12
The National Hall in Newage is festive tonight. News of our victory at the warfront has cheered everyone, even though every Striker knows that it wasn’t really a victory at all. The Federation has pushed farther into our territory. We’d lost dozens of Strikers and soldiers in the fight.
Still, barely a week after we returned from the warfront, the National Plaza is crowded with Marans dressed in their finest silks, laughing and drinking as if death weren’t perched right outside our walls. Where an entire Outer City lies open and vulnerable. Where my mother lives.
“Of course they’re celebrating,” my mother had told me when I visited her after our return. “You’re still alive, and Mara still stands.”
I leaned my cheek against my hand and watched her crush eggshells into her plants’ soil as fertilizer. “Is it standing,” I signed at her, “or is it just falling slowly?”
She frowned at me. “How did I raise such a pessimistic daughter?” she signed back.
“You raised one who doesn’t like cheering when her mother’s still stuck outside the gates.”
“Go,” she scolded me in Basean. “Celebrate. If Karensa really is going to march here, you might as well get your food and wine while you can.”
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you want me to be drunk.”
“Remember me as a supportive mother.”
Now I keep my head down as I head in through the National Hall’s front doors. I’ve been in here before, of course, during banquets and ceremonies where Strikers have been invited, but all my senses are still alert, as if navigating among the wealthy elite of Mara is the same as stalking Ghosts in the narrow passes. The differences are minute.
My hands tug incessantly at the folds of my dress—one of Adena’s that she’d lent me from her closets—as I search the crowds for the others. It’s pretty, I’ll admit, long-sleeved and a lush silky yellow, belted with a wide gold waistband that elongates my figure, and my dark hair is tied up in an elaborate series of braids, dotted throughout with bejeweled combs and dangling jewels. My skin is covered with a thin layer of oils that give it a subtle glow, and my eyes are lined with black powder, emphasizing the green of my irises and the darkness of my lashes. A choker of solid gold rings my throat.
The disguise of a rich Maran. The only element of me that remains true to myself is the Ghost bones studding my ears.
My lips move in a string of silent curses. Why can’t Strikers just wear their coats to events like this? Without the weight of my guns and blades, I feel like I’ve been stripped of everything anchoring me to the ground. The unfamiliar swish of light fabric around my legs makes me scowl.
“I don’t understand,”I’d told Adena when she made me try on the dress in her room. “I’m sure everyone will take me seriously in my Striker uniform.”
“No. You need to look like us,” Adena had replied. “Like a rich Maran, not a soldier with enough physical strength to stand up to them. Your uniform will just remind everyone that you somehow managed to defy the Speaker’s laws and become a Striker.”
“A fancy dress can’t hide my face,”I signed awkwardly, my arms stuck in the air as Adena yanked the dress down my body.
“I mean, it would help.” Adena gestured for me to close my eyes, then brushed my lids with an elegant line of black. “Look—the only people anyone will listen to tonight are other Senators and the wealthy. Make them take you as seriously as possible. Wear the damn dress.”
I shake my head, smiling a little at the memory of her determination. Adena had refused to believe Red’s connection to me—until, that is, I demonstrated I could understand Red’s Karenese, repeating his words in Maran to Jeran’s astonishment. Afterward, she paced back and forth across the floor of her Grid shop, while Jeran continued to quiz me. She’d stared so long at Red that he finally had to avert his eyes.
“What do we do now?” Jeran had asked, to no one in particular.
“We have to bring Red before the Speaker,”I answered.
Adena whirled on us, the light in her eyes eager and impatient. “The bigger question is,howis this possible?” She pointed at me. “Red bonded with you. You bonded with him. He doesn’t control you—the Federation must not have gotten to that step. Yes.” She seemed like she was talking almost to herself, her words coming more rapidly as she thought. “If we can just figure those steps out, how this anomaly happened, we can stop the Federation. Hells! Can you imagine? Stopping the Federation with their own creation.”
“I agree, but he’s not our science experiment,”I told her.
“He isliterallya science experiment.”
“You know what I mean. He’s notours.”
I’m no one’s. Red’s voice had interrupted my thoughts, the tremor of it sending an unpleasant shiver through me.
I frowned at him, unsettled by this new sensation.Of course not, I said to him through our link before I signed to everyone.“But the Senate will have their own ideas for what to do with Red, things thatprobably involve using him for battle as our war machine.”I point at Adena.“You and Jeran have to talk them out of it.”
“Why do I have to do it?” Adena whined. “I hate talking to politicians.”
“Well, they can understand you,”I answered wryly.“And, somehow, I think the Speaker will be happier taking advice from other Marans than from a Basean.”
“The Speaker will see him as a military weapon,” Jeran agreed. “He’ll want full control over Red and everything he does.”
