“Constantine is dead!” I call out, my voice harsh with tears. “The Premier is dead!”
As the chant rises over the din of fighting and flames, I lay Constantine’s body down at the edge of the roof and return to Talin’s side. I hoist her up over my shoulder, trying not to further injure her back.
Only then do I see someone familiar appear on the roof. It’s Talin’s mother, followed closely by Adena, the two of them bursting out from the stairway and rushing toward me. Behind them come a disorganized line of rebels. All I can think is that it must mean they have overtaken the palace.
The thought sends me to my knees. I crumple slowly and wait as Talin’s mother and Adena reach us. I must have tried to say something to them—explaining what happened to Talin—because Adena immediately pulls off her own jacket and starts to wrap Talin’s back tightly. Talin’s mother leans over to me, shouting.
“She needs blood,” the woman says. She and Adena help me steady Talin’s body as I gingerly lift her in my arms. “We need to get her downstairs!”
We leave the roof. As I start to descend the stairs, I cast a final glance over my shoulder. Constantine’s body stays there on the edge of the roof, alone and undefended, just an object to be gawked at and pointed to by the crowds below. All the destruction he has caused, all the lives he has destroyed—but in the end, he is just a lone, frail figure, another body. And in time, like all bodies, he too will vanish into dust.
Think of all that a single person can do. All the indescribable good. All the unspeakable evil.
There is a moment in the hospital of the inner city when I think Talin has died. Her heartbeat grows so faint that I can barely detect it. Outside, the city is flooded with the chaos that comes from the end of an era. When I look out the window, I see people tearing down a statueof Constantine’s father that has been in the center of the Solstice Circle for as long as I can remember. People from every conquered nation have dared to appear in the streets today, many of them crouched, weeping, before the monuments stolen from their countries and now adorning the main thoroughfare.
As the chaos sweeps through the streets, I stay by Talin’s side. A nurse from the former lab institute has already come by to set up an infusion of liquids into her body. Sometimes her heart quiets so much that I have to lean my head against her chest to hear her pulse for myself. Her mother stands beside her, her steady hands carefully sewing the horrendous wounds that Talin has sustained on her back. Beside her, Adena assists, occasionally looking at Talin’s face in the hopes that she might wake up.
I don’t know what time it is when Jeran and Aramin walk through the hospital door to see us. The day has come and gone, and night has fallen over the city again. Outside, Cardinia still sounds like a roar, but I see fewer soldiers clashing in the streets. Instead, there are arrests, and rebels waving the flags from a dozen fallen nations. The flag of the Karensa Federation burns everywhere.
“I heard about what happened,” Jeran says as a greeting as they stop at Talin’s side. He is drenched in sweat and blood, but otherwise, he looks well, his face smeared with ash.
Adena shakes her head. “She’s lost a lot of blood. I don’t know when she might wake up.”
Aramin doesn’t say anything at first. Instead, he just watches her chest rise and fall, as if silently counting her breaths. I observe his face quietly before I nod at them both. “What’s happening out there?” I ask.
Jeran looks at me. “Those still loyal to Constantine stood down almost the instant you brought his body to the edge of the palace roof. Everyone knows the Premier is dead.”
“Now what?” Adena asks quietly, her eyes going from me to Jeran to Aramin.
We are silent. None of us know. It doesn’t feel real that the capital of the Federation has fallen to rebels, the victims of all of those it had conquered and ruled. What happens after this? The Premier is dead; his brother is dead; there is no heir. Where do they go from here?
Aramin is the first one to speak. His voice is hoarse, as if he has been crying. “We may not know for a long time,” he says. “Maybe that’s a good thing. Let the peoplefeel.Only then can we stop to think about what comes next.”
We sit, indulging in another round of silence. I find myself feeling grateful that there is no discomfort in this silence. It is the sound of friends who have been through everything together. And in this moment, we are all waiting for the same thing. Our eyes linger on Talin, watching her every breath, watching her eyes, watching for the slightest hint.
Her hand is tucked in mine. But she does not squeeze back.
Talin’s mother stays the entire time. So do I. We never leave her side—even though her mother tries frequently to make me go.
“Look at you,” she scolds, waving her hands impatiently at me one morning. “Get out of here, get some air, get some food.”
“I could say the same for you, ma’am,” I answer, refusing to budge.
She sighs and shakes her head at me. “Stubborn young things,” she mutters as she turns back to stare at her daughter’s face.
“Weren’t you too?” I ask her after a while.
She doesn’t answer right away, but I catch a faint smile on her lips. “Ah,” she says sorrowfully. “There is nothing in the world I can say to send you away, is there?”
“I’m afraid not.”
She touches her daughter’s face gently, and I find myself imagining a small Talin and her younger mother.
“I suppose love is a stubborn thing,” she finally says.
Adena disappears for a stretch, off to survey the remains near the lab complex. She is still unsure what exactly happened when they detonated the cylinder, or what the blue shaft of light that shot into the air when it went off means. Already, several rebels have died, burning to death over the span of a day in the same way that I’d seen before with those poor workers. The land around the lab complex, she tells us, is charred so badly that everything—stone and steel and earth—has melted together into a single mass. Whatever the energy source was meant to do for the Early Ones, they had buried it deep in the earth, as if they’d never wanted it to be found again. Now I know why.
Sometimes I see Aramin and Jeran outside the window, wandering the courtyard outside the hospital restlessly, their heads together as they talk. At one point, late in the evening, I see Aramin take Jeran’s hands in his and bring him close for a kiss. My hand tightens around Talin’s.
