Skyhunter

by Marie Lu

  So I return to the apartment without him, the distance between us making our bond fade until we can no longer send our words back and forth. Even though I miss his constant presence at my side, I decide to head out to the baths. The stench of the Ghost’s blood from the Grid’s yard seems to still hover in the air, as if the strands of my hair had absorbed the smell and made it part of me.

  I make my way down the spiral of marble steps that leads to the baths. Newage had been built near a cluster of hot springs; a circle of Early Ones ruins told us that those ancient people had also used this place as a bathhouse. This particular spring is reserved for the Strikers, and whenever I’m exhausted after a particularly hard rotation at the warfront, I’ll come down here amid a sprinkling of other Strikers to wash away the memories of blood and battle.

  The baths are empty today. I’m not surprised. Most of the other Strikers went to the mess hall for lunch. I reach the bottom of the steps and head into the hazy, steam-tinted air. Archways made of creamy marble, restored and polished from the original ruins, are juxtaposed with newer stone pillars, forming paths that lead every which way, each ending in a long, rectangular pool of hot water. Windows cut high into the walls let the late afternoon sun stream in, illuminating patches of the marble floors and pools with golden light. It’s quiet and peaceful down here, so still that I can almost forget about the revelations we’d seen today.

  I remove my long Striker coat and toss it onto the floor near one of the steaming pools, then strip off the bandolier for my daggers, the belt and blades at my hips, my vest, and finally my linen shirt. Finally, I let myself sink into one corner of a pool. The steamy water caresses away some of my ache. I let out a quiet breath, closing my eyes and letting myself luxuriate for a moment in the soothing heat.

  In the darkness, I sense Red’s bond with me tense up, then sharpen and strengthen as if he’s nearing me. My eyes open in time to see his silhouette approach the bottom of the spiral marble steps.

  I stiffen and duck down in the water to my chin. He pauses there at the first archway, blinking in momentary confusion at the sight of the baths, and then turns in my direction.

  The Strikers bathe here? he asks me through our link.

  I nod toward the pools at the far end of the hall. Usually the men go to a different—I start to reply.

  Oh. He hesitates, looking farther down the hall, and starts walking toward the most distant pool. With half of his body in a beam of light and half in the shadows, he looks like a mirage that might melt into the darkness. I listen as his steps lead him away, and for a moment, I feel a strange sense of disappointment.

  He pauses. Did you not want me to? he asks, and I curse his ability to sense my moods.

  I scowl, blushing. No. Keep going.

  He continues on. There’s silence for a while, followed by the faint sound of rippling water as he eases himself into his own steaming pool.

  We can’t see each other from opposite ends of the bathhouse, but he’s close enough to talk through our bond, and that means he’s also near enough to send me glimmers of what he sees. I catch a glimpse of him looking over his bare, scarred shoulder at his wings, unfurled, the black steel blades of those feathers slicing down through the water’s surface. A patch of light from a nearby window halos his body in the afternoon’s glow.

  My cheeks redden. It’s been too long since I’ve been with a man, and I can’t help but linger on the vision of his bare skin dewed with water. I take a deep breath, trying to still my thoughts. Even though I know he can’t actually see me, I stay ducked low so that all he can potentially see through our link is the bobbing surface of the pool. We stay quietly like this for a while, until I gradually start to relax again.

  We can only speak from a certain distance, I tell him.

  Yes, he replies.

  When we’re far enough apart, I can still sense your emotions and see glimpses of your world. Can you do the same for me?

  Yes, he replies again. But it seems the farther we get, the fainter that becomes.

  What happens if we’re miles apart?

  I don’t know. He pauses. The Federation tends to keep their soldiers and captains close to their Ghosts, so there is always someone within several miles of a Ghost.

  What about a Skyhunter?

  I can feel him shaking his head. I’m the first, and I am unfinished. I don’t know.

  I imagine our link fading as we walk away from each other, first the words and communication between us, then our emotions and visions, our dreams, and then, finally, nothing but the beat of our hearts. Somehow, the thought of being completely untethered from Red sends a wave of unease through me. Have I already lost the ability to be alone? Or do I just not want to be away from him?

  If we really can destroy the Federation’s bonds with their Ghosts, he now says, the war will end.

  Not forever.

  No. Not forever. They will try to find a way to repair it. Red grimaces. But they must first protect themselves from their newly freed Ghosts. Sometimes, all you need to fracture a regime is to exploit its moment of weakness.

  There is a growl that rumbles deep in his answer, the sound of all the rage built up inside of him over the years, and I find myself called to it as much as he’s called to mine.

  We each soak in peace for a long while. I think back to the memory of the invasion of Sur Kama, and then to the vision of young Red standing over me, his hand on the trigger of his gun. This time, I don’t tense at the thought—I wait as it drifts through our link to Red, then at his answering emotion of dread.

  You must have sensed this thought from me before, I tell him. Couldn’t you?

  I could feel the sudden hostility from you, he replies. I saw fragments of it in your dreams.

  So he’s been able to glimpse my nightmares as surely as I could see his. It suddenly occurs to me that perhaps he soothes my dreams with his consciousness, just as I do for him. There’s another long silence before he speaks. I didn’t know you were the girl from that night.

  The question I’ve been waiting to ask him finally comes out now. Why didn’t you shoot? You just stood there.

  He doesn’t reply right away. I’d never shot a child before, he finally says.

  Before. That means he must have already been forced to kill adults, perhaps women, mothers, sisters.

  You knew what it would cost you, I continue. And yet you spared my life anyway.

  It wasn’t honor, he answers, and in that answer is a lifetime of bitterness and regret. It was fear. I … just pictured nothing but the carnage in my head, of you as a small girl lying on the ground, your face bloodied. I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

  Do you regret it? I ask him quietly.

  It’s a difficult question for him, and I can feel him struggling against it, his emotions roiling at each possible outcome. He could have put a bullet in my head and spared his father and sister their fates, could have gone home to them instead of to the labs.

  Finally, he says, I always did what the Federation told me to do, because I was afraid of the repercussions. So I killed others in order to protect my family. His words are laced with sorrow. But then you kill again and again, and each time the threat builds, the pressure to keep them safe. They escalate their demands. You first shoot a war criminal in the back. And then they tell you to kill a soldier who is innocent. And then they tell you to kill a civilian, and then a young girl. And you realize that if you keep agreeing, it will keep spiraling down, down, down, until you’ve killed your own soul. He shakes his head. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I don’t know if I regret it. I don’t know. I don’t know.

  To have someone you love held like bait, to forever deprave yourself more and more in the hopes of protecting them until you realize you can’t rescue them. Red had known the fate he would seal for everyone if he let me live, and yet he had stopped anyway.

  When my mother and I first crossed into Mara, I tell him, I felt like I would never survive the horrors I’d witnessed
during our escape. But then the days pass, turn into years, and we are still here. Somehow, you find a way to make it.

  I am still here because of you, he answers.

  It is a fact, a truth, because I had rescued him from his execution. But within his answer is also some other emotion from him, something intimate and secret that turns my cheeks warm again.

  I’m glad you are, I tell him.

  The afternoon sun has begun to fade, dimming the glow that streams into the baths. The air around us takes on the chill of a blue winter evening, made mystical by the haze of steam. The only sound is the lap of water against my skin, subtle ripples hitting the pool’s tiles in rings. I stay still, wishing we were close enough to touch each other, embarrassed that he might sense my thoughts, hoping secretly that he does anyway. The bond between us brightens and brightens until I think I can see it in the darkness, a thread of blinding light, like everything in the world that is good has concentrated right here.

  For a moment, all I want is to stay here forever, hidden away where nothing ever changes. Where there is no Federation. No Mara. No Ghosts or Skyhunters or war machines. Just this, the curious, quiet, intimate companionship between us. The desire for something more.

  It’s evening by the time I finally dry myself from the pool and step back out in my full gear. Red says nothing as I go, but when I exit the bathhouse, I feel something shift in our bond. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is, but as I head to the apartment, I find myself lingering on what has changed between us, and why I find myself trying to picture his face there in the dimness, the air around him still haloed in light.

  20

  Red. Myself. Adena. Jeran. It is a mission that no one wants to be on.

  Red will knowingly let himself be captured by Federation forces, and through our link, we’ll track him back into the heart of the Federation, to the laboratory complex where they’ll take him. He will find a way to open the complex for us from the inside. According to him, each Ghost at the complex has a syringe embedded in its arm at all times, feeding it nutrients and medications that come from a central control room. If Adena can get into that room, she can contaminate their concoction with the serum. What happens after that is an open door. Perhaps the newly freed Ghosts will attack no one at all, be as confused and stripped of bloodlust as the Ghost we tested. Perhaps we’ll find a way to escape, or die fighting our way out of those labs. Or perhaps our tactic won’t work, or we won’t be able to do it effectively enough, and the Ghosts will react in a way that’s entirely unpredictable. Perhaps, in their confusion, they’ll try to attack anyone near them, including Karensan soldiers.

  We have to wait until the Firstblade approves of our plan—but honestly, there’s not much of a decision to make. We can all see that this is our only chance.

  The plan spins endlessly in my mind tonight as the four of us walk past the mess hall, where Strikers currently fill the long tables, eager to celebrate before we rotate out to the warfront again. Jeran and I sign to each other in conversation, but Adena and Red are both quiet and exhausted—Red from being bled as much as he can bear and Adena from making and packaging crates of serum to be shipped to the warfront. Still, the new companionship between the two of them is encouraging. The air carries with it the sharp cold of winter and the scent of hot cider and tea. Outside the mess hall doors, they’ve already started hanging up wreaths of pine and berries for the first day of Midwinter’s two-week-long festivities. The windows are lined with dangling droplets of golden cones and shining metal scraps. They cast a kaleidoscope of light against the cold streets. Even in a grim year like this one, we still try to scrape up some good cheer.

  We continue on past the hall and out through the double walls, until we’re in the Outer City’s paths headed toward my mother’s home. Most other nations celebrate Midwinter too, and along the narrow corridors, bright strips of fabric hang from clothing lines between the stalls, while others burn circles of candles and lanterns outside the doors to their shacks. I can smell the cooking wafting from each tiny home, peppers and spices and sauces foreign to Mara, and the aromas make my stomach rumble. We ignore the stares we get from the vendors, this group of four Strikers out patrolling through the shanties. They duck nervously when I notice them. You’d think they’d know me by now—that my intentions here have nothing to do with them. But for some, our uniforms are enough to keep them hidden. And the way the guards treat them here, who can blame them?

  My mother is already outside when we arrive on her street. She’s pieced together a haphazard set of crates, barrels, and giant metal tins in front of the open door, creating a jigsaw of a table and chairs for us to sit on, and covered the entire spread with an old blanket. On top is what would be considered a feast out here in the shanties—fragrant hand-rolled noodles tossed with herbs from her garden, fried minnow cakes, flat seaflour bread, and tiny squares of a sticky treat sweetened with sugarweed and honey.

  When she sees us coming, she straightens and breaks into a smile.

  “Thank you for dinner, Mother Kanami,” Jeran says to her in excellent Basean, bowing his head. My mother beams at him and pats his cheeks.

  “Prettier every time I see you, Jeran,” she tells him, and he blushes so pink that Adena laughs.

  Adena greets my mother with a bow and a hug, and I embrace my mother tightly. Already, though, I can tell her eyes have fallen on Red. Her smile fades, and her stare turns sharp and piercing. For his sake, I can only hope he left his mouse at home.

  “I know you,” she tells him in Basean. And even though Red can’t technically understand her, the emotion he feels from me through our link tells him what he needs to know. That my mother recognizes him from the night of the invasion.

  He stands stiffly there, not sure what to do.

  Then my mother pulls him forward. She doesn’t try asking him why he did what he did that night, or why he didn’t shoot. Why he fled the Federation. Instead, she reaches up on her toes to give him a hug, and when she does speak again, she says, “You need to eat more, if you plan on being much good out there.”

  Soon, others from the street have gathered in the dead end in front of my mother’s house too. Nana Yagerri brings platters of corncakes soaked in green chili sauce. The Oyanos and their son, Decaine, bring a bowl of ripe persimmons and pomegranates from their two trees. Kattee, who lives with her parents and sister at the intersection between our street and the main stall shops, comes with them, bearing potatoes seasoned with garlic and thyme.

  Others come too, bearing no food at all. They stare uneasily at the Strikers in uniform seated at the table, particularly at Red, whom they seem to recognize as the Skyhunter. But their eyes are hungry, their bodies less fortunate than the rest of us have been in finding food, so my mother calls them over. At first the conversation’s awkward, but soon the chatter turns into loud debates and laughter as bowls and plates are passed around.

  “You’re so quiet,” Adena says as she watches Jeran fill his plate again. She nudges him hard in the shoulder. “Speak up a bit. Everyone here’s going to think you’re a spy.”

  Jeran swallows a piece of flatbread soaked in my mother’s stew and heaves a sigh. “If we might be heading into Federation territory, I’d like to spend my last days in Mara eating as much as I possibly can.”

  Decaine smiles awkwardly at me as I pass a basket of bread to him. “I’m glad you’re here tonight, before you leave,” he says in Basean.

  I can’t help smiling a little. “Me too.”

  “Maybe, when you come back, I could make you a potato roast,” he adds, his ears turning pink.

  Decaine has tried to impress me for years. And even though I have no interest in him, there are times when the idea of being with my own people appeals to me, calls to me until I remember that I’m different enough to be unable to bridge the gap. So I just shrug at him and offer him another smile.

  “That would be really kind of you,” I decide to sign.

  Laughter catches my
attention. I glance to one side to see Kattee smiling at Red, who stares hesitantly back at her before he returns to eating potatoes.

  I feel a strange sense of something unreasonable—annoyance? exasperation?—before I catch myself. Why do I care if she flirts with Red? Wasn’t I sitting here myself, dealing with Decaine’s awkward attempts? Red looks uncomfortable, and through our bond, I can tell that he doesn’t quite understand what to do with the attention. If he had been walled away by the Federation since he was twelve, then it’s likely he’s never known how to recognize flirting or how to return it, let alone been intimate with anyone before.

  I jerk out of my thoughts to see Jeran studying me with curious eyes. Adena looks like she’s about to eat me with the way she’s leaning forward with her chin in her hands.

  “What?” I scowl and shake my head at them, then purposely turn my gaze away.

  “I think it’s sweet, how you look after him,” Adena signs with an innocent shrug, her round eyes never leaving mine.

  I raise an eyebrow at her. “Is it not normal to worry about your Shield before he has to infiltrate the Federation’s lab complex?”

  Jeran nods solemnly. “That’s what I prefer to do before I head out to certain death,” he signs. “Scowl in a chair.”

  I sigh at his teasing and throw my hands up. Beside me, my mother casts glances between me and Red.

  She hasn’t spoken again to me about the mission we’re proposing, or about whether I’m going to go. It doesn’t matter, because we both already know. She has seen the heart of what the Federation can do. She knows the depths of what we’re facing, and why I have no choice but to do this. Even though Adena has suffered the grief of losing family to this war, she’s never been over the border, never seen what it’s really like to be inside the Federation when they’re swarming over you, swallowing your world whole. She and Jeran are children of a free nation. My mother and I know better.