I can’t afford to waste time. With all my strength, I force away the nagging thought and turn in the direction of the station itself, then pick my way through the train yard until I’m crouched in the shadow of the nearest tower. Guards on top of Newage’s walls have their attention trained mostly on the clusters of former Maran refugees wandering around outside the gates, picking through the destruction of their former homes in the Outer City. I see two of the refugees scuffle over something they have found on the ground. Is it some precious scrap of memories? Is it shoes? I don’t know, but the incident is enough to distract nearby Karensan soldiers into heading toward them to break it up.
I don’t waste the opportunity. The moment the guards leave, I move into the shadow cast by the body of the train. There, I plant the first cylinder, tucking it underneath the wood of a track. Then I plant another, and another. The work is easy, if tedious, until the guards rotate back. When they do, I pause and hide again, my eyes turned toward Jeran’s tower for his signal.
His silhouette in the long grass is almost impossible to pick out.I stare at him for so long that I almost believe he has vanished. At last, I see his head shift subtly, followed by the faint sight of his fingers moving against the moonlight.
Anyone else would be unable to make out his signs from so far away, but I have extraordinary sight, and there against the night, I can decipher his words.
“Wait thirty seconds,” he signs. “The guards will rotate to the third tower, and in the gap, you can move to the other side of the tracks.”
I turn my attention back to the tracks. I wait the full thirty seconds, then take a deep breath and slip between the cars to the other side of the tracks. Sure enough, the space is empty, the guards gone for a breath. I move as quickly and quietly as I can, placing the spheres at careful intervals.
Most of the cars of this train seem to be carrying back hauls of crumbled stone and twisted steel, remnants of Newage’s destruction that the Federation must want to recycle and turn into better things. I glimpse cars filled with nothing but glass shards or black stone or mangled sections of metal.
Under the tower, Jeran signs again, “One minute.”
I speed up my work. One sphere, then another, then another. On the opposite end of the train yard, Adena should be nearly done cycling around the station building itself. By the time we are finished and leave this site, no one will be the wiser that this entire site is rigged for destruction. The thought brings me a sense of grim satisfaction. Months of us hiding in the forest, rescuing the occasional prisoner, nothing more, while helplessly watching Karensa lay down these tracks and rebuild Newage the way they want, has eroded our confidence.
But even if we’re captured, there are others out in the forest. This war is not over yet.
Talin’s heartbeat comes through our link again. Stronger.
Something has changed; there is a new darkness in her, somethingunspeakable. I feel the weight of it, and fear fills my every cavity. Because I know that feeling. That darkness. My eyes again go back up to the city’s walls, searching. She must be here. This is no longer a hallucination.
And something has gone terribly wrong.
Then, all of a sudden, I hear a commotion near the front gate leading into Newage, and I freeze, melting back into the shadows of the train.
A patrol of soldiers heads out through the gate, pausing to split into two lines. I watch closely, then glance at the tower, wondering whether Jeran has another sign to send to me. No movement from him. My eyes dart to where Adena should be by the station. She doesn’t move either.
Between the two lines walks the Premier, who looks like he’s here to carry out a night inspection of the grounds. But it is not his presence that opens a pit in my stomach, hollow and nauseating. It is not him who sends the world around me spinning. Instead, it is the sudden, overwhelming surge ofherpresence in my mind. The heart and emotion of a girl I have thought about every waking moment for the past six months. It is the figure I see walking alongside the young Premier as he speaks in a low voice to one of his soldiers. This figure moves in sync with the Premier, and her eyes stay forward, searching the darkness.
No. I am scarcely aware of my breath hovering in the night air. The thought squeezes my chest tight.No.
And that’s when I see her unfurl a set of steel wings on her back, just slightly.
Talin.
I know every line of her figure and the tilt of her chin, even behind the mask and helmet she wears. The evening light outlines the profile of a young woman whose face I’ve taken care to memorize.
It’s her.
But even as I wrestle with my disbelief, I see with horror the slight unfurling of her own wings as she faces the Premier. The way she bows her head to the Premier as he turns to her.
You know what those wings mean. You know that black armor.
In desperation, I reach out to Talin through our link. But all I feel from her is that tide of darkness, the awfulness of what has been done to her. Her anguish coats the bridge between us.
The horror seeping in is a familiar feeling. It is watching your sister transformed into a Ghost, right before your eyes. It is knowing that your own defiance as a Karensan soldier meant the deaths of your family.
When I rip my gaze away and toward the train station, I see Jeran signing at me. “What’s happening?”
I can hardly bear to sign back. “Talin is alive,” I tell him.
Even in the distant shadow, I can see Jeran’s face brighten at my words. “She’s here? Can we get to her? Is she one of the prisoners being loaded—”
But I shake my head before he can even finish. “No,” I respond.
“Why?”
