behind the fallen city of Newage, and overhead, the stars are beginning to fade away. They’re still so bright through Red’s enhanced vision that I think their light must be heightened by the fog of my dream.

  Be real, I wish. And then I think, Don’t be real. If this is just a dream, then Red isn’t really sitting at a campsite with the Strikers. If this is real, then he believes I’m now a monster. Real, not real. Either way, I lose.

  Then I see Red turn to his side. His profile is framed in the shadows, but in that darkness, I make out the expression on his face. He’s looking over his shoulder, his eyes lost in thought, his body blurred in mist. As if he heard a whisper from some faraway place. From me.

  I wake up gasping, my face damp with tears. The dim light streaking blue across my sheets tells me it is the hour just before dawn. I tremble, my head turning instinctively toward the window, aching and hopeful and bewildered at the dream I’d just had of Red. Not a dream, no. Every detail in it was so vivid that I can still feel the tingle of Red’s presence in my fingers, still feel the cold breeze at the top of the ledge where he sat with the others. It was a glimpse into something real. They are out there, and they are planning to make a move on the train tracks this morning.

  I’m in such turmoil that, when Constantine’s voice appears in my mind, it’s too late. Through our link, I can almost feel him shifting into a sitting position in his own bed. The fog in his head has cleared. His medicine must have worked.

  You are thinking about Red, he says.

  He has sensed the storm of my feelings. He knows something has happened.

  I can hear you whispering his name in your mind, over and over again.

  I want to shake my head and lie to him. But I’m still too unsettled by my dream, still shaking off the bewilderment of sleep to hide it properly. The image of my mother appears in my mind, her back turned to me as she cooks over her old stove. I remember the guard holding a gun to her head when I first pledged my loyalty to Constantine. I think of where she might be now, in a place Constantine has yet to reveal to me.

  You saw him, didn’t you? he says. You linked with him.

  I didn’t, I reply. But he doesn’t believe me.

  You are going to tell me everything, he orders, his voice at once gentle and menacing. And when we return to Cardinia, you will be pleased with where your mother is staying. Do you understand me?

  And I find myself doing exactly as he says.

  6

  RED

  From our vantage point on the cliff over looking the city walls, the train yard is already active in the early hours before dawn. Adena looks on with me, while beside her, Jeran finishes sheathing his blades. Tomm and Pira are checking their weapons too.

  “They’re already in position,” Pira mutters. “Earlier than we thought.”

  “If the Premier himself is going to be on that train, then we haven’t even seen how crowded it’s going to get,” I reply. “Talin may already be out there, overseeing the train’s inspection.”

  “Any Ghosts out?” Jeran asks.

  Adena shakes her head. “Not yet. I’ll be surprised if they don’t make an appearance though.”

  “We’ll wait for your move,” Tomm says.

  Adena looks at me. “You sure you can act alone?”

  “Yes,” I reply. “As long as the rest of you can handle the station and the train cars.” If Talin really is going to be near the train, then it’s better she run into me than anyone else.

  Adena does not look convinced, but we have little choice, so she just nods and hands me a small object covered in makeshift plates of joined steel, an armored explosive she had made out of the scrap metal we had salvaged. “This isn’t exactly a perfect product,” she tells me, turning it gingerly in her hands. “But it should work. See here?” She touches a small length of rope at one end. “It’s linked to an interior of gunpowder. If you pull the string, it lights a flint inside that will give you a brief flame. It’s quick. Release it right away and toss it. It’ll explode on contact.”

  I nod. “Pull and release immediately. I can handle it.”

  “Make sure it doesn’t get wet.” Adena takes a deep breath. “It won’t work if it does, and I’ve only been able to make a handful of these. And don’t blow it up in your face. You may be a Skyhunter, but as far as I can tell, you’re not immortal.”

  It is my turn to give her a wry smile. “Close enough.” I rise and stretch my wings slightly. The pain lances through me again, but noticeably duller.

  Adena just rolls her eyes as she hops to her feet and rests her hands on her blade hilts. “No reason to keep waiting around, then. Let’s go.”

  Below my bold façade, my fears are a living, slithering thing in my bones. The sky is clear, everything in place, and we have a plan. But it doesn’t matter. The other voice shifts in my mind, stirring awake.

  Somehow, you can still feel at your core that it’s all about to go horribly wrong.

  Talin will be down at the train yard today with the Premier. I shake my head, trying not to let thoughts of her take over my mind. There had even been an instant last night when I thought I had sensed her watching my back, looking at me from some faraway place. But I can’t be sure. When you’ve been an experiment most of your life, it always feels like someone’s watching you.

  If I cross her path this morning, it’s best if I face her alone. At least it should be enough of a distraction for the others to escape.

  We head down to the city outskirts in the silent shadows. By the time the first hints of light start graying the sky, we have taken up our positions behind the piles of steel and wood near the train yard. A smattering of soldiers patrols the area, and the front gates are open, through which a steady stream of workers and guards head back and forth from the train station. Along with them walks a steady line of prisoners. As I look on, they shuffle out from the gates, stumbling as Karensan troops guide them one by one onto one of the train cars. A few of them are still dressed in sapphire coats. Some Strikers are mingled in with the common soldiers. With a sick feeling, I know that these are the ones the Federation has deemed promising, fighters they will turn over to the Chief Architect once they arrive in Cardinia. Future Skyhunters, perhaps.

  Suddenly I’m reminded of my early training days, when I was a young Karensan recruit sent out for the first time on a mission patrolling the streets of a conquered city in Larc. I’d been assigned to follow a tall, gruff warrior, one who had no patience with this scrawny boy tailing her every move.

  “Stay here,” she’d told me that afternoon, pointing to the rubble of brick and mortar that had once been a house. “If anyone gets past me and tries to flee, you raise the alarm. Understand?”

  I had nodded and stayed back as she then entered a house with several other soldiers behind her. I remember how small I had been then, how easy it was to hide in the shadow of that rubble. Waiting for her felt like an eternity. Then a shout came from the house, followed by several sobs and then the sound of a gunshot. I jumped, tense as a rabbit ready to take flight. But no one emerged, so I stayed where I was. I waited for a long time before she finally reappeared leading several men out, their hands bound tightly, their eyes blindfolded.

  Please, I remember thinking. Do not move.