I could become what Constantine had striven for.
I’m quiet for a while. Outside, I can hear the occasional chant breaking out in the streets even as soldiers bustle back and forth.
Finally, I sign, “Then let me speak before your circle.”
The mayor smiles a little. She looks uncertain that I’ve accepted her invitation, but she doesn’t question it. She doesn’t cower away from me in fear of my Skyhunter strengths. She just bows her head once.
“I’ll gather the others,” she says.
My mother looks at me without a word. Even though I’ve given no response, she can already see the answer in my eyes.
Later that evening, I leave my bed for the first time in weeks. Everything in me aches—my back still feels tender from the damage that Constantine’s Skyhunters had inflicted, and my dozens of other, smaller wounds still smart, pulling and stretching me in the wrong ways as I join a small council seated in the atrium of the late Premier’s palace.
It’s surreal to be back here. I’d seen blood smeared across these marble tiles, had been forced to serve Constantine and kill while the light streamed down through the magnificent glass ceiling above.
Now it is a serene space lit by a spring sun, and I stand in the middle of a half circle of Karensan nobles. Funny, isn’t it, how different the same place can look.
I recognize some of them. There’s Mayor Elland, of course. Red and my mother have also been given the courtesy of seats in this half circle, along with Adena, Aramin, and Jeran. They are here with several of Constantine’s former advisors that the mayor must have deemed worthy of being here. There are a couple of her rebel allies.
What a strange mix we all are.
Now, as the mayor greets me with a formal nod, Red rises from his seat to stand next to me. His hand brushes against mine, and my fingers reach to touch his, searching for his strength.
“Welcome, Steelstriker,” Mayor Elland says. “We are ready to listen to what you have to tell us.”
I don’t need to ask her what she wants to hear from me. They want to know if I will help them lead the Karensa Federation into its new era. What will it become now, without its late Premier? What comes after the Tyrus family?
I look from the mayor to my mother, to my Striker companions, and then to Red. I envision a lifetime living in the palace of Cardinia, walking the same halls that I had once walked when I was trapped under Constantine’s rule. I imagine a future undoing the travesties that Constantine and his father before him committed, to spend the rest of my life revisiting grief over and over again. I see a life defined by my past, haunted by dreams of burning homes and boys with guns and bridges collapsing into the night.
I think of how far the Federation still has to go, and what it will take to bring it there.
When I answer, I respond through my link with Red. He voices my words aloud in steady Karenese to the others.
“I happily accept the task of leading the Karensa Federation into its next life,” I tell them.
The mayor smiles, and the others nod along, ready to bring their hands together for me, eager to work together.
“And my first command in leading this effort,” I continue signing as I meet the mayor’s eyes, “is to break the Federation apart.”
The few scattered claps that had started now pause, silence. I see a few surprised blinks.
They weren’t expecting this.
“This is your world, not mine,” I sign to them. Red’s voice rings out strong. “I don’t want to be a part of this. I never wanted to be a part ofthis, and neither did any of the nations that Karensa conquered. None of us were asked to join this. We were brought here.”
The mayor nods at my words, even as her lips tighten. After a lifetime in her position, it must be surprising to her to see someone refuse power. Beside her comes a faint murmur from the advisory council.
“Then what do you want, Talin?” she asks me.
What do you want, Talin?It is a question I have heard so rarely that for a moment I’m not even sure how to answer.
“What I want,” I sign, “is for the Karensa Federation to free every territory that it has ever conquered, restore to each of them their autonomy. I want the people of Basea to be able to return to Basea, if they so choose. I want Mara’s borders to be restored. I want Karensa to give back everything it ever took—every statue, every structure, every piece that ever belonged to someone else. I want every former nation to become its own nation again, ruled by its own government, free to do as they will. As they always should have been. Take the power you want to grant me, and give it to those who should have had it all along.”
“Then the Federation will disappear,” one of the advisors says incredulously.
“So be it,” I answer.
Mayor Elland listens carefully to me. I know she thinks some of these wishes are impossible, but even more so, I think she knows that they aren’t at all. That these are things they should have done a long time ago. One of the others on the council looks like he’s about to stand up and speak, but the mayor holds a hand up. He quiets, then settles back down.
