“I don’t know,” I answer. “You heard Morning’s recording.”
“Pretty messed up.”
“More than messed up,” I say. “Babel’s playing God.”
“Playing God? Sounds about right. They have all the power, they do what they want, and they don’t give two shits about us. I’d say Babel’s putting on quite a convincing performance.” He slams his cup down on the table. “I’m going to take a shower.”
Long after he’s gone, I’m still chewing on his words. At least they’re honest.
Still, I don’t believe them, even if I don’t have much of a reason to believe in God. Too many nights without food. Too many times taking Moms to the hospital. I can’t recall extra blessings or catching breaks. There was never enough of anything. I know people had it worse, but I know a lot of people had it better too. Then my big break comes, and what has it gotten me?
Kaya’s dead. Bilal too.
Even if Babel weren’t lying through their teeth, I’d go home with a million dollars and still have a closet full of ghosts. It’s like, no matter which planet I’m on, deity isn’t all that interested in me.
But that can’t be all of it. It just can’t. One thing’s always bothered me. My whole life’s been rough, but somewhere I picked up the idea that it wasn’t supposed to be that way. I don’t know where I learned about justice, when I started thinking I deserved something more. There’s a part of me that knows, beyond the shadow of any doubt, that the world is supposed to be better, more.
And if there isn’t some God out there working behind the curtains, then I don’t think I’d have much reason to hope it will ever change. I can’t make heads or tails of the feeling, but I’m glad that a small part of me hasn’t given up. Kaya would be quick to nurture that part. Bilal would tell me it was always there. I’m glad for any reason to hold on to hope.
“Emmett?” Speaker stands by the entryway. “The Gripping Ceremony will begin soon.”
I nod and follow him down. The whole procession waits outside our barracks. We’re a strange mix. The Imago in their tight tunics and showy jewels, and then all of us rocking the closest thing we have to street clothes. A bunch of plain tees and jeans. It’s been a while since we’ve been outside a Babel uniform, and the effect is freeing. I try to catch Morning’s eye as she walks, but she’s halfway through an animated conversation with Parvin.
Everyone’s excited and talkative, well rested for once. I end up trailing the group, walking in step with Longwei. He doesn’t turn away or march faster. He matches my stride and nods a hello. We arrive at a columned building, and a pair of heavy arched doors is thrown open. The room we enter looks half courtroom, half coliseum. A gray gravel pit surrounded by stadium seating. The Imago lead us down the polished hardwood steps, across the first hardback pew, and into uncomfortable seats.
Our escorts take their own seats in the row behind us. Boots sound, and a company of soldiers files inside, filling row after row. Longwei nudges me, and my eyes are drawn from the forming crowd and back to the gravel pit.
At center, two nyxian boulders have punched up through the dirt, two or three meters high. Neither has been polished or shaped, but it’s impossible not to see the crude outlines of dark thrones. Around each, four hip-high columns have been constructed. They’re equidistant from the dark chairs, connected by dusty black shackles.
My stomach turns uncomfortably as Holly is led out. A whispered word from the guard has her taking a seat on the throne to our left. She doesn’t resist as a pair of Imago patiently attach the shackles to her wrists and ankles.
I swallow again when I spy movement at the back of the room. A prisoner is led forward by more soldiers, followed by General Gavelrond. Our gracious host has donned a golden tunic that shivers with its own light.
The prisoner’s skin has faded to a dead color; his ribs are carcass thin beneath a scarred chest. He stands before us and doesn’t say a word as the soldiers chain him to the stone chair beside Holly. It’s a slow, deliberate process. One chain for each hand. One chain for each foot.
Even before Gavelrond begins the explanation, I know I’m about to see something horrible. On my left, Alex’s hands are trembling. Longwei’s knuckles have gone white as he keeps a death grip on his chair. We can all feel the darkness hovering just out of sight.
Holly sits in perfect stillness. Her eyes are dark pits, her posture straight. She looks a little worn by the constant drive to do the next task, but otherwise she’s healthy.
My eyes flicker back to the Imago prisoner. I realize that whatever is left of this man is about to be taken from him. I don’t know how I know and I don’t care why. I feel like my own hands and feet are chained to the floor. A sideways glance shows that the same horror is snaking its way through the entire group. How do we leave without offending them? Is this really something we want to see?
The chains rattle as Gavelrond steps forward. He stands before us like a lawyer would before a jury. My stomach turns again. Will we decide? Is that why they brought us here?
“You’ve seen our order, our discipline,” Gavelrond says. “Easily one of the most important aspects of any army, any soldier. Aside from personal skill and ability, the only other aspect I teach and instill in every man I’ve trained is a hunger for justice. A desire to see the crooked made straight. The Daughters appointed us to be the upholders of the law in Sevenset.”
The general gestures back to the chained man. If the prisoner recognizes that all eyes have swung to him, he doesn’t show it. Soldiers stand sentry at each of the four columns, their palms pressed to the surfaces as if to keep them from flying away.
I do not want to be here.
A vision of Kaya’s throat, streaked red. Karpinski kneeling before me and the blade at his neck, which looked more alive than he did. Bilal going cold in space.
The room feels alive with dark things.
“This man is guilty of murder,” Gavelrond continues mercilessly. “For that crime, our punishment has always been the same. He must be Gripped to the Eternal Tasks. We pray that the Maker will count his final days as a first penance for committing such an unspeakable sin. We also pray that when he is unmade, the Maker sees fit to re-form him by some better part, some better moment, some stronger passion than that which caused him to take another’s life.
“It is less common, but we also ask that your friend be restored. This trade has been arranged. We will hand over the guilty to restore the innocent. Send one being into shadow to bring another back into the light.”
Gavelrond turns back to the prisoner, and his cloak whips around his shoulders.
“Do you have any last words, Seafind of the Third Ring?”
The name pulls the man’s eyes up. They’re the quietest shade of blue I’ve ever seen. He stares at Gavelrond. I can just barely hear the words he speaks.
“I am more than what you will make of me.”
When Gavelrond doesn’t reply, Seafind retreats into darkness.
“The rod and reproof bring wisdom,” Gavelrond says, and the words echo to me in Defoe’s voice. He was the first one to speak those words to me, to teach me what they mean. The rod answers for past mistakes; the reproof instructs future action.
“Before these witnesses, let the Gripping Ceremony begin.”
Air is sucked out of the room. All four chains lift from the ground on their own, stirring and writhing like serpents. I can’t tell if the guards are manipulating them or something else is, something deep within the nyxia. The prisoner doesn’t react until all four chains go tight. His whole body goes rigid and his eyes widen. Something takes hold of him, and we watch as he tries not to let it destroy him from the inside out. The screams come. Loud and shrill and as horrible as I could ever imagine any sound being. The chains rattle and his body twists inhumanly.
On his right, Holly sits motionless. Her dark eyes do not blink. She’s a statue.
A weight enters the air, a presence I can’t ignore or escape. The force grows and moves and sh
akes the walls, hungry and aware. I almost flinch when Alex takes hold of my hand and grips it hard. I’m left breathless; so are the others.
There’s a moment when Seafind’s screams go silent. His head bows, and there’s a perfect stillness to the room. And then Holly gasps back to life. She takes in ragged breaths and stares down at the chains rattling around her wrists. Her eyes flick up to us. They’re green again, bright and full of the life we thought she had lost. She leans back in the chair, and tears start to fall down her face. It takes her two seconds to start sobbing uncontrollably.
“I want to go home. Please, I want to go home.”
Parvin and Morning are on their feet. Both look desperate to get down to Holly, but the ceremony isn’t complete. One by one, the chains around Seafind release. The guards rush forward, relieved to be unstrapping the chains. We all watch as Seafind lifts his head, and it’s not hard to see he’s no longer Seafind. The blue has left his eyes, replaced by black pits.
“Seafind of the Third Ring has been Gripped to the Eternal Tasks of the Maker. From this day forward, he will know nothing but the justice to which he’s been bound. Go and find someone to serve.”
Gavelrond steps aside as a door beneath us opens. We watch Seafind walk forward, steps steady and determined. He doesn’t look left or right, up or down. He goes, and the silence of the crowd devours me. The only sounds are Holly’s quiet sobs, and retreating footsteps on gravel. We listen until we can’t hear them any longer.
Gavelrond looks up at us, hoping for signs that we’re pleased, but what he finds in our faces has him worried. Morning and Parvin leap the barrier, land hard in the gravel pit. Both of them help Holly out of her chains, sweeping arms around the terrified girl.
The rest of our group looks lost.
Our possible allies have shown a darker side. We wanted Holly back, but we didn’t know it would happen this way. They call this justice, but it’s still a reminder that every blade has a side that’s sharp. We were hoping to wield the Imago like a weapon against Babel. Today is a reminder that we forgot to inspect what kind of weapon we had in hand.
I file it away under D for Double-Edged Sword.
It takes a second, but I’m the first one to rise. Longwei’s face is a nightmare. I’ve never seen so much emotion from him. Alex wipes away tears. I look down the long row of friends and family. I force my voice to be loud enough for all of us.
“Let’s go,” I say. “Come on. Everyone up.”
Morning and Parvin guide Holly out of the pit. One by one, the Genesis crew follows my command. An entire procession of Imago watch us carefully. Speaker stands near the back, looking concerned. Gavelrond’s watching from the arena, speechless.
They realize they’ve made their first miscalculation.
I lead our march through the dark halls.
Outside, the sea smells like it’s dying.
Chapter 29
Strike the Slight
Emmett Atwater
Speaker tries to understand. “I thought you wanted Holly returned to you.”
“We did,” I reply. “We just didn’t know what it would cost. I mean, do you do that to people on the regular? Send them into the same darkness Holly had to live through?”
“Seafind will move through Sevenset in service to all,” Speaker explains. “If someone asks him to perform a repair, he will attempt it. If a soldier asks for his help in lifting supplies into a boat, he will attempt it. The Gripping punishment is reserved for those who will not choose redemption on their own. He will live the better life he refused to choose for himself.”
The entire group stands together in the streets of the Seventh.
“He’s forced into it,” I say. “It’s not real redemption if he can’t choose it.”
That answer frustrates Speaker. “The Gripped are all around us. Less on the Seventh than elsewhere, but they’re a pivotal part of our society. Imagine the cruelest in your world transformed. A man who would have chosen to murder again will help build homes, repair bridges, sweep floors. Even you have been helped by them and did not notice.”
I stare back at him. “Who?”
“Journey,” he says. “The guard who served drinks before we entered Sevenset.”
The thought turns my stomach. There was something strange about him, an absence.
“I thought he felt wrong.”
“Nyxia claims their spirit,” Speaker explains. “Have you not wondered at your ability to form new materials? The speed at which they’re created? It is—at least in part—a credit to those who have been Gripped. Where your hands would fumble, their collective work steadies.”
That realization thunders. All the times we’ve used nyxia. The forces that push and pull. The faces I’ve seen floating in that dark, on the edge of form. They’re all prisoners? Slaves? Speaker sees my mind turning those truths over and is quick to make a correction.
“They’re not alone,” he says. “At the end of a well-lived life, most of our kind will commit their spirit to the substance as well. Remember what I told you? We believe in the collective good above all else. Do you see now? It is not a mark of shame. It is a way forward. When you use the nyxia, you’re interacting with our weak and wounded, but also our proud and precious. To enter those shadow lands is a mercy for men such as Seafind.”
I want to push back, tell him it doesn’t feel fair. But I realize I have no idea how long it took the Imago to decide on this punishment, or how it actually works in their society. After all, how long did it take humanity to understand that executions did nothing? Nothing for the guilty or for the innocent, but we still used those methods for centuries.
And if Speaker really pushed me, would I be able to defend our prison system versus their Grippings? The crowded jails full of boys my age? What makes our way any better?
Gavelrond returns and asks a miracle of us.
After watching Seafind’s punishment, we’re to attend dinner.
It’s life-giving to have Holly back. Parvin walks with her, arm in arm, but all of a sudden the Imago feel like shaky ground. I’m feeling recovered enough to not throw up as we take our seats across from the honored soldiers. A first course of breaded fish steams its way onto the tables.
The soldier across from me is mercifully talkative and excited about everything. His name is Myan. He says he’s young by army standards, only thirty-seven years old. I hide inside questions, asking as many as I can and hoping to speak as little as possible. In my mind, it’s Seafind across from me. The fish tastes like a black hole.
“Our average life span?” Myan muses across the table. “I read a study recently that listed it at two hundred and twenty years. The eldest member of our society at present is two hundred and sixty-four. From what I understand, our race is longer-lived than yours?”
I nod, searching for easy facts to throw back at him, simple thoughts.
“I’m sixteen.”
Just sixteen and a witness for the dead and dying. Just sixteen years old.
Myan smiles curiously. “How strange. I can scarcely remember being so young.”
“No?” I ask quietly, then glance down at my plate. “What’s this again?”
And Myan launches into another lengthy explanation. I nod along. I’m not trying to be rude, but I feel like my shadow’s been ripped away, taken to the same place Seafind was taken. It doesn’t help that Myan’s nyxian implant sits in the pit of his right eye. The whole socket looks pitch-black, an echo of Seafind’s empty irises. I can’t help glancing at it as he explains the fish the chefs have chosen and how it adds necessary proteins to a soldier’s diet.
“An army marches on its stomach, so we treat every food like medicine.”
“Your eye,” I ask suddenly. “Is that an implant?”
Myan stiffens slightly. “It is.”
“Speaker said it’s a reminder …”
“Of our ancestors,” Myan confirms. “We’re all connected through the substance. It’s a reminder of those who came
before us. And it’s a promise to those who will come after. Once, our people thought it protected us from Magness.”
I frown at that. “From the moon?”
“Surely you’ve seen her in the sky? Magness has the red rivers streaking her surface.”
“They look like scars.”
He nods. “Were the moons explained to you?”
I trace back through our first introduction. So much was happening. Isadora had just threatened me. The emissaries came to greet us, and yeah, they corrected Parvin on the names of their world. “Thesis said one was Glacius and one was Magness.”
“Correct,” Myan says. “In the early years of Magness’s reign, fire showers down from the sky. Those red rivers are volcanic. I do not fully understand the science, but when she’s close enough to our world, the material shakes loose? It falls to our world.”
“So … how does a nyxian implant protect you?”
Myan smiles. “It doesn’t. Research disproved that, but you can see the mysticism behind the choice. A piece of nyxia implanted like a charm to protect you from the falling nyxia.”
Realization slams into me. “Nyxia comes from the moon?”
“Of course,” Myan answers. “It has rained down for centuries. The largest meteors strike the planet, tunneling their way into the ground. The substance cools and becomes nyxia. I suppose it’s logical that you don’t know this. Your kind first came here some twenty or thirty years ago, did they not? The last activity from Magness was nearly a decade before.”
I’m still stunned. All this time Babel could have been tapping the actual source of the nyxia. My brain’s scrambling through a million questions, but one realization hits harder than the rest. Speaker gave me the clue days ago. “It’s returning to its natural form.”
Myan lifts an eyebrow. “I am not sure I understand.”
Moving in a circle, in orbit. Before I can explain, Gavelrond stands. The general raises a glass, and all the corner conversations die away. “I’m very pleased to host this group,” Gavelrond says. “It has been nearly twenty-five years since I last met someone from Earth. To see you walking the streets of the Seventh is a wonder. To old ways and to new.”
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