Shatter the Suns

by Caitlin Sangster

  What’s wrong with me? It’s not like I’ve never touched Tai-ge before. It’s just that there was always a wall there, a bright red wall with a general’s title hammered into the bricks. Every time he looked at me, I felt as though our friendship was an impossible conundrum of sunlight shining through broken glass. The light was there, glittering, warm, inviting, but reaching out to touch it would have left both of us with cuts.

  I’d still wanted to.

  I’d wanted to more than I could stand, back when all we did was play practical jokes and illicit games of weiqi. Tai-ge was one of the few people who seemed to remember I was a person, no matter how many times his mother told him I was too damaged to be fixed.

  It was Tai-ge’s name that convinced me to leave the City with Howl, running from the executioner’s ax because it might have sliced through my friend too. I did miss Tai-ge when we were apart, but I don’t miss living under the shadow of Traitor’s Arch, waiting for the day it would take me. I don’t miss anything about the City, and the very idea of going back to the way things were before feels like trying to cram myself into a box that’s too small.

  But that’s not where we’re going. Tai-ge is here now. With me. He chose me.

  He takes his time looking up, and when he meets my eyes, he doesn’t blink. The rebellion of sitting so close to Hong Tai-ge, General Hong’s son, thrills me. Looking back at him straight on, not moving away . . . it’s a challenge to what we were, what the City said could and couldn’t happen between us. The silence in the cockpit is heavy between us, a breath before something happens.

  “Sevvy . . .” He’s leaning toward me now. The air is honey, stuck in my throat, choking me.

  The door to Howl’s prison creaks, as if he’s leaning up against the wood. The sound releases all the air in my lungs in a huff, and I jerk back.

  Before I can say anything, June’s light footsteps ping up the ladder, and her head appears through the hatch. “No one here. Not for a week at least,” she says, glancing from me to Tai-ge, squinting.

  “Good. Thank you for checking, June.” I fill the awkward silence.

  She nods, then walks to her rucksack to pull out her waterskin. I can’t look at Tai-ge as he gathers himself together, letting my eyes fall back to the paper instead. It’s waxy, sticking to my fingers as I smooth it out, the edges protesting after being rolled so tightly. The lines waving over the paper in tight swirls and circles don’t make much sense.

  Tai-ge leans closer to the paper, and the air still feels tight in my lungs, everything stretched until it’s about to snap. I keep my eyes on his fingers as they follow the ebb and flow of the lines. “I think they’re maps.”

  I glance toward Howl’s closet when the door creaks again. “Why would he have brought maps with him?”

  “I don’t know. You said he spent time with the rebels.” Tai-ge pulls up a corner of the heavy paper, examining the lines and numbers splattered across its face. “Could this be some kind of rebel notation of the area?”

  “They all have a City seal on them.” I draw another of the paper tubes out from under the control panel, fingers finding the red wax already pried up.

  June rustles through one of the food bags and then sidles over, a slice of dried pear in her hand. She squints at the wavy lines on the paper spread across the floor. Setting her pear down, she takes the paper in my hands and unwinds it on the floor in front of her.

  “Why do you think they are maps, Tai-ge?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. They sort of look like the encryptions of routes we flew back when I was finishing my pilot training. They kept all the big maps—the complete pictures—locked away in the City. You only saw those if you needed to.” Tai-ge slides over to examine the second paper, similarly covered in dots, lines, and numbers, though the flow is different from the first one we unrolled. “These lines are almost definitely topographical, and maybe the numbers give coordinates? Specific sites? I don’t know.” He looks toward Howl’s room.

  I push off from the desk, moving between Tai-ge and the storage closet. “No.”

  June looks up, startled by my quick movement. Tai-ge’s hands scrub across his mouth, and he goes back to staring down at the nonsensical mess of numbers and lines. “He could tell us, Sevvy.”

  “No.”

  “No?” Tai-ge stands up, facing me, his voice soft. “What’s our plan? To sneak into Dazhai and hope we stumble on something with ‘Port North’ starred in bold and step-by-step directions how to get there? He came straight to us, and I’m almost sure they are maps. . . .”

  “Would you trust a gore if it told you it could lead you across the forest?” I counter. “Or do you really believe it wouldn’t take you straight back to its hutch?”

  “More gores, Sevvy?” Tai-ge’s voice rises a fraction. “We have very important information about countering SS when everyone we know is living in fear under a mask. You won’t go to the Seconds. Now you won’t even look at the information dumped in our lap. Were you hoping we could just keep flying until the sky opens and points out where to land? We need help.” He points to the closed storage closet. “He would have had access to the bigger maps back in the City.” He turns to June, who shrinks back a fraction, even though he isn’t yelling. “How long was Sun Yi-lai in the cargo bay?”

  June’s eyes stay down. “A day.”

  “So he might have even seen maps from the camps after the invasion. . . .”

  “No, he wouldn’t have, because he’s not the Chairman’s son, Tai-ge! What’s it going to take for you to listen to me?” Heat seeps into my cheeks, my voice coming out in a whispered rasp, as if I can keep Howl from hearing what I’m saying.

  But Howl answers me anyway, each word an icy blade down my back. “I brought you the information you need, Sev.”

  Fear trickles down my neck. How did Howl know we were looking for anything?

  “I want to help,” he continues. “Open the door. You know I don’t bite.”

  “Stabbing and shooting are not preferable to biting,” I yell back, pacing the length of the heli. There’s nowhere to go in this tiny space.

  “Last I checked, it was you guys who were trying to shoot me.” Something thuds against his door as if he hit the back of his head against it for emphasis.

  “We should at least see what he has to say.” Tai-ge’s voice is too calm, a mediator trying to soothe me down. “Unless you’d rather radio in and try to get some information from the Seconds. We might be able to do it without giving up who we are—” Tai-ge breaks off as one of the smaller packs of rice hits him in the shoulder. June startles back, looking between me and the bag as if she can’t believe I threw it.

  “Bloody dismembering Sephs, Tai-ge, we cannot talk to the Reds. We can’t listen to anything Howl says. That’s how he got me to . . .” I stutter to a stop, the heli suddenly feeling very, very quiet. Tai-ge stares at me, his mouth open. I don’t think I’ve ever yelled at him before. I’ve definitely never thrown anything at him before.

  I clear my throat. “We don’t know how Howl found us. What if those Reds after us at the Post were because of him? Maybe they weren’t Reds. Menghu can change clothes just as well as you or I can.” I gesture to my threadbare Liberation Army jerkin. Only weeks ago I was wearing Menghu green. “You don’t understand. There are only two reasons he would come after us. . . .”

  A loud thud echoes from Howl’s door, as if he hit it again. “What is wrong with you, Sev? What do you think changed? When did I magically turn into a killer?”

  “You lied about everything!” I scream.

  “You’re the one who just left!” he yells back.

  “I’m not doing this.” I go to the hatch, hardly waiting for it to hiss open before I start down the ladder. “I can’t do this. Good luck to you all; I’m sleeping outside.”

  “With the gores? Come on, Sev. Just sit down, I’ll make you some tea.” Tai-ge almost looks as if he’s about to laugh, half of it reserved for the gores he can’t quite bel
ieve in because he hasn’t seen them with his own eyes. How could he see anything in Howl but what he thinks he knows? Howl looks just like the City’s imperial family, down to the portrait hanging in the City Center. It’s not in Tai-ge to see anything but test tubes, tassels, and a golden soul from someone he thinks is a First. Before he could believe, he’d probably have to see Howl in a tiger-snarled coat, dancing with the other Menghu across the Mountain’s sunken amphitheater floor like a prince from the dead pages of a book.

  That’s what it took for me to truly see it. That Howl wasn’t any of the things he’d told me.

  “I don’t want tea.” I stomp down the ladder, the rungs shaking with each step. “I’m sleeping outside. Better to be with the gores, the ghosts, and the Sephs than in here wondering whether or not Howl is going to slit my throat. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  CHAPTER 9

  MY EYES CRACK OPEN TO the early light of dawn, the icy air cold and clear in my lungs. June’s sleeping bag is tangled behind me, though I don’t remember her coming out to sleep next to me. The girl herself seems to have disappeared.

  It’s the first time I’ve slept all the way through the night since we left the City smoldering.

  There’s already a fire crackling just outside the heli tarp, tangy whiffs of Junis wafting in. June must have slept out here with me, then woken early enough to get breakfast started. Keeping my sleeping bag close around me, I wiggle out from under the tarp, the bitter air biting at the exposed skin on my face and neck. The cold air is a drink of clarity, distilling three things in my brain.

  First, I’m done arguing with Tai-ge about going back to the Reds. If he doesn’t trust me enough to stop pushing in that direction, then maybe it’s better for him to go back himself.

  It’s a stark sort of revelation. The thought of him gone hollows me out, leaving me brittle as fine china. Last night, sitting with him less than a breath away was an experiment I wanted to try, but it’s not one I want to hang my life on. Tai-ge came for me during the invasion. He listened to me, he followed me, but reality isn’t doused with adrenaline and wishful thinking. We’re here in the middle of nowhere, not sure where we are going, and no matter how much I wish both of us could forget the City, I’ll never be able to scrub away the brand melted into my skin. It was a nice story while it lasted, but Tai-ge coming this far with me—away from his parents’ expectations, away from the rules and regulations that have been carved into his bones—is too much of a fairy tale to believe. He’ll probably end up contacting them without asking, assuming it’s a kindness. Intervening because the poor Fourth and the Wood Rat don’t have the capacity to understand what is best for them.

  Even if the thought feels hot and oppressive, I know that it’s right. After so many explanations—graphic ones, in some cases—of what would happen to me and June if we set foot inside a Red perimeter, Tai-ge is still holding the party line. He may have good intentions, but if the path he’s willing to walk to get to our end goal isn’t the same as mine, he’s just as much a danger as Howl is.

  And, regarding Howl, the second thing I’ve realized is that Tai-ge is right about the papers. If they’re maps that might help us, we have to do everything we can to use them.

  Finding Port North and Mother’s papers before Dr. Yang does was already an impossible mission. Dr. Yang knew what Mother was talking about when she told me to go to Port North. He could already be there. . . .

  I clench my eyes shut, my heart sinking. We can’t let Dr. Yang use the cure to control whatever is left of the City. I don’t know why Howl is here, and I don’t intend to listen to anything he has to say—but if he did bring us maps, and those maps give us a fraction of a chance at getting Mother’s papers, we have to take it.

  Howl said he wanted to help. How he knew what kind of help we needed or where to find us is beyond me, but we have to try. If he is here to keep us away from Port North or for some other reason I don’t understand, we’ll be ready.

  And the last of my revelations: I know what Howl is now. He manipulated me before by convincing me we fit together somehow, but that won’t work again. He’s here, he’s alive, he has papers that are supposed to help us, but I’m the one in control. June and I won’t underestimate him no matter how much Tai-ge wants to kowtow.

  It was Howl’s mask that was dangerous, but now that I’ve seen his true face, there’s no way for him to hurt me anymore.

  The air freezes in my lungs. We can do this.

  We’ll find Mother’s papers. We’ll get them before Dr. Yang and . . . what will we do with them? Set up medic stations in Cai Ayi’s trading post and stick infected when they aren’t looking? Will we even understand the notes? Will we get there before Lihua’s Mantis runs out? Before every inch of the City is burned and every person infected during the invasion is dead?

  Breathe, Sevvy. One problem at a time.

  “Sevvy?”

  I jerk up from the ground, the voice shattering my creeping panic. It’s Tai-ge, climbing down the ladder in a puff of frosty air that streams from the heli’s paunch.

  He crouches on the tarp next to me as I rub the sleep from my eyes and sternly instruct my heart to stop racing. But it immediately starts up again when he grabs hold of my shoulders and makes me look at him.

  “What?” I demand. “Did you hear Reds on the radio? Did Howl get out?”

  “I’m sorry.” He doesn’t blink as he speaks, as if he can somehow project whatever it is he’s feeling directly into my brain. “I’ve been so stupid.”

  There are shadows lurking under Tai-ge’s eyes, his face harder than I’ve ever seen it. My friend is slowly turning to stone. “Tai-ge . . . what?”

  “Last night, I couldn’t stop thinking.” He takes a deep breath and holds on to it for a bit longer than is comfortable before letting it out. “Back in the City, I saw the Watch spit in your face, the nuns talk down to you. Heard my own family tell you there would always be something wrong with you. That deep down, you weren’t made right and there was nothing you or any of us could do about it.”

  “If you’re trying to cheer me up somehow . . .” I start to pull away, not wanting to remember any of what he was saying. I was okay back then, able to laugh about silly things people said. But that doesn’t mean I want to hear them directly from Tai-ge’s mouth.

  “No!” His eyes pinch shut as if he can’t even look at me, but his grip on my shoulders tightens. “No, Sevvy. I didn’t realize this was different. I’ve never seen you this upset, even back in the City, where everyone was horrible to you. I didn’t consider what that meant. I’ve been so wrapped up in . . . in the things we’ve lost. My father . . . he was there, and then he was gone. Everything was gone. The City, the people I knew. I kept thinking that if we just went back, things could somehow revert to the way they were supposed to be.” Tai-ge’s eyelashes are dark against his cheeks. “I don’t even know who of the Seconds I know are left, and I’m not . . . I can’t do this.”

  “You want to go back,” I whisper. Thinking about it made my head hurt, but now that he’s sitting here in front of me, it feels as if my heart is going to rip free from my chest.

  “No.” He lets go of me, taking long, measured breaths. Ever in control. “I came out to say that I’m sorry for the way I’ve been acting. And for things with the Chairman’s son. I didn’t listen to you and . . . are you okay?”

  “What do you mean?” I clench my jaw, wondering how long before my newly acquired temper tears free. One more mention of Howl as the Chairman’s son? Two?

  Tai-ge’s hands come down over his face, muffling his words. “I couldn’t sleep last night. You and June were out here, and even though his door was shut, I started worrying that if I closed my eyes I’d wake up with my hands around his throat.”

  “Tai-ge.” I lick my lips, “You’re not making sense.”

  “He hurt you, didn’t he? He did . . . something. To you.” Tai-ge finally looks at me. “I should have been listening. And the way you flinch
ed away from me yesterday, I just realized that you were out here with him for so long, and anything could have happened—”

  “No!” I shrink down in my sleeping bag. “No, it wasn’t like that.” Of all the monsters I met Outside, that is one outline into which Howl does not fit.

  Tai-ge’s iron frame collapses in relief, and he nods slowly. “I was just in there to check on him, and he wouldn’t talk to me. He keeps saying he won’t talk to anyone but you. And the more he says, the more I realized that he’s an entitled, controlling gore hole.”

  I press my lips together to keep from smiling. It isn’t funny, really, but hearing Tai-ge talk so disrespectfully about someone he was scared to touch only a day ago strikes me as an improvement. “You expect less than a gore hole from the Chairman’s own fake family, Tai-ge?”

  “What happened?” he asks, not willing to share the joke. “I still don’t know how it’s possible that he’s not the Chairman’s son. We didn’t run in the same social circles, exactly, but unless he’s somehow very, very good with makeup . . .”

  “A lot happened.” I clasp my hands together for warmth, cold enough two of my fingers have started to go numb. “And I don’t know why he looks so much like the real Chairman’s son. It doesn’t matter, because that’s not who he is. There is one other thing we need to talk about, though.” I press a hand to my cheek, not quite sure how to say it. “You are having a hard time out here.”

  His brows pinch together. “Yes.”

  “I want you to stay with us. But we are not going back to the Reds. You need to decide where you want to be.”

  He blinks once. “I’m here. With you.” His arms wrap around me, the squishy sleeping bag fabric slipping as he pulls me close. “Yuan’s ax, Sevvy. I’m not going anywhere. I spent years taking you for granted in the City. When you left, everything went dark. The whole City was gray and angry, and you weren’t there to make me laugh about it.”

  He smells like sweaty clothes and dirt, but also the comforting scent that’s all his own. Pulling my arms free from the sleeping bag, I hug him back as tight as I can.