“Good luck on the warfront.”
The phrases go back and forth, quicker now, and slowly, the tension at the table eases. Mr. Oyano still doesn’t look thrilled by our presence at the table, but even he grunts a few times at Red’s sillier pronunciations, shaking his head at Red’s attempt to say “This food is delicious.”
As Adena tries the same phrase, Red grins at me.I think I’m getting it, he thinks to me, and the outrageous pride in his emotions is enough to make me laugh.
A few hundred more dinners here, and you’ll be speaking fluently, I reply.
He glances at me, lips twitching with his amusement.I accept, then. A few hundred dinners here with you.
I hesitate, suddenly unsure I understand him correctly. Maybe he’ll have the chance to sit here with me, at my mother’s home, for dinner after dinner, year after year. Maybe, if we’re lucky, we’ll get to grow older at each other’s side like this. As Shields, perhaps. Or as something more.
It’s an arrangement, I respond, unable to resist smiling back at him.
My hand is still entwined with his under the table. What a silly assumption to make, I scold myself in embarrassment, to fantasize about some distant future that might never happen, with someone I’ve only begun to know. But in his eyes, I see a hesitant mirror of my thoughts. It’s the wild hope of someone who dares to think we all might live long enough to be here again. That it’s not foolish to want.
“Your turn,” Adena says to him now, breaking the moment between us. “It’s only fair. What do you want to ask us, Red?” She’s relaxed now, her plate empty, and a glow seems to cast her dark skin in warmth. “Tell us something in Karenese.”
There’s a slight pause at the thought of hearing the Federation’s language at the table, but no one stops her. Instead, everyone leans in.
I look at Red.You don’t have to say anything, I tell him, but he shakes his head and returns Adena’s stare. Then he says something in Karenese.
Jeran clears his throat and looks quietly at Adena. “He asked why do we fight,” he says, “as Strikers. Why we risk our lives.”
The merry tone at the table turns somber at that. I wait, watching Adena’s face dance through several different emotions before she straightens to respond.
“For my brother,” she says. When silence follows, waiting for more from her, she continues, “My brother’s name was Olden, and when Iwas a little girl, he would tease me about my name. Adena, you see? In Maran, it means ‘the curious one.’ My mother used to say that my eyes were wide-open when I was born, hungrily drinking in the world. She said I tilted my head early on to show my interest in things, so my brother would tilt his head exaggeratedly at me all the time. It made me laugh like crazy, so I hear. I don’t remember any of it—I was so young when she died.” She shakes her head. “After she was gone, my brother started taking me to his Striker practices, to keep my mind off things, and when I became interested, he helped me train. I was jealous of him for a long time, you know?” She fiddles with her hands. “I was my mother’s baby girl, but he was my mother’s favorite. I think I always resented him a little for that, until he was captured at the warfront and held hostage with a dozen other Strikers.” Here she looks at Red, and even though I can tell she’s trying to hold back her hatred for the Federation from him, there’s still a small part of her that blames him for being Karensan. “They were never going to let him live, you know, but they let us believe it anyway. I could tell the instant they let the prisoners try to run across the border. They shot him twice in the back, took their time with each hit so he could still try to run. He died before I could reach him.”
Adena looks down at her hands. “So,” she says in a loud voice, taking a deep breath, “I fight because I like the idea that my random talents and interests, the things my brother encouraged in me, can now be used in the hopes of avenging his death. That’s why I do it.”
Her shoulders slump when she finishes, as if this had taken all her strength, but she offers Red a weary smile. He gives her a grave smile in return. It’s an acknowledgment, I realize, that Adena understands what Red might have gone through. That they’re on the same side.
Red nods at Jeran. “And you?” he asks.
“My father once said that the Senate was the place for the most esteemed young men,” Jeran replies, looking at his hands. “He had highhopes for Gabrien, my older brother, to join him in the Senate. Gabrien has a sharper mind than I do. He remembers things more quickly and can deduce the intentions of people before I can, so when he took the qualifying exams for Senate candidates, he scored high. But I kept failing my exam. No matter how long and hard I studied, I couldn’t do it. After my third try, it became clear that qualifying to become a Senate candidate wasn’t going to happen for me. It was frustrating for my father, who thought me a disappointment. So I tried out for the Strikers instead. I thought that if I could prove myself among the Strikers’ esteemed ranks, it might put me on a footing that could rival my brother. Maybe footing that my father will love.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I’m decent at it, fighting Ghosts, but it’s not my natural state. I still get sick after every battle. Still can’t eat for days after a visit to the warfront. So there it is. I love my country, will gladly die to keep us safe for as long as we can—but that is my honest reason.”
He doesn’t mention a word about his father’s abuse or his brother’s constant, cruel jests. I look at Adena, but she just appears resigned. It’s a conversation she’s had a dozen times with Jeran.Your father beats you, Jeran, she’s told him before, gently, then firmly.Sometimes to the point where you can’t walk across the arena. You have to stop trying to earn the love of a monster.
But there are only so many times we can say it to him. Jeran waits, bracing himself for the rebuke from Adena and me, but Adena just shakes her head and looks away.
Red’s eyes fall on me. My reason to fight.
And I hesitate. I’m not sure why I do it, to be honest. Here we are, eating a Midwinter feast in front of a shack in the mud, when my mother should be living in somewhere dry and warm. Mara refuses to let her into their walls. They call us rats. We are seen as the invader.
But Mara had been the country to open her doors for us when we were at our most desperate, when she had a nobler leader. She hadsaved us from our fates in the Federation. We may be rats here, but we are alive. And here I am, wearing the sapphire coat of a Striker. Mara is imperfect, but it is not the Federation. I had seen the fires of hell on the night they invaded Basea, have witnessed what they are capable of. And if they cross here into Mara, if they swallow this nation too, then what will they do?
“I fight because there are good people in Mara,”I finally decide to sign.“Because when we all left Basea and came here, we brought with us everything and everyone we loved the most. They’re here.”I look pointedly at those around the table. “Doesn’t our presence make Mara home? Isn’t that worth fighting for?”
The table is silent as Jeran translates my signs aloud. No one speaks for some time after he finishes. We refugees had all seen the Federation’s darkness firsthand. Perhaps everyone is imagining what this place will look like when their red-and-black banners hang over the walls, when their Ghosts are led, chained, through the streets in victory, and when our families are split apart and sent to various destinations inside their territory.
It’s during this silence that a messenger arrives from the National Hall. I turn at the sound of steps sloshing along the path and look up to see a young Maran grimacing at the grime of the shanties. A look of relief crosses his face at the sight of us.
“From the Firstblade,” he mutters, thrusting an envelope at Jeran with the Firstblade’s seal. Then he turns around without bidding any of us farewell, as if he couldn’t wait to wash the infection of the Outer City from his body.
Jeran leaps up before anyone else can say a word. He breaks open the seal and pulls out the letter. Then he reads it in silence, his eyes fixated on every word.
My heart contracts at the expression on his face. A cold sweat breaks out on my brow.
“Tell us, Jeran,” my mother says in the silence.
