The Strikers who ride back with us don’t talk as we go. Their eyes shift uneasily in Red’s direction as he rides in silence, and they leave a wide berth between him and the rest of us, a circle of guns pointed in his direction should he so much as make a single unexpected movement. Adena, Jeran, and I are transported with our hands and feet bound, escorted on our own horses. It’s impossible to ignore the weight in the air, as if we’re less Marans and more enemy soldiers.
None of us utter a word to the other Strikers about what we know of the Speaker. Saying so here, now, as criminals arrested for treason, will only make us sound like liars. Who would believe such a claim? They would just tell the Speaker, who might have us assassinated before we can even stand trial in the arena.
Red’s eyes stay forward, but I can sense his attention on me. He’s wondering if we should try to break free. I wait until he glances in my direction, then shake my head once subtly. Even Red, who can slaughter an entire battlefield, can’t survive a bullet to the head. There are so manyguns trained on him. Besides—if we killed Strikers in an attempt to free ourselves, then they can no longer protect Mara.
As we crest a hill and the familiar sight of Newage comes into view, one of them turns to me. She’s a girl I’d trained with since the beginning, and one of the few who seems willing to communicate with us.
“Did you see what the Federation does to their prisoners?” she signs hesitantly to me.
Her eyes are wide, the expression in them almost desperate in their hunger. I realize immediately that she’s asking because she knows someone who had been captured once and never heard from again. My mind skips to the Ghost I’d seen in transition at the labs, with eyes so piercing I’d mistaken him at first for Corian. I think of the parade of Ghosts on display at their national fair.
Instead, I just shake my head. My hands twist in vain against their bonds.
Like any good Striker, the only real fear she shows is a tightening of her jaw. She nods back at me and returns to concentrating on the city ahead.
The Speaker is waiting for us at the entrance to the gates with the other Senators. I meet his eyes as we go and notice that he tries to avert his own gaze by nodding with approval at the other Strikers bringing us in. Along either side of the gates are a cluster of people all craning their necks for a look at us. Inner City citizens gather, searching our faces for some sign of hope. Refugees from the Outer City watch us with their hollow eyes.
After a while, they turn their eyes away. Perhaps it is better not to know the truth.
Suddenly, I spot my mother in the crowd. She has her hands together, wringing them unconsciously, and her gaze stays on mine without wavering. I can tell from the mud splattered on the hem ofher pants that she ran all the way here from her home the instant she heard of our approach.
She looks like she wants to say something, but her words catch in her throat. The chains on my wrists feel unbearably heavy. When the Federation comes over our border, who will protect her without me there? What will happen to her?
As we enter the Inner City, I expect to hear a round of jeers, something loud and mocking from people who have always wanted to see me fall. But to my surprise, they greet us only with silence. A few bow their heads in our direction as we pass by. Some still refuse to meet my gaze with anything but sneers—but most look somber, even respectful. Many of them know Jeran and Adena. They recognize all of us, and it occurs to me that perhaps they are grateful for our return, even in the face of certain imprisonment.
Our procession continues to the National Plaza, where the Firstblade is waiting for us at the entrance to the prison.
There is no satisfaction on his face. At the sight of Jeran, his eyes soften, but he doesn’t move as we are helped off our horses and made to stand before him. I sneak a glance at Jeran. He’s careful to keep his head down, but his body seems to lean instinctively in the Firstblade’s direction, as drawn to the man as he’s been since the days when Aramin used to train with him.
The Firstblade studies each of us in turn. I wait, wondering if he’ll cut us down right here.
Then he bows his head to us, long and low. “I’m glad you’re alive,” he says.
“Glad enough to imprison us?” Adena speaks up, and the rest of the Strikers go still.
But Aramin doesn’t look angry. He seems exhausted, worn down by decisions out of his control. He looks at Adena without saying a word,because there’s simply no good reply to her question. Adena just stays where she is, staring the Firstblade down defiantly.
“You will each be confined separately.” His gaze goes to Red. I know Red could kill him, without question—that no one here can physically restrain Red or keep him in any bonds—but there’s no fear on Aramin’s face. “The Skyhunter will return to his old cell.”
Red glares at the Firstblade in disgust before shifting his eyes away.
We’re brought down the circular depths of the prison, lower and lower, to the damp floors where only meager shafts of light illuminate the darkness. Here, we’re each placed in a separate cell. Mine is small, smaller than my mother’s home, with a grating the size of my palm on the floor and one on the side of the wall. Through the floor grating, I catch brief glimpses of Jeran in the cell below me, pacing incessantly from one corner of the room to the other. There’s no telling where Adena is being held.
I lean back against the wall and close my eyes. Red is on the bottom floor, but he’s near enough that I can see fragments of his world through my own point of view, glimpses of the small army of soldiers surrounding him in a wide circle, watching him in his cell with their guns pointed at him.
Red, I try to say to him through our bond. He’s too far away to hear it, but I do sense his mood flicker with a ray of something light at my attempt.
Somehow, I savor the thought of him being able to sense me but not hear my words. So I decide to continue.I’m sorry you’ve ended up exactly where you began.The thought gets a bitter chuckle out of me, and as if in answer, I feel a brief spark of amusement come from Red.Well, I’m glad one of us is pleased by this, I tell him wryly.
He’s silent, but the space between us doesn’t feel empty, and I let myself sink into the comfort of his presence in my mind.
I’m sorry, Red, I tell him after a while.We wanted to avenge your family. You gave everything you could and withstood returning to the place that held you captive. We still failed you.
The weight of that realization sits heavy in my mind. I let myself stay very still in the darkness, trying to keep my feelings down, glad he can’t sense everything.
I don’t know what to do, I confess.I don’t know how we’re going to survive all this. Maybe we won’t.
His mood shifts again, somber now, but there is a current of something else there. Gratitude. And then… what?
