The costume team starts virtual fittings next week. They want me in “combat couture.” I tell them to go spelunk themselves. I send them old vids from the Maze footage—bloodstained armor, torn fabric, dirt under my nails.
“This is what survival looks like,” I tell them. “Not a damn catsuit.”
Mylo calls to “chat.”
“You’re scaring the design team,” he says, halfway between amused and exasperated.
“Good. Maybe they’ll design something real.”
“You know, most actresses don’t push back this hard.”
“I’m not most actresses.”
He chuckles. “You’re really gonna make this thing matter, huh?”
I don’t answer. He doesn’t need me to.
In the quiet that follows, I glance at Pepper’s room. Her door is cracked just enough for me to see the soft blue nightlight shaped like a moon. She’s curled in her blanket, one fist tucked under her cheek, breathing even.
She deserves a better world.
Maybe this stupid film is a step toward it.
Maybe not.
But at least this time, I’ll be the one holding the pen.
CHAPTER 25
GYON
The dawn light comes soft and pearly through the translucent dome wall. I wake before the two suns rise, but I can already feel the warmth creeping in. My body aches again—muscles unused to this kind of work, ribs still stiff from when the Maze collapsed—but I push myself upright. The ground beneath me in the communal sleeping chamber is warm and ribbed with woven reeds. I sit and pull on boots that still carry rust stains, then step outside into the morning air.
A child’s voice calls: “Sir?Gyon!” I turn. A small girl, vine-green tunic and dirt smudged on her knees, holds a bucket the size of her waist. She grins. “I help today.”
“Fine,” I say bluntly. She hitches the bucket over her shoulder and runs off. The sound of her boots on dust echoes. I follow at a slower pace.
The air smells like early rain and growing things. The sun is still low and casts long shadows across the whispergrass fields. The vines behind the domes droop with dew. I set the bucket in a trough and fill it from a tap that drips faintly. The water is cold. My fingers close around the metal rim and the chill sends a shock through my arm.
“Watch your footing,” a voice says behind me. I glance over—Tayani, leaning on her staff. “You’re still stumbling.”
“Fine,” I grunt.
“It’s not war,” she replies. “It’s life.”
I swallow an annoyance. “I’ll live when I’m back in the field.”
She watches me. “Maybe you’ll come back to war. Or maybe you’ll come back to this. You decide.” Then she turns and walks away.
The words sit like gravel in my gut. I don’t answer.
Later I’m hauling sacks of sunrise-grain across the yard. The sacks are heavy—mesh and clay dust coating the handles. My back burns. Each step sinks into soft ground. I curse the softness.
One of the Solari sings a morning song—clear voice, no accompaniment, rising over the field. I stop mid-step, listen. The lyrics drift, speaking of renewal and roots and quiet strength. I want to hate it. I do. But something about the rhythm keeps me still. I cough.
“She sings well,” the boy Aren says beside me, carrying smaller sacks.
“Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” I mutter.
