The mayor nods, smiling at the woman’s words before addressing the rest of us. “You heard her. We do what we can control. We will get to Constantine. There is no alternative.”
“You once said you pitied the Premier,” Talin suddenly signs. “Do you still feel that?”
As the mayor listens to Jeran repeat the question in Karenese, everyone quiets. The mayor stares listlessly into space, thinking her answer carefully through. Then she looks back at Talin. “The boy I once pitied isno more,” she says. “We are going to end his regime.” Her lips tighten. “And end him.”
If Constantine dies, the Federation goes with him. There is no one else now. No Caitoman, no heir. Without Constantine, the Federation’s standing on the Tyrus name will end.
“I will get to him,” Talin signs.
Jeran looks sharply at her, then translates her words for all to hear. Talin doesn’t flinch from the attention around her.
“It has always been my fate to face him in the end,” she adds.
“I will go with you,” I say aloud. Talin stares at me, searching my gaze, but I just nod and repeat it. “I will go with you, and we’ll make sure to end this once and for all.”
“Rest first,” Mayor Elland says, and we all quiet, as if she has just reminded us how tired we all are. “The palace is too thick with soldiers right now, and you’ll do no one any good if you’re exhausted. We’ll make our decisions later.”
36
TALIN
We gradually disperse after the mayor’sservants bring us dinner on the courtyard terrace. As evening falls, I rise and pick my way back through the clusters of rebels. The mayor is speaking quietly with several of those leading the other rebels. Her voice remains steady, but I can see how this has all taken a toll on her. She had been the one who’d grieved her servants in the palace atrium, the three lives I’d taken in order to satisfy Constantine. At the memory, I feel the shame and trauma heavy in my own heart. My hands still feel stained with blood. How mustshefeel? How many friends had she lost in the arena’s massacre? All those lives, sacrificed likely because of Raina and Caitoman’s betrayal.
Maybe she grieves for Raina too, will feel a lifetime of guilt for telling Constantine to arrest them. Maybe she and the Chief Architect had been true friends, if opposed in their beliefs.
Nearby, Adena argues with a soldier about what tools she needs by morning in order to make a series of distractions that can help us break into the palace tomorrow. Somehow, even after everything that has happened, she finds a way to dive into productivity. Even though her shoulders are slumped in exhaustion as she reaches her room, she stillpulls two blades from her belt and sets into polishing them in preparation for tomorrow.
“What?” she mumbles when she sees me looking.
I just smile and shake my head. She rolls her eyes, but I can see the hint of a grin at the edges of her lips. It’s the return of our old rhythm, and I find myself leaning into her warmth. I watch her a moment longer, admiring the grace of her hands, before moving on.
Jeran talks in soft voices with Aramin. I notice them sitting across from each other in one of their chambers, their hands close enough to touch, and pause, lingering for a moment to see the look that passes between them. Jeran says something to Aramin, a question. Aramin’s brows lift in surprise, and then he laughs. I do not think I ever remember him laughing. Jeran seems surprised by the sound too, but then he smiles, leaning unconsciously into the figure of his former Firstblade.
I turn away from them and continue down the hall. It takes me a moment to realize that I’m looking for Red. He had left for the inner rooms of the estate earlier, to get his bandages changed, and I hadn’t seen him since.
As I head inside, my mother looks up from where she’s helping another rebel with an injured hand. She shoots me a brief smile, signing to me with her good hand that she’s fine, that I should go look for Red.
A fresh surge of anger comes through me as I glance again at her bandaged hand. Constantine’s cruelty is always intentional and targeted. He knew what damaging my mother’s hands could do to the way we communicated, that it would forever remind me of what had happened to her. I chew my inner cheek as I head inside, trying to ignore the tug of Constantine’s mind forever at the other end of our bond.
Through our link, I sense Red’s heartbeat, steady and reliable as ever. I quiet, listening for it, wondering if he wants to be alone, before I finally notice it becoming more prominent the closer I edge to the window overlooking the estate’s back courtyard. Outside, the tumultuous evening has settled into night, and against the sky, I can still see the faint glow of fires coming from the inner city. In a couple of hours, we will head back out there, ready to commit ourselves to ending the Premier once and for all. But right now, we are here in this strange suspension of time, an odd peace against the chaos beyond.
By the time I make my way out of the house and into the courtyard, a few stars have begun winking into existence. A cool breeze combs through my hair. I close my eyes, letting myself take a long, slow breath for the first time in a long time, and for a moment, I can pretend that I’m back in Mara, crouched outside my mother’s old home in the shanties around Newage, listening for the croaking of frogs and trying to bring one home in a jar.
If I look to the horizon right now, would I see that house silhouetted against the night? Would I see the glow of warm light spilling out onto a dirt path?
I open my eyes. The home behind me is not my home; the steps leading up to the back entrance are unfamiliar, and the flowers in the garden are not the ones that my mother would have spent lazy summer days gathering in a basket.
I stand there for a moment, letting myself feel the loss. Only after a while do I realize that I had closed my eyes and dreamed not of Basea, but of Mara. That somehow, the country of my childhood was not what appeared first in my mind, but the place that I’d defended with my blood and sweat.
There had been a time when I would fall so deeply into the pit of my memories that I never wanted to climb out again. But now I turn away from the house and back toward the rest of the sprawling garden, searching idly for Red. Maybe he doesn’t want to be bothered, and the realization makes me hesitate. I don’t know why I’m out here looking for him. I should be getting a couple hours rest too, before we have to head out into the flames again.
As if he sensed the uncertainty trickling through me, Red’s voice appears in my thoughts.
There’s a hidden grove in the back of the garden, he says.
His voice warms me, and I find it easier to push away the pain of old memories by following him instead. In the darkening night, I head through the winding path carved through the grass until I reach a thicket of trees lining the end of the mayor’s property. The breeze is cooler here, funneled through the tree trunks, and I follow the current of it instinctively until I find myself staring at a pomegranate grove at the end of the thicket. Their bushy branches grow so close and thickly together that they seem to form a wall. Fruit hangs fat and red on their limbs.
Here, Red’s pulse becomes a more pronounced drumbeat in my chest. I crouch, finding a small opening in the grove, and step inside.
