I meet her eyes, hardly able to believe what I’m hearing.I am just one of many.
These are the many. I am sitting with leaders of the rebellion.
She gives me a grim nod. “Interested, eh? Good. Now let’s get you caught up.”
15
RED
The evening is split by the echoes ofhorns blasting around the city, each of them harmonious with the next. The chorus resounds eagerly from every tower in the city as people flood into the streets, celebrating in anticipation of tomorrow’s game.
I remember the sound of these horns. I’d sport bracelets on my arms and run alongside my father as we headed out to the festival grounds. Once, the festival had coincided with the conquering of the western nation of Larc.
What a little fool. How could I have enjoyed myself so much back then?
Tonight, Jeran and I try to keep a low profile in our Karenese wardrobe as we join the crowds teeming around the city. We sport yellow stripes tied around our wrists. Like the rest of the crowd, we know little about what will happen in the arena tomorrow—only that it will involve captive Strikers from Mara, and that they will each be sporting a different color so that the audience can distinguish easily between them. Already, I can overhear conversations around me from those taking bets on which colors will survive and which will perish, gambling on the lives of people none of them have even seen.
Beside me, I can sense Jeran’s tension. Maybe Adena will be wearing the yellow bracelet. Maybe Aramin.
Maybe Talin will be the one ripping those bracelets from their wrists after taking their lives.
Clusters of soldiers stand at attention along the thoroughfare. I glance at them whenever I can, listening for snatches of conversations, bored chatter, clues. But the few that talk are only barking out orders, herding people in the right direction. As always, I search for the symbols on their sleeves, keeping track of the patrols I see.
Strange. There are fewer patrols here than there should be.
Up ahead, rising up in the center of the Solstice Circle, is Cardinia’s arena, decked out entirely tonight in colorful banners.
We avoid the arena and end up walking along the path linking the surrounding festival grounds to the road leading to the lab complex. The guards cluster thickly around here. Immediately I know what it means; Ghosts must have been transported along this route earlier in the morning, ushered into the arena’s holding rooms in anticipation of tomorrow’s events.
With the realization comes a wave of sickness. Whatever’s happening to the captive Strikers tomorrow, it’ll involve them facing Ghosts. Except Constantine’s not going to make it a fair fight for them.
Soon we find ourselves lost in the crowds milling around the edges of the complex’s ivy-strewn walls, the people browsing solstice gifts and trinkets laid out for sale by small vendors along the gates. None of these little stalls are legal businesses, but the guards don’t seem to care. Now and then, I see a few of them accepting bribes from the stall owners, pocketing handfuls of coins and paper in exchange for looking the other way. Some of them hold up solstice bracelets to the light, admiring the jewelry.
Jeran and I listen for snippets of conversation as we go, graduallyletting ourselves take in the chatter of the soldiers. Most of them seem to be wondering what will happen in the arena.
“Don’t believe for a second that those Marans can make it to the end of tomorrow,” one soldier scoffs to another as we pass them by a side gate of the complex.
“They managed to hold off our troops for long enough at their warfront, didn’t they?” the other replies.
“So? And now they’re here, sport in the stadium.” The first snorts. “You and Taran can place a bet. I’m not wasting my money.”
“Aye, Taran would, if he weren’t sick tonight.”
“Again?”
We pretend to browse the wares nearby as they return to their guard posts. I glance at Jeran, who shakes his head in response. No mention of other prisoners from the train. No mention of the prison district or anything that would hint remotely at where Talin’s mother might be.
“A double shift tonight for you too?” another soldier complains at yet another gate.
Her friend nods. “For most of us. I think the General expects folks to be rowdy after the festivities tonight. He’s pulling some of us off duty in the seventh district.”
The first sighs. “Ah, they always think that. Just let them run loose a bit.”
They both laugh. We move on.
“What’s in the seventh district?” Jeran asks me in a low voice as we go.
“Prisons,” I answer, “and factories. It’s the walled district circling against the inside of the city’s wall.”
