“Before Karensa, wars erupted frequently between every country on this land. Everyone knows this. It’s the way of our kind, war. But I believe in rebuilding a unified, advanced society. We can rise to the former glory of our ancestors by bringing all of our fractured nations under a single rule. And a single rule—absolute control—brings peace. Each of us can contribute something greater to a whole.” He leans forward.“You see, Mara is rumored to hold the ruins of an ancient technology mightier than anything we’ve ever discovered. It is a weapon buried in the ground, deep in their old silos. It is the power, they say, contained inside the hearts of stars and the cells of man, a source of incredible energy that can carry us all into the next millennium. Now, finally, we are all under the same rule. With the new peace that brings us, and with Mara’s help, we can advance together. Stretch our ambitions further than the Early Ones ever did.” His smile now is cold, searing. “After all, there are other lands to conquer across the seas.”
So this was the reason behind the Premier’s determination to conquer Mara. To end war, in his twisted way. Then to claim this myth of an energy source in Mara. I think of the displays of ruins I’d seen in Cardinia, taken from fallen nations. And then, suddenly, I remember the prison under the National Hall. The cylindrical pit winding down into the darkness, originally dug by the Early Ones. How Adena had always complained of the chemical smell down there. A weapon buried deep in the ground.
Horror rises low and nauseating in my chest. My hands clench and unclench against my bonds. I watch the Premier from behind a veil of hate and fear. Was there more to that ruin than we ever knew in Mara? What terrible power buried under Mara’s surface has drawn the Federation here?
The Premier’s eyes dart to my shaking chains, then back to me. “Did you see Mara as a country that loved you?” he asks. “When you first entered, you were grateful for her embrace of you and your mother—but did this nation give you back everything you gave her? You were willing to lay down your life out there on the battlefield.” He leans closer. “And yet, Mara wouldn’t even let your talented, educated mother live within the walls of Newage.”
I don’t know who he talked to or forced information out of, but he must have been paying close attention to me.
“Tell me, Talin,” he says. “Is that the kind of country you want to defend? Was that worth your life?”
Behind him, the soldiers force my mother onto her feet. She struggles up, wincing, and for the first time, I see the lashes along her legs, wounds bleeding on her arms. She shakes her head almost imperceptibly at me.
“You loved Mara, clearly, as much as you loved your own,” the Premier says to me. “But do you see these soldiers behind me?” He motions to the others standing in the chamber. “They are all willing to lay down their lives for me without hesitation—because not only do they believe in defending the Federation, but because they appreciate how they are valued. BecauseIvalue them. If you fight for me, I can promise you that all your loyalty and love will be returned to you tenfold. I do not take my soldiers for granted. I can’t unite this world in peace without first waging war, and I can’t wage war without my army at my back. I make sure they have everything they need, that their families are provided for. In return, they are willing to lay down their lives for me. Do you see?”
My eyes stay on my mother. They are going to kill her right before me—or worse, do what they did to Red’s family. I can feel the threat permeating the air, winding through the hollows of my bones.
“I can give you anything and everything you’ve ever wanted. Your old home back? I can gift you ten thousand acres of land and a title in the heart of Basea. Wealth? The Federation overflows with gold—have as much wealth as you can stand.” He watches the way my shoulders tense. “Prestige? I can transform you into a greater fighter, a more formidable assassin, than you’ve ever been. Whatever you were capable of as a Striker for Mara, you can be a hundredfold under the Federation. I’ve seen you fight, watched you make your kills. I can tell you that nosoldier I’ve ever worked with has ever started off with half your talent. Not even Redlen.”
Red. His name on the Premier’s tongue sounds hostile and chilling. My gaze shifts from my mother to Constantine. There’s an intensity etched into his face now, as if he were trulyseeingme for the first time, and the way it pulls me in is unnerving. I can sense the words he’s about to say next.
“I’m offering you the chance to become a Skyhunter for the Karensa Federation,” the Premier says. “My personal Skyhunter, to shield and protect me at all times.”
A Skyhunter. The most advanced warrior the world has ever known. The deadliest killing machine I’ve ever witnessed.
A Skyhunter, bringer of death, servant to the Federation. Servant to the regime that stole our home. Servant to the Premier, at his every beck and call.
What he’d intended Red to be.
My limbs tremble harder now. This is not an offer. There is no choice in this.
“It’s difficult for you to see the benefit of becoming a Skyhunter right now, when you’ve suffered such a loss as your country has,” he continues. “Someday, you’ll understand why an unbroken Karensa Federation, stretching sea to sea, is the greatest gift for all humanity. Why I will not make the same mistakes our ancestors did. But if not for the treasures I can offer you, perhaps you will do it for your mother’s sake, and for the sake of other Marans we now have captive.”
He glances back to where the soldiers have forced my mother to her feet. “Your mother was in the thick of war,” he explains, “and showed a great deal of courage in the way she fought. I see where you inherited your skills. Unfortunately, this also makes your mother an enemy of theFederation, a soldier who took the lives of some of my men.” He nods at me. “By law, I must make her a prisoner of war, and she must stand for her crimes against Karensa. She will be executed for her actions. You know this, don’t you, Talin?”
One of the guards holding my mother pulls out a dagger.
They’re going to cut her throat here. Her blood is going to spill against the marble floor.
Constantine nods at the soldiers standing beside me. “Let her loose,” he says. “It’s all right.”
The chains over my head clack as they move to unlock me. I feel the weight of my shackles shift, then the slack of the chains as I’m released from them. Immediately, my legs buckle, but I manage somehow to fight for balance and stay standing, swaying in place, my shoulders hunched and my arms still secured behind my back.
The Premier watches me as I fight to stay upright. “Your mother will die, unless you consider my offer. I won’t make it a second time. If you choose to become a Skyhunter to the Federation, I promise you that your mother will be pardoned of her crimes. I will release her and give her the chance to earn a place for herself in the new society that the Federation will establish in Mara. She wasn’t allowed to live inside Newage, but perhaps now she can have a proper home, and some sense of dignity.”
I stare at him, quietly inspecting the soul in his gaze. He knows he will run out of time soon, die young. His weakening body will eventually return to dust. But before then, there is a searing determination in him tobuild, an urgency to leave behind his legacy before whatever illness he has claims him. A belief that only he is capable of creating an unbroken empire, thathe—more so even than the Karensa Federation—is the one destined to inherit the world. All this time, what drives him isn’tfulfillment of the Early Ones’ mantra. It isn’t Infinite Destiny. It is instead what drives all tyrants.
It is his fear of death.
He studies me for a second longer. When I don’t move right away, he looks back at the soldiers holding my mother and gives them a nod.
The guard holding the dagger grabs my mother by the hair.
And I sink to my knees.
There is no other choice I can make. It’s my turn to become the Chief Architect, pledging my loyalty to the Premier, promising to do terrible things for him in exchange for my mother’s life. Here, I am a child again, clutching my mother’s hand and looking over my shoulder in terror as the sound of Ghosts comes steadily closer. I can feel the way my mother squeezed me tightly to her that night, can see the sad smile on her face as we watch the bridges collapse behind us.
And in this moment, I finally, finally understand why I fight for Mara. It is because my mother sacrificed everything to bring me here, went hungry so that I would not, lived in squalor so that I would not. Mara is the gift she gave me. And I’ll be damned if she did that for nothing. I’ll be damned if I don’t fight for that gift.
