Eventually one of the guards stops trying to talk to them and turns his back. Jeran moves slightly against the opening in the vent. One of the buttons at his collar gleams in the light.
A moment later, Aramin’s eyes slide up the wall opposite him. His gaze travels to the soldiers standing outside, then go up to fixate on the slits in the ceiling vent, right where Jeran’s button must have glinted.
At first, the Firstblade doesn’t seem to see us.
But even as Aramin’s gaze breaks away, he comes back again andagain to look up in our direction. Jeran does the same each time, shifting just enough for a tiny bit of movement to be seen from outside the vent.
A small, sad smile appears on the edges of Aramin’s lips. Maybe he knows it’s us.
I look to Jeran. He does not utter a sound, is so still that even I think he has blended in with the shadows, but when I take in his face, I see tears streaming down his cheeks. His gaze stays locked on Aramin. Neither of them makes a single gesture, but something passes between them, a conversation I cannot understand.
As I look on, I see Aramin’s fist clench tight. He looks back down at the floor, but in silence, he presses his fist to his chest in the Striker salute. The gesture is subtle and quiet. But, as with everything about the Strikers, the silence is not silence at all. He is telling us that he knows we are here. He is reminding us that they are alive, that we still have time.
Adena, too, catches the gesture. She knows better than to react, but I can see her recognition in the slight widening of her eyes. She follows the turn of Aramin’s body to look at the vent. The ghost of a grin touches her lips.
“Jeran,” I sign gently, until he glances at me with grief in his eyes. I nod once. “We’ll come again.”
Jeran nods, as if snapped out of a daze. We can’t stay camped in these ducts forever, hoping to catch a whiff of soldiers’ gossip. But Aramin and Adena can, at least until they’re forced into the arena. They might hear something that will help us.
When Jeran can’t tear his eyes away from Aramin, I touch his shoulder softly. “Tomorrow,” I sign. “More time then.”
Jeran’s eyes are still locked on the prison door below. “What will happen to them?” he signs back.
I shake my head. “I don’t know.”
And I genuinely don’t. Like many of Karensa’s punishments, this is designed to be a game. A surprise. Something the crowds are forced to look forward to in morbid curiosity. What will happen in the arena tomorrow is anyone’s guess, although rumors must have already begun to spread.
“I can tell you this.” This time, I lean closer to Jeran so I can whisper in his ear. “Constantine will give them a fighting chance. No one goes through this much trouble to bring prisoners to the solstice games without making a sport of it.” I nod down to where Aramin and Adena sit. “Mara’s Strikers are legendary. People will be clamoring to see them. The Federation will stretch this out for longer than a day. They will still be here tomorrow night. And that means we’ll still have a chance to rescue them.”
“Rescue,” Jeran signs as he forces his eyes away from the prison. He meets my gaze. “Is that possible?”
“Any other year? No. Their keys and any duplicates are too hard to get.” I give him a small smile. “But this year?” I whisper. “We may know someone on the inside.”
Talin. If the palace holds the key, then she might be able to get her hands on one for us.If.
The other voice in me perks up all of a sudden.
You hate using that word with her. As if she might choose to betray you instead. As if she isn’t someone you can trust.
I don’t know what Jeran sees on my face, or how this boy constantly notices everything said and unsaid, but something about my words must agree with him, because he nods numbly at my words. “Tomorrow night,” he signs.
I cast a last look down at the holding room too. Now Adena is standing, snapping at the guards over something, and Aramin has turned hisattention away from us. He doesn’t dare look at us again, not with the guards’ attention now fully on them. As they argue, I start to make my way back down the duct.
It is only then that I overhear something the guards say. It freezes my blood.
“If they’re lucky enough to survive, they’ll eventually face the Skyhunter.”
Jeran hears it too. We halt, our eyes locked in a shared moment of horror.
I don’t know what the games will ultimately be. But Constantine is going to force them to take on Talin.
14
TALIN
The celebratory games in Cardinia areset to begin tomorrow. For now, the streets are a whirlwind of red tissue raining from the balconies and street vendors filling the air with the smell of roasted meat and sticky sugar. The occasional scrawl still appears on sculptures here and there, but they are gone by the end of the day, hurriedly scrubbed clean, the damaged sculptures removed and replaced with others.
But I remember them. And that memory reminds me that all is not as it seems in the city.
