The mysterious object looks like a cylinder the size of one of the buttresses enforcing the sides of the National Hall, but judging from the way it makes the pulleys creak and the sheer number of workers struggling to haul it up, it must weigh at least ten times that. Even caked in eons of dirt, I can still see the glint of dull metal through it, catching the weak afternoon light.
Slowly, they manage to lift the object until, with one final, mighty pull, it hangs above the ground. A team scrambles to move it to one side while the pulleys lower it onto a rolling platform.
My brows furrow in concentration. Nothing else I’ve seen in Mara looks anything like this, not even within the Early Ones’ ruins.I stare in wonder, and as I do, I notice the faintest glow coming from it. Maybe it’s my imagination or some remnant of the days I spent feverish in the Laboratory, never sure if what I was seeing in the mirror was me or a hallucination… but something about the objectseemswarm, as if it has an inner life of its own. A chill seeps into my bones as I watch the workers below circle the object, pointing at various parts of it and scrubbing down its sides. The energy source that Constantine claims lies buried underneath Mara. Is this what he’s been searching for?
Its internal light reminds me of the first time I ever saw Red on the battlefield, on that distant night when we faced the Federation at Mara’s old warfront. Red had crouched on the ground beside me and uttered a low growl from the depths of his chest, and when I looked at him, I’d seen his eyes glow with an ethereal blue light. Had known he was something more than human.
Red, I call out to him again through our bond, my permanent reflex, before turning my attention back down.
I have called to him every day since Mara first fell. I go to bed with my mind still yearning for his, my emotions alight with fire and grief and desperation, hoping for an answer that would never come. In all that time, never has he replied.
Until now.
Something familiar tugs at my mind.
It startles me so much that at first I think it’s another trick of my memory, my imagination conjuring things I wish were real. No. It must just be Constantine, ready to call me back to his side.
Then the tug comes again. I turn instinctively in its direction, but it’s too subtle a feeling for me to tell exactly where it’s coming from. Still, its origin is unmistakable.
This pull isn’t coming from the Premier. It comes from my first link, one that can never be severed.
It is the pull of emotion from a person I am all too familiar with.
It is the call of someone I’ve ached for every day.
It is Red.
4
RED
I first sense her when sunset glints throughthe trees over our campsite, right as I head out into the lengthening darkness with Adena and Jeran.
I blink, freezing in place at the feeling.Talin.My heart begins to race, and the other voice in me stirs awake.
Can’t be. You must be dreaming.
For a moment, I think it’s a trick of my mind. I’ve dreamed about her almost every night since we were separated during the invasion. Maybe this is a waking dream, a hallucination of what I wish were true. It is the faintest trickle of an emotion—an absolute, soul-deep sadness, and with it, a searing flame. The fire of anger.
Everything in me yearns for the warmth I’d always felt coming from her.
Is Talin near enough for me to sense more than her heartbeat? Does it mean she’s here, in Newage?
I don’t know what to do with this feeling. I don’t say a word about it. How can I share this with the others when I’m not even sure of it myself? So all I can do is stand here, frozen, my breath caught in my throat as I try desperately to catch a hint of her presence again.
It’s me, I call to her through our bond.It’s Red. Are you there?
There’s nothing but the ever-present pulse of her heartbeat, faint in the background of my mind.
Talin, I call again.
But she doesn’t answer. Of course not. There I go again, wanting the impossible. After a minute, her emotion fades away again, leaving me once more with nothing but the fragile thread of our bond.
Jeran glances back at me as we move quietly through the woods. “All good?” he signs to me.
How can it hurt more, after so many months, to feel a phantom sense of Talin and then have it taken away? How can it be worse than not hearing from her for so long?
I think about telling him this. But then the other voice in my mind turns on me, harsh and biting. It was just a trick of your mind, it says. Just the ache of Talin’s absence.
