Shatter the Suns

by Caitlin Sangster

  A man. He speaks, more of the garbled syllables that don’t make sense. It sounds like a question. A stupid question my brain can’t quite latch on to.

  “Let me out,” I interrupt.

  The eyes narrow for a moment, and a jolt of familiarity buzzes through me, but it’s gone, buried under my anxiety as quickly as it came. There’s a moment of silence before his mouth opens again, this time full of words I understand. “Who are you? They said you have the mark, but you can’t understand me? You can’t be both.”

  Both of what? Gasps rip through me, tears blurring my vision.

  “You really don’t understand?” He cocks his head, the words formed with that same patched-together quality I remember from the erhu player at the Post. “

  I don’t know the right way to answer, my hands and arms ready to start scratching through the heavy roof to my prison, now that I know there’s more than dirt on the other side. “Please.” It comes out in a gasp. “Let me out.”

  “What can you tell me about the helis with soldiers flying to the camp south of here?” he asks. “What are they planning?”

  “We’re not part of the invasion.”

  “An invasion? They’re going to brave the island? That seems uncharacteristically stupid for the Chairman.”

  “I’m here for . . . family. My mother said . . .” I can’t even string the words together, my lungs forcing the little air inside me out as my ribs contract. There’s no family for me here.

  The man is silent for a moment, unblinking stare almost heavier than my lungs, which are almost out of air. “What is it you want, exactly?”

  “I want you to let me out of this box.” I try to hold back the hyperventilating gasps threatening to take hold of my lungs. “I can’t remember anything else.”

  His smile is less than kind, but not malicious. Curious. “All right. You must understand that I personally don’t care for the manner you’ve been kept here, but if I let you out and you try to hurt me, I will not feel bad when the others in this room kill you.”

  I blink, and he takes that as an answer.

  A series of clicks vibrate through the box, and the top of my prison swings up like a lid. My eyes go dark as I sit up too fast, the blood pounding in my head making me feel faint. My body screams at me to get up, to get out of the box, away from even the possibility of being shut in again, but I stare down at my hands, filling my lungs long and slow until my arms stop shaking.

  When I can see properly, I take stock of the room. It’s small, the walls made up from blocks cut from stone with a tiny window near the top admitting dusted streams of sunlight. The floor shines as if polished from having been walked on by generations of feet. As promised, there are two people other than the man who was speaking to me in the room, dressed in the long tunics I remember on the erhu player and his friends at the Post. I don’t see any guns.

  I suppose he didn’t say they would shoot me. Just kill me.

  The man who opened the box steps out from behind the lid, and my breath catches. It is the man I met at the Post, though there’s no erhu strapped to his back now. He walks to sit in front of the two guards, settling himself comfortably on a stool. One guard has her eyes fixed like gems in a setting, unblinking as she stares at me, curly hair pulled into a loose ponytail at the nape of her neck. The other—a man who looks as if he could be from the City—oddly enough, is watching the erhu player.

  “Interesting.” Erhu Player reaches out to touch the edge of my now-open casket, gaze following the deliberately slow rise and fall of my shoulders. “I didn’t expect someone I’d met before. Did you follow me here, somehow? We don’t use aircraft much, and I suppose I don’t know how easily they can be tracked.”

  An aircraft. Does he have one of the ancient helis like the one I saw in the settlement? It doesn’t matter, I suppose. I shake my head. “I didn’t follow you here. Not on purpose. Though if I’d known you belonged to Port North, I would have.”

  “Port North?” He turns the words over in his mouth as if he’s never heard them before. “Very interesting. How did you come by that mark?” He points to my chin, where Mother’s birthmark curls up from under my ear. “I didn’t see it when we met in the mountains or I would have asked you questions rather than play for you.”

  “It’s a birthmark.” I touch it self-consciously. “I need to talk to the family. To . . . I think they’re called Baohujia. They have something for me.”

  “These two are Baohujia.” Erhu Player’s fingers flick toward the guards behind him, though he doesn’t unscrew his gaze from my birthmark. “What is it you want from them?”

  My hands hurt as I unclasp them, clenching and unclenching them in the hopes that the blood will return to my fingers. “Some papers. My mother came here and left some very important documents.” He must know. Even Xuan believed SS had been eradicated from the island. That was one of his reasons for coming. The cure is here.

  I try not to notice the speculative gleam in the erhu player’s eyes as they sink from my birthmark to settle on my wrists. “You’re a Fourth.” His gaze climbs back up to meet mine, mouth quirked in an impassive smile. “What’s your name? I must have heard it back at the Post, but I can’t remember now.”

  My arms prickle with cold, and I fold them tight around me. I don’t want to share my name when I don’t know what or who will be burned as a result. Answering questions with questions isn’t doing much, but I’m not sure how else to survive.

  What would Howl do?

  Howl.

  An ache settles in behind my eyes, stabbing like icy shards of glass. His shoulder bitten through to the bone. Xuan, in the woods, waiting for the supplies I was supposed to give him. June’s pale fear. Tai-ge, the liar . . . I push the thought of him away. “Where are my friends? There was a girl from here and two boys about my age. . . . One was hurt. The other had a Second mark.” I hold up my hand and touch the star melted into my skin. Xuan wasn’t in the heli when . . . whatever it was happened. Maybe he got away.

  “A Second, too? They didn’t tell me that.” Erhu Player shakes his head. “We disabled your aircraft and recovered those of you who seemed most useful. I’m afraid we don’t keep Seconds. Firsts—the one who was hurt?—are good collateral. Thirds and Fourths usually mean us no harm, or are interesting in any case. We’re still not sure how the Outsider girl fits into this. Seconds, though . . . They aren’t valuable enough to your City to recover, and they’re usually too violent and indoctrinated to assimilate.”

  “You’re saying they . . .” I was so angry at Tai-ge, but the thought of him lying still—wounded and left for the gores—shudders through me. “You brought the others here, but not him?”

  The erhu player shifts to one side, readjusting his long tunic. The guard watching from behind hardly blinks as his eyes follow the erhu player’s every move, but his shoulders pull taught. Tension seems to swell in the room, as though something deadly walked in, fangs bared, and somehow I’m the only one who can’t see. But then he sits straight again, folding his arms into his sleeves. The two guards relax.

  “Are you saying . . .” The words break apart as they come out of my mouth, and I swallow, trying to find the air to speak. “Are you saying Tai-ge isn’t here because . . . they killed him? That you kept my other two friends, but Tai-ge’s dead?” The shock of it strikes me through the chest, and I know it’s true without anyone telling me. Of course they would kill any soldiers they could. Reds have been stealing their children for eight years.

  My stomach heaves, but there’s nothing inside to expel, the dry gag leaving nothing but bright spots for me to look at across my vision, tears streaming down my cheeks.

  I was ready to send Tai-ge out with the gores, to never see him again. But Tai-ge was my best friend when no one else could stand the sight of me. He stood up for me when his father yelled. He believed me when I told him there was a cure, and that we could find it together.

  Only, he didn’t.

  But it doesn’
t change the glaring hole in my heart where he used to sit.

  The erhu player sighs, his calm, unblinking stare now holding a trace of pity. “If you are not a part of this proposed invasion, perhaps you’d like to tell me what you are doing here, little sister?” he asks quietly.

  The word rankles, an empty substitute for what I’d hoped to find in this place. “I’m not your little sister.”

  “Apologies. It was meant as a kindness.” He inclines his head. “I would like an answer to that question, though.”

  My face hot and my feet cold and curling up should crush all the despair inside me, but it isn’t working. “My mother told me to come because of SS. She didn’t know about the contagious strain, but . . .”

  The man looks up at that, a reaction so exaggerated in comparison to his slow nods that all of us in the room go still. “Please continue. Contagious SS?”

  I shiver again, rubbing my arms up and down as if that will brush away the needle points pricking out all over my skin. “Yes. One of the Firsts manufactured a new strain that is communicable—”

  “And these papers have something in them that will help.” He pulls a hand from his wide sleeves to rub across his chin, eyes narrowed. “Why would they be here? How can you be marked the way you are, when you are so obviously from the City? Our people do not often meet.”

  “I don’t know.” Uncertainty flickers through me. The man’s agitation over the idea of contagious SS sends drips of fear down my throat. If the cure is here, why would contagion matter? But Mother said to come here. Dr. Yang wouldn’t be expending so many resources to invade if the cure weren’t here. Of course, even if they do have the cure, this place may not be willing to just hand it over. I narrow my eyes, and sit forward, attempting to convince myself I’m the questioner instead of the one awaiting judgment. “Maybe you can tell me. My mother’s name was Jiang Gui-hua. She came here almost nine years ago with research she wanted to hide from . . . a man. Dr. Yang. I’m her only living child, and I’m here to collect it.”

  The curly-haired guard watching me flinches, and her eyes flick to my questioner.

  The erhu player leans back, the only indication he heard a miniscule line between his eyebrows. After a moment, he twists around to speak to the guards, my ears straining over the familiar-sounding words to catch something that makes sense.

  The curly-haired guard shakes her head with an almost abrasive-sounding reply. As the light touches her cheek, my heart jumps. There’s a brown curl of pigmentation creeping out from under her ear. The same side my birthmark is. The same shape. Stark against her pinkish skin, as if somehow we’re connected and I don’t know how.

  I put a hand to my cheek, covering my own mark.

  Erhu Player responds to her terse remark, his speech submersed in fluid vowels and sharp cuts. Finally, the curly-haired guard gives a slow nod, then leads the other toward a metal seam in the wall. She places a hand against the metal, and a door slides sideways into the wall. They step through, and the guard gives me one last hard look before pressing her hand to the outside wall, shutting the door.

  “What . . .” I swallow down my question, switching it for another, my fingers pushing hard into my cheek. “What did you tell them?”

  “That I’ll call for help if I need it. Or that you will.” The erhu player pauses a second as if waiting for confirmation I understand, and I hardly know whether to nod. When I don’t say anything, he shrugs. “The First who we found with you—”

  “Is he all right? He needs help. His shoulder—”

  “He’s being cared for, though I believe our medics’ assessment wasn’t extremely optimistic. With the amassing forces to the south, I wondered if it was him they were after. It isn’t often you find a First traveling with a Fourth and a Wood Rat.” The words come out with a hint of venom new to his speech that takes me aback, a challenge to the slang so strong I can’t make sense of it. “Tell me his name. Fewer lives will be lost if we can make this an easy negotiation with the Chairman.”

  “He’s not really a First.” I shake my head, panic spiking in my belly. Is Howl a potential chip on the negotiating table for this place? “He only has a First mark because he was a spy in the City.”

  “A spy?” The man sits forward. “For who?”

  “Another group. They were fighting the City too—”

  “He’s from the Mountain, then?” The man’s jaw clenches. “Perhaps his death wouldn’t be such a terrible loss after all.”

  My chest sinks at the idea that Howl’s death is already a foregone conclusion, and that instead of taking him off the table, I’ve just taken away any reason the people here had to treat his gore bites. If they even can.

  The man presses his lips together, and just like it did back at the Post, that feeling of familiarity thrums through me again as if I’ve seen him before. Seen him a million times. But can’t quite connect his face to where and how. “You, however, might be useful.” He stands, his back seeming almost unbearably straight as he nods to me. “I’ll ask the Baohujia to bring you food. Water. I’ll be back.”

  “Wait!” My insides seem to melt into one stringy mess at the idea of June boxed in. “What about my friends? The girl from here, June. She didn’t do anything to hurt anyone. And Howl might not be a good negotiating tool, but he . . .” What can I say to argue for Howl?

  How did it come to this? Once again it’s me who is grasping for arguments to support Howl, when it was only a week ago that I was shouting the loudest against him.

  A draft blows across me, and I realize the erhu player is still standing there, staring down at me, his hand frozen against the metal strip, the door hanging open. “What did you say?” he asks.

  I bury my head in my hands, trying to wipe away the raw emotion I know is written across my face. This place is just as bad as the City or the Mountain, and this man, no matter how beautifully he plays the erhu, is going to use the things I want against me.

  I’m not a Menghu. I’m not a First or a Second, trained to keep a straight face. I’m just a person. And I can’t help it. “I just want to know if my friends are all right.” I say it into my hands, the words squished and muffled. “June scares so easy . . . and if Howl isn’t . . . I want to see him.”

  “Howl.” I look up at the strained quality to his voice, choking on my friend’s name. “Sun Howl? A spy from the Mountain.”

  I never knew Howl’s last name. I’d always assumed sharing a last name with the Chairman was part of his charade back in the City. For my benefit, when we went to the Mountain. I stare at him, not sure if nodding will make it worse or better.

  The erhu player blinks, his expression a mask, and I can’t begin to guess what lies underneath. After a moment, he turns away from me and walks out. He doesn’t look back.

  CHAPTER 44

  WHEN THE ERHU PLAYER FINALLY returns, I’m lying with my back against the wall, my eyelids warring between exhaustion and horror, the one forcing them to close, the other jabbing them open every time a dream begins. There are too many shadows in my mind—of Sleep, of Menghu, of Tai-ge’s body rotting next to the mutilated gores by our heli.

  “Oh, good. You’re awake.” Erhu Player runs an appraising eye over me as I scramble to sit up, weighing on the tears in my shirt and the bandage peeking through. “Would you like something to eat?”

  The two guards from before follow close behind him. The girl sets a wooden bowl next to me on the ground, the scent so thick with spices I can hardly tell it’s food, only the grains of rice and what looks like some kind of meat telling me it’s meant to be consumed. The other guard holds out a waterskin to me, then hovers over me after I take it. The waterskin feels leathery against my fingertips, not plastic like the ones I’ve used before, and it’s stitched over with flowers that don’t seem to have any practical purpose. Not to bind the seams, or to designate a unit or an owner. They’re just there, as if it’s supposed to be pretty.

  I run my fingers over the bumpy stitches, the flowe
rs’ yellow middles bright and cheerful. I like it. But once I’ve opened it and wet my lips, the man grabs it from my hands and tucks it back under his arm.

  Erhu Player gestures for the man to give it back, once again using the clipped syllables I can’t quite divine. Even when I listen hard to the two answering him, staring at their mouths as they fold around the familiar sounds, I can’t seem to pick out a single word that belongs to me. The guard shrugs an apology and hands it back gently, as if he’s not sure how to treat me now.

  The mark is still there on the woman’s cheek. And now that I’m looking, I see the same mark on the man’s jaw, though it’s harder to see against his darker coloring. As the two of them talk with the erhu player, my eyes snag over and over on those tiny curls of brown skin. I touch my cheek again, one thing that linked me to Mother for all these years, as if birthmarks were somehow hereditary. I thought it set me apart. In a bad way, for most of my life. But now it seems I was marked as an Outsider long before they burned a traitor’s mark into my hand.

  You can’t be both, the erhu player said. Both from the City and marked. But here I am. Caught between yet another two worlds, and not fitting in either one.

  “You are not going to eat?” I look up to find the erhu player still contemplating me.