There’s no fanfare for us this time, no crowds gathered on the sides of the streets to see us go. There is no Striker coat streaming from my back, and I don’t ride tall on the back of a horse.
Instead, we steal out of the shanties like thieves in the night, in the back of a Basean wagon driven by Decaine, as if bound for one of Mara’s smaller cities to try our luck in the shanties of Spiderfang or Reedhollow. We’ve all stripped off our Striker coats and removed the harnesses looping around our shoulders, taken off our conspicuous weapons and strapped them inside canvas bags instead. I shiver in my inner shirt. The only blades I still wear are the daggers inside my boots. I find myself keenly aware of Red’s body hot beside me, his legs bumping into mine with every jostle. Jeran and Adena sit across from us, their figures outlined by faint slivers of light from a slit in the canvas.
I don’t like feeling this unequipped when threatened. But we’re all still the deadliest fighters in the country. If they want to capture us, they’ll have some of their blood spilled first.
The wagon itself is made out of rusted steel, full of holes, and as it goes, it creaks and groans, the faint metallic scrapping from Decaine’s cycling drifting to us and tricking me repeatedly into hearing footstepsor the draw of blades behind us. Through the slit in the wagon’s canvas top, I can see the Outer City’s jumble of scant lights fading away, and beyond it, Newage’s walls fading into the black. Soon, we’re in total darkness, with nothing but a sheet of stars overhead to guide us. It reminds me too much of the night my mother and I had fled into Mara. I have to stop myself from hearing the panting of thousands of fleeing refugees beside me, and the grinding of the Ghosts coming for us in the distance.
No one says a word. I don’t know how much time has passed before I hear a soft humming in the wagon. It’s Adena, her voice low and throaty, the tune jerky from the terrain that we bounce over. Eventually I recognize the song, though. It’s a song Strikers sing during the end of practice every day, when everyone is tired and ready to head to the mess halls.
Jeran joins in after a while, and I’m content for the moment to listen to the two of them filling the silences between the bumpy wagon with a reminder of who we are and what we fight for. Even in the darkness, I can make out Jeran still folding and refolding Aramin’s letter, the paper crunching slightly with each crease.
“I lied during dinner,” he suddenly says, very quietly, so that I lean forward to hear him better.
“About what?” Adena asks.
“About why I fight.” There’s a pause before Jeran continues. “I mean, what I said was true, but it wasn’t the real reason.”
“Because you actually care about Gabrien?” Adena sounds surprised.
“No. When we were small, Gabrien would find me in the house—playing on the rugs, or by the front door, or in my room—and play a game of telling me what to do. Fetch him water. Fetch his slippers. Sing for him. He said he wanted to practice what it’d feel like to be a Senator, ordering others around. If I did it, he’d think of somethingelse. Eventually I’d stop or complain. Then he’d grab me by the hair and haul me off to the water trough outside, where we kept our horses, and shove my head in until I choked.” Jeran hesitates again. “Sometimes the surface of the water would be frozen in winter, and he’d smash my head through the thin ice to the cold water underneath. But I hated it more in the summer, when the water would fester with mosquito larvae. I’d go back inside smelling like horse spit and mold.”
“So you became a Striker to learn how to fight back,” Adena mumbles. “Jeran. You’ve never told me this before.”
“You loved your brother so much,” Jeran replies. “I thought it’d be unkind of me to be so ungrateful for mine.”
“Gabrien’s not a brother, Jeran.” Adena’s voice is low with anger now. “He’s a monster, same as the Ghosts in the valley, just disguised in silks and smiles. Like your father.”
Jeran doesn’t argue with what she says, but he doesn’t agree, either. It takes another long silence before he finally adds, “They’re my family, Adena.”
“So? Your family can also be the poison in your life.”
I wish there was enough light for me to sign to Jeran. Instead, I just listen. Beside me, Red shifts, sensing the sadness in Jeran’s voice.
“And did your father know?” Adena adds.
“Gabrien learned it from my father,” Jeran adds softly. “He said Gabrien couldn’t hurt me if I was smarter about his games.”
“And did Gabrien stop attacking you after you became a Striker?”
Jeran’s voice is quiet, but I can make out the silhouette of his head shaking. “No.”
Because he doesn’t fight back. I know it, because I’ve witnessed how he changes in the presence of his father, shrinks into his skin and erases all signs of the graceful, confident Jeran I’ve seen at the warfront and at practice in the arena. The Deathdancer. And I understand why too.It’s the way I contract into myself at events like the National Hall’s banquet, why I become a silent, withdrawn shell of myself, questioning my instincts. It’s how we protect ourselves.
“What does Aramin think of it?” Adena asks quietly. She’s the first of us brave enough to bring up the Firstblade’s name.
Jeran hesitates for so long that I think he won’t answer her at all. Then, finally, he says, “Aramin once asked me to be his Shield.”
Our heads turn in surprise to him.
“What?” Adena says.
“He did?” I sign, even though I’m not sure anyone can see my hands.
“You were still paired with your brother,” Jeran tells Adena. “If I agreed, I would move into the Firstblade’s quarters in the National Plaza. My rank would surpass both my father’s and my brother’s.” He looks at his boots. “Even though I was inexperienced at the time, our fighting styles paired well. But more than that, he hoped to protect me from my father and brother.”
As he tells the story, I picture how it must have happened—Jeran meeting Aramin at the Firstblade’s office in the Striker complexes, the Firstblade offering him the position, careful to keep his tone unemotional, telling Jeran he has no obligation to comply. Jeran, mouth open, wanting more than anything in the world to say yes, yet unable to make a sound. Him bowing his head to the Firstblade, then getting up and walking away.
“Why didn’t you agree?” I ask him.
