Jeran glances apologetically at me. “He wants to know why this matters to you.”
“Why what matters?”
“This. Him. His past.”
The conversation I’d once had with Corian comes back to me in a torrent of emotion, and for an instant, I’m twelve again, lounging by the grapevines beside my Shield.Why does it matter to you, how I feel about Basea?I’d signed, and I can hear his answer in my memory.Shouldn’t it matter to everyone?
The similarity of this moment, here and now, takes me aback. For a moment, I feel as if I were Corian, the one reaching his hand out to this foreigner.
I bend down to balance on the balls of my feet and rest my elbows against my legs. Our eyes are level. If I really do have to lead him around in shackles for the unforeseeable future, I’d at least like to be able to trust him enough to be near him.
“My mother and I lost everything,”I tell him,“when we fled into Mara—everything except for each other. Our pasts matter because they created us, helped mold us into who we are.”
He gives me a suspicious frown. “You want to dig into my life by holding out pieces of your own.”
Well, he’s not as generous as Corian was. Now I think he’s mocking me with the tilt of his head, as if it were easy for me to talk about the broken pieces of my childhood. I nod at the brand peeking out from under his shirt. “Your brand. What did the Federation do to you?”
Again, no answer. I realize that he’s studying me now, his gaze focused on the fresh black studs of bone in my ears. He likely doesn’tknow what it means, but somehow I feel he can sense the weight of sorrow on my chest. He’s quiet for so long that Jeran looks questioningly at me before the prisoner finally replies in a softer voice.
“My little sister used to have a mouse for a pet,” Jeran translates.
It’s the most genuine thing the prisoner has said so far. I can hear the loss in his words, the grief lacing his voice.
“I’m sorry,” I sign, and I mean it.
“Do you remember your life before they came?” he asks me.
It takes me a moment to realize he means before the conquest of Basea—and yet another to notice that he refers to the Federation asthey, notwe. Corian had once asked me if I had any other relatives, but when I shook my head, he’d let the matter drop and never brought it up again. At first, some part of me flares in defense at the prisoner’s words. It is easier not to talk about the painful places of your past, better sometimes to let it go. But his question conjures an old memory of a sunlit garden, a hot, humid breeze, and broad green leaves hanging wet in front of our windows.
“Fragments,”I reply.“Nothing significant.”
The prisoner says nothing as he reaches into his shirt pocket to pet his mouse’s head again. The creature leans up into his touch, its eyes closed. When he speaks again, he doesn’t mention my past. “I’ve never met a Basean before. This is my first time venturing out beyond the Federation’s borders.”
He hadn’t answered me when I asked him what the Federation had done to him, so instead, I sign,“Do you remember your name?”
“They called me the Skyhunter.”
The mystery of the word sends shivers down my spine. Jeran and I exchange a look.
A long pause follows. I’m about to tell him that it’s not a question hehas to answer, but then he lifts his head to give me a strange expression. I realize that he had been taking so long to respond because he was trying to recall his name. How long has it been since he last used it?
“Redlen,” Jeran translates at last. “Some call him Red.”
I watch him rub incessantly at the spot of grime. Then I frown and look closer. He notices my gesture, and as if to acknowledge it, he holds his arm in the light so that it’s bathed in light blue. Now I can see the faintest hint of an artificial groove underneath the skin, running from his wrist up to his shoulder.
Had the Firstblade noticed this on him? It appears as if something had been grafted to him underneath his skin, something that turns his skin into this strange, unnatural surface. I remove one glove, then hold my hand out questioningly at him.
He nods, moving his arm closer to me, indicating that it’s okay for me to touch it.
“Careful,” Jeran signs, casting me a sideways glance.
“I am,” I reply, then let my fingers brush against the prisoner’s skin. It feels as natural and alive as anyone’s, although noticeably warmer. I push down slightly against his arm, then jerk away. There is the figurative saying of muscle hard as stone, but this truly feels like it, as if his skin had been stretched over something as firm and unmoving as steel.
When I don’t try to touch his arm again, he leans back against the wall with a clatter of chains. “The Federation’s work.”
Jeran casts me a quick glance as he translates the sentence. He’s not surprised that the prisoner—Skyhunter—Red—had been altered by the Federation, but that he told us.
The instinct I’d had in the arena flares again. “Something is wrong with him,” I sign, unable to shake the feeling. But I still can’t tell why the Federation would do this to him, what benefit it is to them to deform his body. Was he just an experiment, not meant to be used?
