The Barra family estate is located at the top of a hill. From the bottom, you can’t even see it—built over the bones of a crumbling temple by the Early Ones, the mansion is fully hedged in by cypress so that onlookers can only catch glimpses of the white stone of its walls through thickets of green.
From this vantage point, I can see the gentle slope of the rest of Newage, the sprawl of estates and apartments and pillared halls protected inside two enormous circles of steel walls. Beyond that radiates the miles of dense shantytowns of the capital’s Outer City, where my mother and all other refugees live. Along the horizon rise the shapes of the Early Ones’ ruins, silhouetted against the stormy sky.
There are twenty large ruins scattered throughout Mara, and most of the other small cities that dot this country are erected upon or around them. Each of them has a name. There is Houndsfang, the ruin of a jagged steel needle jutting up toward the sky at the edge of our cliffs, upon which is set a small city of the same name. There is Morningman, a city built around a conelike structure of metal and concrete covered in rose vines. And so on.
Newage, the capital of Mara, was constructed right on top of the remains of an entire city from the Early Ones. It’s why our streets look cobbled together from two different eras—shards of ancient black steel form the backbone for apartments made of white stone and wood, while cylinders of strange metal act as the buttresses supporting National Hall. The ground of Newage’s Inner City is made of a mysterious dark stone that exists only in other Early ruins. It absorbs heat in the winter, keeping the city warmer than it otherwise would be. And as for the huge steel walls encircling the city… they existed long before Mara did. On top of the walls’ front gates is a mantra engraved by the Early Ones:
We sow the seeds of Infinite Destiny for our children
so that they may rule from this earth to the stars.
Infinite Destiny. It is a phrase that the Karensa Federation believes the Early Ones had meant for them, that they are the children whoare destined to inherit their ancient empire. I just stare out at the city and wonder why the Early Ones left it all behind. They must have built the walls thousands of years ago to protect their city from something—but whatever that was, the walls must not have worked.
I don’t know why we think they will save us from the Federation’s Ghosts, just like how I don’t know why I thought I could protect my Shield. I don’t even know if I can protect my mother now. My position as a Striker pays me enough to bring her money in the Outer City every couple of weeks. What now, without Corian to stand up for me? Will the Firstblade even allow a Basean like me to stay?
The Barra family knows the instant I arrive at the estate’s front gate why I’m here—they had received the Firstblade’s handwritten letter of condolence days ago. The two guards standing at the entrance don’t even bother to ask my name or purpose. I just stand there, silent and soaked, swaying on grief-exhausted legs, Corian’s folded uniform tucked under my arm, until the guards disappear behind the side doors and open the gate for me.
The storm mutes all the sounds in the Barra courtyard. My mother’s entire neighborhood in the Outer City could fit in this space alone. I listen to the faint squelch of wet stone under my boots as the guards lead me toward the glowing windows of the estate’s front hall. The dripping trees, the fog of my breath in the damp air, the front gate carved with the Early phraseDEO OPTIMO MAXIMO… all of it feels like a dream.
I’ve been here only once, the summer when Corian first chose me as his Shield. He and I had shaken hands solemnly, then lazed under the green canopy of these same trees, stripped down to our short sleeves, our mouths sticky with sweet grapes plucked from the vines.
“If you could go anywhere in the world,” he asked me then, his face turned toward the horizon, “where would you go?”
“Basea,” I signed without hesitation.
“It’s probably different now, you know,” he signed gently in return. “After the Federation took over.” There was no malice or pity in his expression, just a grave truth. “It’s not the home you remember.”
“I know. I’m just curious.” I looked back at him. “Why does it matter to you?”
“Why does what matter?”
“How I feel about Basea?”
“I don’t know. Shouldn’t it matter to everyone?” He shoved a grape in his mouth and offered me another cluster of the fruit. “It might be how I feel someday about Mara,” he signed. “If we lose.”
He was sympathetic, but also afraid. I’d never heard a highborn Maran put himself on equal footing with a Basean before. I stared at him, surprised, and then took the cluster of grapes he offered.
“To our home.” I lifted the grapes to his.
“To our home,” he repeated.
Those same grapevines now wind brown and lifeless along the walls. This place flanks the beginning and end of our bond.
The guards stop at the front door and motion for me to enter. “Master Barra is already expecting you,” one of them tells me.
I nod at him and step inside.
A rush of warm, dry air hits me. The faint smell of wood burning in a marble fireplace permeates the space. My boots echo against the floors. When I turn my head up, I see the soaring atrium of the estate’s main hall, a space that stretches up at least three stories, the arched ceiling painted into rainbows from the multicolored glass windows through which shines the weak winter light. Original architecture salvaged from the Early Ones. Beyond the main atrium, the Barra family had installed their own embellishments—a second floor lined with balconies, a spiraling staircase, and a main floor dotted with soft, cushioned seats andspeckled cow pelts. The white engraving around the marble fireplace is embellished with gold. Arched windows reach from the floor to the ceiling, divided by thin black lines of metal, and the light stretches long against white-and-gray wooden floors. Stark beauty, everywhere, of a family centuries old.
Here, I feel myself clash against the pale floors and white walls like a stain. My mother and I had survived our first few years in this nation by running odd errands in the Outer City’s shantytowns. I’d deliver messages crumpled in my fists, shovel horse manure for the people who ran stalls rimming the walls, steal and sell metal from the scrapyards dotting the muddy, crowded landscape. I’d collect what little money I could for my mother. I’d huddle on the side of the narrow paths, surrounded by the stench of grease, fried fish, and sewage. No one spared me a glance. There were too many kids like me fighting to survive in the shanties. I was just another face lost in the crowd.
Now I’m here, standing inside the home of a family with obscene wealth, and all I can do is imagine myself as a child, dirty and startled, lost here. How did Corian come out of a house like this? He must have looked like the sun running through these halls, golden hair and skin and laughter against these white surroundings. And I feel the pit of my grief all over again, its pain the same as the hollow bite of a hungry stomach, tipping the world around me until I can no longer see.
No one is in here. I wait for a moment, wondering if maybe I’d come to the wrong room, except that the guards ushered me to this spot.
Finally, I hear the faint echo of footsteps coming from down the corridor. They are the solid, sure steps of an aristocrat.
I don’t wait to kneel. Before the figure emerges into the hall, I lower myself onto both knees so that I can feel the cold floor through the fabric of my trousers. I hold Corian’s folded uniform out, presenting it flat before me with both hands. Then I bow my head deeply. There isstill a faint scent of Corian from his Striker coat. I catch it now in my bent state, the smell of smoke and sugar, still lingering there from the candies he always kept tucked in his pockets.
