She was talking in riddles. I clenched my fist against the wall, straining to understand.
“And Nadin,” the voice went on, “this is very important. You must not tell anyone what you’ve heard here. Not the geroi, not even Ceilos. This is crucial, Nadin. The future of Iamos is at stake. If you ever trusted me, yachin, even for a moment… Please, trust me now. I will see you soon.”
I braced myself against the wall. Yachin. It had been her pet name for me as a child. I hadn’t heard that word in a long time, and the sound of it now made my eyes burn, my vision swim. What did all of this mean?
“Nadin, what’s wrong?” Ceilos asked. I hadn’t even heard him and Isaak come out of the bedroom. He came up behind me now, placing his hand on my shoulder. “Are you all right?”
I swallowed down the lump in my throat. “I’m fine. Did you find anything in there?”
“No. It looked much the same in there as—”
“Hang on a minute,” Isaak interrupted. “Do you hear something?”
We stood still, listening. Faintly, in the distance, I heard shouting.
“Outside. In the plaza,” said Ceilos.
The three of us hurried out of Gitrin’s apartment. I cast one last worried look at the engraving on the wall before pulling the glass door shut.
A large crowd had gathered in the plaza. On the steps of the insula, people stood watching the pandemonium in the square before us. I rose up on tiptoe to see over the shoulder of the tall man in front of me. The crowd appeared to be formed around an Enforcer and three plivoi—two women and a man. I realized, with a start, that one of the women and the man were the ball-playing couple from earlier.
“You can’t do this to us!” the woman shouted, her voice breaking. “This is our right. Our right as human beings.”
“It is not your right to violate the edicts of the geroi,” the Enforcer replied in a quieter voice. “These edicts have been chosen to ensure the survival of Iamos. All partnerships must follow the proper protocol and apply for a reproduction permit with the eugenics committee—”
“You think we haven’t done that?” the man broke in. “We’ve been turned down six times already!”
I leaned forward, tapping the man in front of me on the shoulder. “What’s going on?” I whispered.
“They got caught trying to smuggle Ferre into the city.”
I inhaled sharply through my nose. More of the Liberator’s doing.
The unfamiliar woman had stood quietly up to this point, but now she turned to the crowd and shouted, “People of Hope Renewed, do you not see how they strip your rights from you? Leaving the fundamental right to bear children to a faceless committee? Iamos is better than this! We were once a great and free people—”
The crowd around us on the steps began to shift, murmuring uneasily. I shrank back from them into the shadow of the doorway, and felt a steadying hand on my shoulder. I turned, expecting to see Ceilos, but it was Isaak. “What are they talking about? Is everything okay?”
“We should leave,” I said. “Before this gets out of control.”
“That is enough!” the Enforcer bellowed. “If you will not submit—immediately—then I will have no choice but to use force.”
“Come on,” Ceilos said, pushing back into the doorway.
The unfamiliar woman yelled, “We will not submit! There can be no peace without freedom! In the name of the Liberator—” Her voice broke off in a scream, and she crumpled to the ground. Around us, the crowd broke into shouts and movement, some people trying to get away, but most surging forward at the Enforcer.
“What’s happening?” Isaak gasped. I gripped his elbow, trying to pull him back into the apartment after Ceilos, but he resisted me. “What are they doing to her?”
Someone in the crowd called out, “The geroi are the cause of this! The Liberator is Iamos’ true salvation! No peace without freedom! Death to the geroi!”
The man who had been standing in front of us surged forward, yelling, “FREEDOM!” Then his knees buckled and he collapsed, gripping the sides of his head in agony. Around the plaza, plivoi staggered, falling to their knees, crying out in pain, while still others hurried to flee the area. Isaak stood frozen until the force of my fingers digging into the skin of his upper arm made him yelp.
“Now,” I snapped, my heart pounding in my ears. Finally he moved, and we slammed the door to the building behind us. The shadows behind the glass were darker and sharper now, as the occupants stood close to the walls, listening. A face peered out at me from behind one sliding door. Ceilos pulled Isaak and me forward, not saying a word until we had made it through the building’s back door and safely onto another street. In the distance, I could hear wailing and the thundering clatter of feet. A platoon of Enforcers rushed past us, hurrying to finish putting down the riot.
My hands shook as I struggled to catch my breath. That was far too close. This was why I didn’t like to go aboveground. “Death to the geroi,” indeed.
“What the hell just happened?” Isaak snapped. “What did that cop do to all those people?”
“The adherence protocol. The Enforcer enabled it to keep the crowd under control,” said Ceilos.
“The System can do that?”
“Yes.”
Isaak made a face. “Wasn’t that a little bit, I don’t know, overkill?”
“They broke the law,” I said, my voice ragged. “Now they have to pay the consequences.”
“What law?”
“That woman was smuggling Ferre. It’s an illegal drug, it counteracts the mandatory birth control substances in the drinking water.”
Isaak stared at me in horror. “Wait a minute—you guys put birth control in your water? And everybody has to take it?” When I tugged my earlobe, he said, “How do people have kids, then?”
“They apply for a permit, and the eugenics council evaluates them. How fit they are genetically to reproduce, whether there’s a need for children in their caste at said time, and so on.”
Isaak said something I couldn’t understand. He walked a few paces away from us, running his hands through his hair compulsively.
Ceilos folded his arms. “Isaak, you don’t seem to understand how serious this is. Our planet is dying. We can’t sustain extra population. Do you understand what happens when someone has an illegal child? It puts a strain on the resources of everybody else. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices, for the good of the whole.”
“Yeah, but…” He looked back at the insula. The air was still now, the street quiet. The Enforcers must have succeeded in breaking up the riot. “I mean, there’s such a thing as balance—”
“You said it earlier, Isaak,” I interrupted, scowling at him. “Iamos isn’t Mars. So why don’t you just keep your opinions to yourself until we can figure out a way to get you back where you came from?”
He stared at me, his eyes cold. “Fine. You got it, Madam Gerouin. But if we can’t find Gitrin, how exactly are you planning on accomplishing that?”
“I don’t know,” I said, suddenly feeling exhausted. “But for right now? All I really want to do is go home.” I straightened the hood of my cloak and brushed past him.
My old classroom—the side room in the geroi’s villa where I had done all my years of learning—was cold and quiet. The dim glow of the phosphorescent stones cast multicolored shadows across the woven-copper table and chairs, the potted fraouloi, Gitrin’s antique globe. My footsteps echoed across the stone floor.
I didn’t know what I expected to find here. Answers, maybe. Or maybe I just wanted to hear Gitrin’s voice again, if only in my own mind. Everything was such a disaster all of a sudden. Gitrin always used to know what to do. Figuring it out on my own was just too hard.
I paced the room a few times before finally sitting on the floor, my back against the wall, staring at the darkened classroom space. The quiet was a welcome relief after the riot in the plaza. My ears were still ringing from the protesters’ screaming—and Isaak’s incessa
nt questions afterward. I was so tired of having to give him answers when I didn’t know what they were myself. I was just so tired.
Maybe Gitrin had been right. Maybe I wasn’t ready, after all.
I didn’t even realize I’d closed my eyes until I heard the voice.
“Where is Ceilos?”
My head jerked up at the words. I was no longer alone in the room. Gitrin sat in a woven-copper chair in the room’s center. And across the table from her sat another person.
Me.
I gasped, looking down at my hands, only to find I wasn’t really there. The only Nadin in the room was the other me, sitting anxiously on the copper stool, her hands clasped tightly together in her lap. “The evaluation is supposed to be taken as a partnership, isn’t it?” she asked. Her voice—my voice—sounded strange in my ears.
“You cannot rely on Ceilos for everything, Nadin,” Gitrin said, a knowing smile playing at her lips. “The head will never survive if the heart is too weak.”
The other Nadin frowned, her eyebrows scrunched up in confusion, but she tugged her earlobe, and the evaluation began. Questions about Iamos’ history, the procedures of the gerotus, basic political and scientific and mathematical knowledge—all blurred together in my ears and in my memory, the standard evaluation questions I’d been memorizing since birth. I’d answered flawlessly then, as the Nadin in the chair did now. A perfect exam score. No chance of failure. I would be a gerouin by the night of my enilikin.
Then Gitrin hesitated, looking solemnly at the girl who sat before her. “Nadin, what if there was a way to save Iamos?” she asked. “What would you do?”
The other me hesitated, her mouth half-open. “The geroi have initiated the evacuation plan. If all proceeds on schedule, all remaining Iamoi will be safely on Hamos within one year.”
“Not the evacuation. Something else,” Gitrin said. “Something that could return the atmosphere to Iamos. That could prevent the cataclysm.”
I opened my own mouth to respond, but no sound would come. My tongue felt weighted down.
“Surely if there were another way, the geroi would have already tried it,” not-me said.
“But what if the geroi were wrong? What if you knew of a way to save Iamos, but the geroi refused to use it? What would you do then?”
I knew the answer now. I ran over to Gitrin, crouched before her, waved my hands in front of her. The time postern. That was the answer—it had to be. Why hadn’t I realized it before, when it would have mattered? I tried desperately to speak, to get Gitrin’s attention, but she looked right through me.
“There could be no such scenario, Gitrin,” the other Nadin insisted, damning herself with each word. “The geroi’s first priority is the protection of Iamos. If there were a solution, they would not refuse it.”
I knew how this would end. I’d lived it and relived it almost constantly for the past week. Gitrin would look me square in the eyes and tell me, “You’re not ready.”
But the words didn’t come. Instead, Gitrin stopped and looked at me. Not the other Nadin, but me, though I wasn’t really there. When she spoke, something about her voice was not right—it echoed, reverberated, out of sync with the movements of her lips.
“The answer lies in freedom.”
The walls of the classroom began to melt around her, dripping into the dark stalactites of the cave. Hissing voices swirled around me, whispering, “Elytherios, elytherios,” in my ear.
I swallowed hard. My voice came back in a rush. “But what does that mean?” I cried.
“Seek, and you will find,” said Gitrin. “Begin where we began.”
“Elytherios, elytherios.”
The floor beneath my feet began to rumble and shake, cracking apart. “Wait, Gitrin! Please—”
“Find me in the place where freedom lies.”
The cavern walls ripped apart with a deafening crash, an explosion of rock and blazing-red magma. The air around me now was fire, black ash and suffocation. In the distance, I could see three mountain peaks, dripping with molten lava. Balls of flame tumbled from the sky.
“Gitrin!” I called, choking for breath. She was nowhere in sight.
The voices in my ear whisper-shrieked, “Ne’haoi ifaisteioi mesau elytherios.”
My eyes flew open, ears ringing from the sound of my own screams. I was alone again in the classroom. I must have fallen asleep without realizing it. My mouth felt dry, and loose strands of coarse white hair tickled at my face. I brushed them away in annoyance, breathing in deeply and slowly, willing my heart to slow down to its regular pace.
“Nadin?”
I jumped at the voice, but it was only Ceilos. He stood in the open doorway, peering at me across the darkened classroom, the phosphorescent stones casting reflections of purple and blue across his skin. He stepped into the room, pulling the sliding door shut quietly behind him.
“I thought I heard voices in here,” he said. “Are you alone?”
“Yes.” I wiped the crust from my eyes as he came to sit beside me, on my left. “I had a nightmare. What time is it?”
“Well after nightfall,” Ceilos said. “I came looking for you when you didn’t come to the evening meal.”
“I came in here to think. I must have fallen asleep.”
“It’s understandable. You’ve been through a lot. You haven’t stopped going since you left the hospital. Your body is still weak after last night, you know. You should rest more.”
“How am I supposed to rest with everything that’s going on? When Gitrin…” I drew my knees to my chest, not knowing what else to say.
Ceilos put his hand on top of my foot. “Nadin, I know you’re upset about it still, but… do you want to tell me about what happened with Gitrin last week? On the day of the evaluation? You’ve been so tense ever since then.”
I said nothing, just staring at his dark fingers against the silver of my boot.
He sighed. “You and Gitrin were so close. Inseparable. She was my tutor, too, after I moved here, but I never had that bond with her. So when she passed me and failed you…”
He trailed off, watching me expectantly. I squeezed my eyes shut, resting my forehead against my knees. “I don’t know, Ceilos. I don’t know what happened. She said so many strange things, she was acting so bizarre. None of it made any sense.” Unless she meant the time postern. But how could she have known about that, days before Isaak appeared? And then that message she left for me in her apartment. The scene from my nightmare played over again in my mind. The cracking earth, the mountain peaks. The sky engulfed with fire.
Elytherios.
“Did she say anything about the Liberator?” Ceilos asked. His voice sounded strange, and he had an odd look on his face—I’d never seen that look before.
I lifted my shoulders like I’d seen Isaak do. “I don’t know. Everything she said was just off. I don’t even remember half of it now.” I stretched my legs out, leaning my head back against the wall and looking up at the ceiling. “I’m just so tired, Ceilos.”
He frowned. “Nadin, maybe you should take a break. I can watch Isaak tomorrow—”
“No!” I blurted. He stared at me, mouth agape. “That’s my assignment. I have to prove myself to the geroi. For…” I glanced at him, then looked away. “For our future.”
He put his hand on top of mine, his palm over the back of my hand, long fingers threaded through mine. “I’m your partner, Nadin. No matter what Tibros says. You should be able to share some of your burden with me.”
I smiled, but the little niggle of worry from earlier began to gnaw at the back of my mind again. “Ceilos,” I said, “did you see those plivoi in the square earlier?”
“The ones the Enforcers arrested?”
“Yes. Did you see them before that? At the fountain?”
“I saw them when I was making my way over to you. I didn’t pay them much attention.”
I inhaled. “Did you think… what they were doing was… normal?”
C
eilos chuckled. “They are a bit more expressive than patroi,” he said with a grin. “But, you know… most patroi partnerships are arrangements of convenience. Caste, status, genetic traits—those are the things that matter. But I think… I think we’re different, aren’t we?” He shifted onto his knees, scooting in front of me. Slowly, gently, he cupped my cheek in his palm. “You’re not just a business arrangement to me.”
My eyes stung, but I blinked back the tears and tugged my earlobe with my right hand. “I care more about you than anyone else on Iamos,” I told him.
Ceilos smiled, the kind that spread from his lips to his eyes and lit up his whole face. The smile that was only for me. “Then I think this is completely normal.”
I stared at him in confusion, but then the next instant he had pulled my body up against his, softly pressing his mouth against mine just like the plivoi had in the plaza. He ran his fingers through my hair, pulling more strands loose from their messy braid. I didn’t know how to react. I just sat there, limply, while Ceilos’ lips caressed mine. But when he drew my lips apart and slipped his tongue into my mouth, I jerked back.
“Ceilos,” I squeaked.
He didn’t seem to notice my revulsion. His lips slid down the side of my neck, and his hands caressed my back, my thighs. His breath came out as a sigh. “I love you, Nadin,” he whispered, pulling my body closer to his, and I could feel the hardness of him beneath his clothing.
“Ceilos!” I cried again, louder this time.
He pulled away, his eyes unfocused and confused. “What is it?”
“I-I…” I was shaking. I didn’t know what to say. It was like I was asleep again, having some kind of horrible nightmare.
He blinked a few times, his eyes coming back into focus. “What’s wrong? Didn’t you like it?”
Why would I like that?! my mind screamed, but I couldn’t find my voice. I couldn’t bear to see the hurt on Ceilos’ face, couldn’t understand what I had done to cause it.
He pushed away from me, getting to his feet. “I’m sorry, Nadin,” he said, his voice impossibly small. “I thought… I thought you loved me, too.”
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