THIS ANCIENT PIECE WAS COMMONLY USED
BY MARANS AS A PLACE OF MEDITATION AND SERENITY
A feeling of rage spikes at the sight, and I feel a lump well in my throat. I look away to see workers bring a large pulley system to hoist the Strikers’ lintel into place atop its pillars.
How strange it is to see the stone here, its eyes staring across the Federation’s capital instead of over the hills of Newage’s Inner City, watching me every morning as I entered the arena to train to protect my country. How surreal it is to read the words engraved on it, words that I used to linger on every time I stepped into the Striker arena.
The lintel’s placard says this:
THE STONE OF THE STRIKER ARENA
ORIGINALLY FROM THE INNER CITY OF NEWAGE, MARA
THIS EARLY ONES PIECE ONCE ADORNED THE ENTRANCE TO THE STRIKER ARENA,
WHERE MARA’S FAMED STRIKERS TRAINED
ITS ENGRAVED WORDS TRANSLATE TO:
MAY THERE BE FUTURE DAWNS,
THE STRIKER MANTRA
Before the lintel is lifted into place, one of the Premier’s advisors steps forward holding a shallow plate filled with crimson paint. She brings itbefore Constantine. The crowd’s silence hangs in the air as the Premier dips two fingers into the paint, then steps forward to the Waterfall. There, he touches his fingers to one of the sculpture’s steel bones and marks a vertical line against it. He does the same to the lintel, painting a scarlet line straight down the stone face I know so well.
Finally, he steps back so that the stone can be hoisted onto its pillars. We watch as it slides into place with a neat click.
At this point, Constantine finally smiles and spreads his arms wide. “We welcome Mara into the Karensa Federation!” he calls out.
The people burst into wild cheers. In the midst of their thunderous applause, I find myself recalling the creed of the Early Ones, the phrase that Karensa had adopted as their own.
We sow the seeds of Infinite Destiny for our children, so that they may rule from this earth to the stars.
The words play repeatedly in my mind as the ceremony continues. I keep my head bowed so I don’t have to see the lintel displayed above me. It isn’t until the Premier has stepped away from the new sculptures and headed back into the carriage that I realize I’m shivering. From the exertion of standing calmly by. From the strain of watching them display shreds of Mara.
From the realization that I am complicit in this nightmare.
11
RED
The path we once took out of Mara andinto the Federation’s borders is now impossible. As I glide laboriously up to the top of the tree canopy to look out over the valley between Mara’s old warfront and the territory beyond, I see that part of the wild forest where we’d previously passed through is now cut down and sprinkled with soldier camps and equipment. Here and there are cavernous dig sites, the earth churned and ruined, metal pulleys and cables extending into the pits.
They’re searching for something here. Karensa always is.
I shake my head at Jeran, then descend to him. My wings hurt so fiercely now that I have to clench my jaw shut to keep my teeth from chattering.
“We have to go farther north,” I sign.
Jeran points at the trees from where he’d been scouting. “They’re laying down new track near the river,” he signs back. “We can find a way to ride on top of the train and make it past this military campground.”
I follow him. It’s a cloudy night, and the darkness is all-consuming, swathing us protectively in her shadows. We make it to the train station without much trouble.
Here, they are loading something onto a train car—a cylinder maybe ten feet long, containing smaller cylinders inside. I frown at the sight of it. The artifact looks oddly familiar, although I’m not quite sure why. Hadn’t they been loading a similar object onto the train in Newage, the one we’d failed to stop? Is it the sleek design—or that there is more than one of them—that makes me uneasy?
“Careful!” I hear the shout go up repeatedly in Karenese from the workers struggling to move it. It must be heavy, much heavier than its size would belie. “Careful!Careful!”
Another of the workers is waving at the soldiers stationed nearby.
