Shatter the Suns

by Caitlin Sangster

  Howl blinks, looking away. “Sev, I’m sorry. I know I said . . .” He trails off, then meets my eye again. “I’m sorry.”

  It feels concrete. Real. A new world where I completely misjudged the one constant that’s been in my life for eight years and nearly got all of us killed. And I don’t need to waste any more time muddling through it right now. “I’m fine. I would love to have this conversation some other time. Right now, I’m going to go get the cure and get us out of here.”

  “You’d love to. Great.” Howl raises an eyebrow, and June gives a sort of huff from my lap that almost sounds like a laugh.

  I point to Howl’s pallet. “I can’t do this by myself, and you won’t be much help if you can’t move. Go lie down before whatever they’ve done to make you not-dead wears off.”

  Howl gives me a lopsided smile that doesn’t hide the strain as he shifts toward the pallet. “You were a little sad about me being dead. Even if you do still hate me.”

  “A little.”

  “You hate me a little, or you were sad a little?”

  “Be quiet, Howl.” It almost feels like a bigger admission to brush off the question, as if by refusing to joke with him, I made it into something serious. I ease June off my lap, feeling as he turns toward me, watching me settle June with her head on the pallet. Every movement I make, even when I smooth a snarl of hair back from June’s face, feels exaggerated because know his eyes are tracing every one. She grabs hold of my wrist when I start to get up, the green jade of her eyes cloudy. “It’s okay,” I whisper to her. “I’ll be back soon. You take care of Howl.”

  June tightens her grip on my wrist as if she won’t let go, but then relaxes it, letting her hand fall away. I can’t make myself look back at Howl because he’s still watching me, something stretched tight between us. Of course I don’t hate him. I sat in that storage closet by him and cried when I should have been sneaking onto the island; let Xuan go, hoping he would come back with medicine, although I had no collateral or faith in him. I risked June’s life, Tai-ge’s, and mine, staying in the heli when we knew Port Northians would come after us. All over caring about whether or not Howl stayed alive. I don’t know whether Howl was aware enough to hear those things happening, so it feels like a secret. A secret I’m not quite ready to share.

  “Sev?” Howl’s voice stops me as I stand, so quiet I’m suddenly sure it isn’t a secret at all. “I . . . I’m not sure . . .”

  I turn toward the door, trying to ignore the trails of fire burning through my stomach at the way Howl stutters over the words, willing Luokai to come back now. I take a deep breath, filling my lungs until they’ll take no more, even though it feels like sucking air through a mask, every molecule getting caught on its way down. This is not the time or place to begin a conversation about us.

  I don’t even know what to think myself. I was angry at Howl for real reasons. My eyes crinkle shut, as if I can block out my thoughts, block out the part of me that wants to turn around and kneel at his side even though June is lying right here. To give in to the wanting inside me, curling up like tendrils of smoke in my lungs.

  “Sev? I can’t . . .”

  I turn slowly, caught in amber and stone, willing myself to stop, but I can’t. Howl is still sitting a good two feet away from the pallet, his shoulders stiff and his arm curled tight next to his chest. He isn’t trying to catch my eye, rather contemplating the space just above my left collarbone. A trickle of surprise threads through me when I catch the glimmer of wet at the corners of his eyes. He blinks furiously when a tear spills down his cheek, but doesn’t move to brush it away.

  Which is when I realize what it is he’s struggling to say. It isn’t some declaration of war or peace or love. It isn’t an apology or even another joke.

  Howl can’t pull himself back onto the pallet without help, and he can’t make himself say it out loud.

  June twists to look at Howl when I walk over to him, then gets up from the pallet to help. I slide my arm under his good shoulder, then ease him over the empty space between him and the pallet. June supports his neck as we lower him down onto the bedding, then slides around me to spread the blanket over him.

  “Thank you,” he says quietly, his eyes shut, as if by not looking at us he can somehow pretend it didn’t happen. “I’m officially helpless. Someone give me a medal.”

  A flutter of amusement wings it way through me, a spot of brightness in this dark stone room. “You want a medal from me, it’s going to have my face on it.”

  June leans against me. “Mine, too,” she whispers. “I helped.”

  The spot of brightness widens into a warm glow inside my chest. The world has cracks and holes, but there’s a light here, among the three of us, making it seem a little less cold.

  CHAPTER 49

  WHEN LUOKAI COMES BACK FOR me, he’s alone.

  No Baohujia volunteered to share his air, I suppose, and I find myself feeling similarly, watching Luokai from the corner of my eye as we walk, waiting for the shadows I know are trapped inside him to come fluttering out. He doesn’t seem to notice, though he does point out that we’re walking up stairs once I’ve tripped over the first three, landing in a sort of alcove and grabbing a tiered stone marker set squarely in its middle to keep from falling. It’s sort of like the old buildings from the First Quarter, with tight-lipped smiles for each roof, growing smaller and smaller toward the top.

  “I’d be careful if I were you,” Luokai says calmly, though I can almost see a hint of smile twitching at his cheek. “The Speakers wouldn’t have cared for you trying to hug them. Disrespectful, you know.”

  I push off the pillar of stone, keeping my head down as I try to make up for the distance he walked while I was finding my feet. “What do you mean?”

  “Only the most revered of them got a permanent remembrance, the way they used to do for the monks who lived here.” He nods to the alcoves set into the wall every ten or so steps. “Though the most important ones are outside. One for Gao Lishun, who first thought to use tunnels as vents for air. Zhang Sheyi, who argued to give safe haven to anyone attempting to escape the mainland. Wartime gives great opportunity for great deeds, great arguments. Great mercy. That was before the towers, though, so most of their stones have long fallen.”

  “The towers did something to their statues?”

  Luokai’s brows furrow, but he doesn’t elaborate.

  We move up continually, though we seem to be moving away from the windows, all the stone corridors deserted except for the two of us. Luokai doesn’t look the way I’d expect someone suffering from unmedicated SS would. Parhat, from June’s Seph clan, had been marked all over with scars, his mind so full of SS he was looking out at the world through a diseased well of water, the light refracting in a way that made him jump and squirm. June’s father wasn’t so damaged, though he bore the marks of infection. His tongue had been cut out.

  Luokai looks at peace, gliding along with his hands tucked into the wide yellow sleeves of his tunic. Upright. Unscarred. I can’t even tell how old he is, his hair black, his skin smooth. He couldn’t possibly be more than twelve or thirteen years older than I am.

  “Watch your head, Jiang Sev,” Luokai warns as we turn into another passage, hunching to fit into the low-ceilinged hallway. “I’m sorry I cannot show you more of Port North, but this is the best we can do to keep SS back.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “We’re going to follow one of the vents up to the top of the island where Gao Shun is.”

  A light flashes ahead, Luokai’s outline stark as the first brushstroke on rice paper. There are still tool marks in the stone, the rough texture grating across my fingertips as we pass. The silence feels too close, until I have to crack it open. “Those statues . . . were all Speakers infected with SS from the beginning?”

  “No. This was a monastery’s Before, and so it was they who began as leaders, welcoming those who were infected into their midst. Now it seems difficult to see it any oth
er way. Can you think of a better group of people to dedicate themselves to serving others than those who are infected?” There’s a tic in Luokai’s jaw pushing through the layers of calm. “I cannot safely be alone, so I cannot have a family. I have close friends, I suppose, but it’s difficult to face someone whom you have attempted to kill.” The hallway widens as Luokai speaks, until it empties us out onto a wide concourse, the ceiling a dark wall of rock. The wide area itself is brightly lit with paper lamps that remind me of home. There’s no fire in these lamps, though, their hearts glowing with a yellowish orange light that reminds me of quicklights, only much brighter. “It’s much better than the way they handled things at the Mountain,” Luokai continues, “as if I’d been transformed into something less than human. Here I work with the other Speakers to do what must be done. I’m a useful sort of burden instead of a monster.”

  Luokai leads me past a forest of columns toward what looks like the edge of a cliff, darkness seeming to wait on the other side, barely warmed over by the glow of lanterns below. The railing is framed by an arch cut straight from the stone, a lookout over a much wider cave below. When we get to the railing, I’m surprised to find some kind of glass shimmering between me and the rest of the cave.

  Beyond the glass and the railing, there are steps that lead to what looks like a market nestled into the heart of the rock, lanterns hanging in patterns all across the top. People mill down what look like streets, and there’s a low grumble that seems to vibrate up from the floor. Generators, perhaps. But why have the steps if you’re going to block them off? They lead straight down into the market from where we’re standing, but with the glass barrier, there’s no way to descend to where people are chatting with one another. We’re in a world apart, observing like scientists with screens and statistics, waiting for something to happen. My eyes catch on a young boy as he threads his way through the clumps of people below us with what looks like a mischievous spring to his step. Is this what Luokai does? Watch people?

  I reach out to touch the glass, and it’s rough, as if it was sprayed into place rather than cut to fit the doorway. At the edges, there are beads of glue, shining as though they’re still wet. My eyes eat at the stream of people below as if I’ll be able to catch sight of a familiar earlobe or jawline. My family could be here somewhere.

  And if Gao Shun is family? Will it change how she looks at me? I pull back from the glass, looking around the wide platform for a way out. “Can we keep going? We’ve already used so much time, and the helis are—”

  “Be calm, Jiang Sev.” Luokai takes a deep breath and lets it out, his hand propped up against the glass, and suddenly I’m afraid. “I need a moment to be calm.”

  My throat constricts. I hold myself still as a corpse, as if a sudden movement will bring Luokai’s infection out where I can see it. With no Baohujia and a barrier between me and the rest of these people, if Luokai has a violent compulsion, I’m the only one here to receive it. “You can’t keep compulsions back, can you?”

  “What are compulsions but products of your mind? Your stray thoughts and feelings.” Luokai takes in another deep breath, the air filling him out like the fat belly of a full waterskin before he lets it out. “If I control my thoughts and feelings, then what thoughts will SS have to work with but good ones?”

  “You can control it? Keeping control of your thoughts makes you safe all the time?”

  Luokai finally stands straight, looking me in the eye. “No one has that much control, Jiang Sev.” He turns to face the glass, his eyes catching on the little boy traipsing up the steps toward us. I feel my shoulders tense, waiting for an angry shout, or for the shadows hiding the boy’s face to resolve into sharp hunger lines and a frown. He sprints up toward us and barely stops at the glass, pretending to slam into it.

  It’s the little boy I saw back in the village sitting in the safety of his doorway. Black hair hanging down his forehead and no fear in his eyes.

  He mashes his face into the glass. I startle back, my hands coming up to somehow protect myself, but the boy doesn’t try to get through. He pushes his nose up against the glass until all we can see is a squashed cheek and stretched nostrils, the boy’s face comically askew as his soft giggles filter through the thin barrier. Luokai begins to laugh, the sound almost foreign in my ears, as if this place of darkness and compulsions should be full of nothing but frowns and anger.

  But then I see the smile on the boy’s face. He isn’t compulsing. He’s making faces at us. And when I look over at Luokai for some kind of explanation, he’s making a face back.

  I close my eyes and bite down on my lip. Who have I become? This scared little creature, assuming even one look in my direction means harm? I used to be the one who made faces back. Was Tai-ge right about me? That I’m something new now, something too used to being Outside? Fear of compulsions was something that lived in me long before I set foot outside the walls, but it isn’t something I want to hang on to. Hand against my chest to calm the awful pounding of my heart, I open my eyes again and try a smile.

  The little boy is already skipping back down the stairs. Happy and carefree, even though he’s stuck in the dark. Like little Lihua playing games with us up in the trading post. My heart misses a beat when a woman peels away from her group to grab hold of the little boy’s hand to tow him away down the street, her other hand ruffling through his hair.

  Not like Lihua.

  Free.

  I turn away from the glass to find that Luokai has already begun to walk parallel to the wall with the railing, toward a flight of stairs. “Do you always live down here in the dark? To keep away from the bombs?” I ask, thinking of the Mountain with its recirculated air and artificial lights.

  Luokai shakes his head. “Most of the time we live on the surface. But with helis coming, we want to take precautions.”

  “If they get to the island, you don’t think they’ll worm their way down here?”

  “It’s unlikely they’ll get anywhere near the island.” Luokai glances at me as he walks, “The towers can read the frequency of heli propellers, then feed it back. It shakes them to pieces. Unfortunately, there are other things on the island’s surface that react to the same frequency. Stone. Walls. Glass. It’s dangerous to be out there during an attack. This time we’ve had enough warning to bring anyone who would come in where they’ll be safe. If helis come, we’ll drop them from the sky. If soldiers come on foot, they won’t make it past the doors once we shut them behind us.”

  Luokai continues up the stairs, all openings between us and the people below glassed in like with the balcony below, where the boy was standing. A thin flow of air wafts down from the stairwell, ruffling my hair as we climb, the stairs twisting until the balcony and the market below it are out of sight. “Do you remember the Mountain?” I ask. I want Luokai to fit in a mold I can recognize, which makes me think of someone else just as broken as he should be. The girl who still remembers him. “You knew Howl. What about Sole—”

  “There’s something you ought to know before we talk to Gao Shun.” Luokai cuts me off, looking out through one of the glassed-in openings to below as we pass, the cheery light catching in the hollows of his cheeks. He shakes his hand free of his sleeve, reaching out to touch the rough stone wall. “You’ve probably already thought this through, but let me make it clear.”

  Luokai stops at a set of lanterns hanging on either side of a door that’s empty of glass, rushes of air brushing at the red fabric that forms a door. “Gao Shun isn’t going to go easy on you just because you’re young. She’ll want to know everything. About the invasion, about SS. How much they know about the towers and what’s in the papers you came for. Anything you might know about the City, the soldiers who are waiting to descend on us and their leaders. She’ll want to know why you came here and why she should help you.”

  “As long as she gives me Mother’s papers, I’ll tell her anything she wants.” I shrug. “But if she won’t, I don’t know that I can help. Will tha
t be enough?”

  Luokai pauses, one hand extended to pull the fabric back. “I hope so.”

  “She’s related to me, isn’t she? We’re family. We must be.” I look at him, my heart beating hard.

  Luokai presses his lips together, staring down at my shoes, as if I’ve deduced an answer he doesn’t want to give. But when he looks at me, it’s compassion in his eyes. “Yes. She’s your mother’s sister.”

  My lungs contract, the wafts of air blowing out from inside the room catching at my throat, drying me from the inside out. The walls I’d been taking down, the empty spaces I’d been preparing for this place compressing inside me. I reach for the wall, steadying myself as if I can feel where she is, feel the weight of blood joining us together. In this place where the children have no fear.

  But Luokai’s tight-lipped smile only hints at one emotion, and I don’t like it. It looks like pity. “It will not help you, Jiang Sev. Your mother brought us war, and Gao Shun has never forgiven her.”

  CHAPTER 50

  ON THE OTHER SIDE OF the red curtains, sea air congeals in my nose, the soft breeze turning into a gale that tears at my hair and streaks my cheeks with tears. Luokai leads me around a corner and natural light stabs straight through my eyes, leaving jagged cuts of purple and green across my vision. At the end of the long room, a fan fits perfectly into the tunnel’s mouth, taller than I am and strong enough to be appropriate ventilation for the most toxic of factory floors. The blades whir into a gray haze.

  And, on the other side of the fan, a backlit blur of a woman.

  Shadows crawl down over her face, hiding her features and expression, leaving me with nothing to see but a black-and-white excuse of a person, an impossible blaze of light illuminating the true depth of darkness inside.

  Luokai opens a box sitting at the base of the fan, his tunic and loose pants rippling like water under a storm as he pulls out an odd-looking pair of disks, plated with scratched-up brass. They’re connected with a half-moon of flexible metal, and I try not to flinch back as Luokai fits the two disks over my ears, the bendy metal linking them together resting on the crown of my head.