Skyhunter

by Marie Lu

He regards us curiously.

  The three of us kneel before him in sync. I keep my head lowered so that he can’t keep staring at me, so that I don’t have to reveal my silence. As I stare at the ground, my mind whirls. We’d been so intent on locating Red that I never even noticed him nearby, hadn’t even considered the possibility that the Premier would merely be wandering the grounds of his city. From the corner of my eye, I can see the boots of a small patrol of his bodyguards gathered in an arc around him, along with admiring—and fearful—citizens looking on a distance away. Maybe this bathhouse is a frequent stop for the elite of Cardinia, which means they must live nearby. The luxurious plazas on the other side of the river, near the festivities, must be the official government halls. Perhaps that’s where the Premier’s home is too.

  As this jumble of thoughts rushes through my mind, the Premier shifts and addresses us again. His voice stays calm, but I can hear the sternness in it, the expectation of a proper reply.

  Jeran finally answers in an apologetic tone. I glance up at the young man, only to find his eyes again locked on me. He seems to consider Jeran’s words before he tilts his head and repeats them, his voice hoarse and rasping.

  Jeran looks at me as he tries to keep a calm façade too. “He says he knows you, Talin,” he murmurs at me.

  I keep my face passive, but a cold sweat breaks out on my back. I wonder if he can sense the tension in my muscles. He’s only seen me once before—in that single, brief moment on the battlefield during the Federation’s failed raid, when he’d made his ultimatum and then witnessed Red’s display of power. He’d been watching us from a distance as I tried to calm Red down. And when I’d looked up again, he was gone.

  Does he really remember my face from that small moment, from so far away? But I shouldn’t be surprised. Even now, I can tell that his sharp mind is whirling, trying to place the familiarity of my face.

  I shake my head and look down so that I don’t have to talk.

  The Premier leans to rest his elbows on his knees, then regards me closely. I have no choice but to stay where I am, my eyes lowered.

  When he speaks again, it’s in Basean.

  “You must be in the capital for the national fair,” he says. “I suppose you’re interested in seeing our Ghosts up close.”

  His words have a slight Karenese accent, but otherwise he speaks Basean so well that I glance up at him in surprise. There is something breathtaking about his grace, the straight lines of his neck. Against his robe, his eyes take on a deep gray hue, like a storm reflecting against sunlight. He studies me carefully. I tense, waiting for him to recognize me.

  Then one edge of his lips quirks up at my reaction. “My father always told me that I needed to speak all the languages of the nations I’d someday govern,” he tells me. “Learn your habits and cultures. How can I rule, otherwise?” He looks casually at his bevy of bodyguards, who chuckle in unison in response. “You need to understand your people, what they’re trying to tell you, what they’re saying to one another.” Those piercing eyes return to me. “Isn’t that so?”

  He has trained in every language so that no one can sneak secrets by him in a foreign tongue. I shiver at the serenity in his voice as he tells me this in unspoken words. A part of me wants to test him on this, to sign to him and see if he can respond to that. But letting him know my muteness will only give him one more clue as to who I am. So instead I swallow my defiance and lower my head again, as if I were nothing but a stupid Basean terrified of her new Premier.

  He’s silent over me. Maybe he notices the tension in my muscles and is piecing everything together. If he raises the alarm and calls for his guards to arrest us, we’ll have to try to kill him here. But that will be near impossible. The only weapons I can reach immediately are the knives in my boots, and his guards are so close that I don’t know if I could move quickly enough to end his life before they pounce on us. There might be more guards watching us right now, waiting in the shadows to protect him, ready to fill us with bullets before any of us can make a move. Even if we could—the Premier of the Federation, murdered in broad daylight in the capital? We will die here alongside him, and Red will remain forever trapped in their labs. It won’t stop their war machines or their invasions.

  Then one of his companions speaks up with a terse laugh. I can’t understand him, of course, but I glance up to see that the speaker is a young man dressed in the garb of a Karensan general, standing strong and healthy in contrast to the pale, thin Constantine. He’d been at the warfront siege.

  My tense moment with the Premier breaks. Constantine nods at the man’s words without looking at him. His gaze shifts from me to Adena, and then finally back to Jeran. “You’ve picked up the Karenese tongue quickly for a Basean,” he tells him. “Well done.” He straightens and gives us a nod of dismissal. “The fairgrounds are on the upper side of the city, across the bridge. Enjoy yourselves tomorrow.”

  Then he’s gliding away from us with his guards in tow, falling back into conversation with his general, moving as steadily and gracefully as a Striker through the streets. A cluster of spectators watch him and whisper from a distance. They bow in a wave as he passes. I watch him go, still kneeling, my emotions tumbling from relief to rage. From wherever he is, Red must feel it too, because I sense his alertness heighten, followed by worry in my direction.

  “What did that general say?” Adena whispers to Jeran.

  Jeran’s eyes follow the retreating figures. “That was General Caitoman Tyrus,” he whispers back. “The Premier’s younger brother.” He glances at me in sorrow, his voice hollow. “He told Constantine to stop harassing the survivors from his conquests.”

  His conquest: Basea. A cold rage churns in my stomach. I tell myself to calm down, that we are here to take all of this down from within.

  Adena leans close to me, her head still bowed. “Constantine said the Ghosts will be out for the national fair,” she whispers. “That means they’ll open the lab gates to take them outside.”

  Her words cut through my fog of emotions like a beam of light.

  I look quickly at her. She’s right. The Premier himself had said it, as casually as if it were common knowledge. Whatever this national fair is, it sounds like their Ghosts will emerge for the public to see.

  Which means tomorrow is our chance to get into the Federation’s labs.

  25

  The commotion begins early the next morning, when the sky is still sleet gray.

  Shouts from a guard on the streets stir me out of an uneasy sleep. Then comes the steady pull from Red somewhere in the near distance. I lie still for a moment, trying to remember where we are—wedged underneath an awning in a narrow alley between an apartment complex and a store selling soaps and cigars, where others in the city too poor to rent a room for the night have also camped. There are dozens of others here too, living in makeshift tents or simply sheets propped up with poles. The smell of unwashed winter bodies hangs musty in the air.

  I concentrate for a moment on Red’s emotions. He seems groggy this morning, as if his mind were swimming in a fog. Have they injected him with some sleeping drug?

  Adena groans as she stretches out her back. “I dreamed about my bed back in our Striker quarters,” she complains in a whisper so that others don’t overhear her speaking Maran. “And I never dream about that bed.”

  “At least it was a warm night,” Jeran whispers in return.

  I just shrug. For me, who’s used to life in the Outer City, this almost feels like a slice of home. As I look on from under our awning, a line of these people is already snaking out the alley to crowd outside the factory entrances near the river, where they seem to be hoping for work.

  A low hum of activity buzzes in the streets. Adena scoots over to the edge of the alley to peek out at the bridges. Sure enough, packs of people are already starting to head across toward the colorful tents, their voices alert and excited. Young workers are sprinkling a mixture of flower petals and squares of crinkled, color
ed paper along the road.

  We share some of the last of our cooked yams and flatbread between us for a meager breakfast, and then dust ourselves off as best we can and head out of the alley into the street. As we go, Red’s mind hums through our link, pulsing weaker and then stronger whenever we veer near the river. It’s easy to get lost in the throngs across the bridge, and as the morning wears on, the space only becomes busier. The national fair seems to be held in a circular series of plazas all connected to one another with walking paths, a collection of green open spaces surrounded by Cardinia’s government halls. As we go, we start to pass some of the colorful tents, each growing in size the farther in we get.

  “This is a fair displaying their latest inventions,” Adena murmurs into my ear as we stop before one of the tents. She nods at the display, her eyes bright. “Look.”

  Under this tent, they’re demonstrating the glass bulbs that contain the flameless light we’d seen the day before. A woman cranks a lever connected by wire to one such glass bulb, and as she does, we see the bulb glow bright. People clap as the woman gives them all a brilliant smile.

  At another tent, a man lifts an enormous metal plate imprinted with what looks like thousands of letters against steel, then presses it down against a sheet of paper to produce a large print of the embedded words. He then steps away as the machine works on its own, printing multiple copies of the same print over and over. Over the noise of applause, he hands out some of the printed pages to young children in the crowd.

  Each tent exhibits some unusual invention, each more impressive than the last. Along the walkways, street stalls are already set up at regular intervals, selling fried meats and sweet snacks, fresh fruits and paper bags filled with candied nuts. Other stalls sell fruit too rotten to eat and bread too moldy to keep, little sharpened sticks and pebbles with sharp edges to them. These confuse me for a while before I realize they might be things meant not to be eaten or used, but to be thrown.

  Finally, we enter the main plaza where the largest tents loom. Here we come to a stuttering halt. Towering several stories in the air is a massive structure built almost entirely of steel and glass, with a grand curving roof letting in the light. One look tells me immediately that this was built on top of a ruin. The Early Ones’ influence is everywhere—symbols carved into the stone floor look reminiscent of those on the structures in Mara, and the tall pillars of black steel that circle the edges of the plaza are jagged on top, as if once part of something bigger. But the glass itself reminds me of Larc, one of the nations that the Federation had conquered long ago. They must have swallowed their artisans and engineers as much as they’d swallowed the land.

  Beyond this impressive building, near the end of where these government halls line the city, I see a courtyard surrounded by hedges and walled by a long gate, around which dozens of guards now stand. Red’s presence pulses in my mind. He’s somewhere in that direction, my instincts tell me. Perhaps that is the Federation’s lab complex.

  Now I walk underneath the giant glass entrance with Adena and Jeran, trying hard not to let my temper get the best of me. Hundreds of guards are inside this building, pushing crowds back and forcing clear pathways between exhibitions. There are displays of enormous machines, some with wings, humming with wheels running as if they might take off into the sky. I think instantly of some of the ruins I’d seen before in Mara, the Early Ones’ winged machines, and realize with a lurch that maybe the Federation has begun to figure out some of those ancient inventions and have remade them. Other displays are of new guns that advertise to be faster, more accurate, and more devastating than ever before. There are huge cannons, as well as parts of ships and new styles of experimental armor modeled by soldiers. Children squeal in delight as one of these soldiers pretends to lunge at them, his movements shockingly fast behind plated metal that must be light as air.

  Suddenly, Jeran touches my arm. I look in the direction he’s focused on.

  And there we see the cages that are currently drawing the biggest crowds—along with the creatures contained inside them.

  The first cage holds a Ghost as I know them. It’s lying against the cold, metal floor of its cage, its body cut with lines of shadows. If it stretches out, its hands and feet touch the opposite ends of the space. The cage’s bars are painted gold, and as it stirs, it squints under the sunlight beaming down through the glass atrium. It turns its milky eyes feverishly at the crowds surrounding it, gnashing its teeth, but unlike the Ghosts I know, it doesn’t lurch at the audience. Instead, it’s subdued. I think of what Red had told me about the Federation’s link with its Ghosts, how it can command them into rage or calm, and realize that it’s not attacking anyone in this crowd because it has been told not to.

  Children mew in fright and clutch their parents’ hands. Older boys and girls laugh and point in delight, some of them tossing the rotten fruit I’d seen being sold at stands into the cage. Adults give it looks of awe and fear. I can see their expressions change as its cage rolls by, the way they nod knowingly to one another as if they’re studying a specimen in a zoo.

  Standing on either side of its cage are pairs of guards, hands on their guns as they watch both the creature and the crowd.

  The next cage features a Ghost too, but something about it also seems different from those I’ve fought on the warfront. Its features are less twisted, its limbs less stretched and cracked. Its eyes even seem less milky, and it turns its head from side to side as if it can see us more clearly, stopping to focus on each of us. It still gnashes its teeth against its bloody mouth, but the teeth are shorter too. Even its voice, still gritty and raw, sounds less like a Ghost’s and more like a human’s.

  In horror, I look at the next cage. This Ghost looks even less like a monster, with limbs only stretched a bit long and its stance like one that is used to walking on two legs. It has hair on its head, white strands clinging together in greasy clumps, and its eyes look more bewildered than enraged, with a spark of something left in them.

  One after another, the cages display Ghosts less and less like Ghosts, until finally I see a cage containing a young man, his skin not ash white but warm with pinks and yellows. His arms already have deep, bleeding cracks in them, but they are the length of normal human arms, and his fingers look like my hands instead of clawed fingers that have been broken and regrown. His hair is long and unkempt, shaggy with sweat. He grips the bars of his cage and peers out with such a heartbreaking look of fear that I feel my heart swell in pain.

  They are displaying the progression of a man into a Ghost. Even now, as I look on, I can see each of them transforming gradually, their bodies twisting painfully into what they will ultimately become.

  My arms and legs tingle from the horror of the sight. I think of Corian, how he used to kneel beside the bodies of dying Ghosts and offer them a few final words. May you find rest. And now all I think of as I stare at this nightmare of an exhibit is the sound of those dying Ghosts, the piteous, humanlike cries begging for mercy.

  Beside me, Adena’s eyes are hauntingly dark, and as unsympathetic as she is toward most things related to the Federation, she looks as sickened by this sight as I am.

  Red’s foggy mind still lingers through our link. For a horrible moment, I wonder if they’re going to have him out on display too, their Skyhunter, to be observed like an animal in captivity. But I reach out tentatively through our link, asking him where he is, and when he doesn’t reply, I realize that Red is still too far away for me to hear his voice. He can’t be right here in the glass atrium.

  Two people are standing in front of the row of caged Ghosts. One is a bearded man with a wicked smile so bright that it would seem he’s showing off a gold statue instead of experiments in cages. He now taps on the bars of the nearest cage, making the half-formed Ghost inside jump in startled anger.

  “In the span of fifty years,” he says to the audience in a loud, clear voice, “we have used what you see here to conquer nearly every nation on our continent. By
the end of this winter, we will finally overtake Mara. Then we will stretch from coast to coast, an unbroken land. This is only the beginning of our Infinite Destiny, as ordained by our ancestors.” He stretches his arms wide. “Here before you is a treasure trove of inventions, gifts given to us by the civilizations that came before us. Unlike them, though, we have improved on what they’ve created and learned from their mistakes, so that we will never fall into darkness and obscurity. This is our Premier’s promise to you. There will be no ruins of Karensa!”

  It’s similar to the words I’d heard on the night they attacked our warfront. No ruins. Infinite Destiny. This man speaks it with such reverence that it almost sounds like fear. In the midst of the crowd’s riotous applause, he sweeps his hand up at the balconies overlooking the atrium, and there I see the young Premier standing with his guards, dressed now in a full scarlet outfit and coat, his bald head sporting a heavy band of gold. He waves at the crowd, a proper smile on his face, and the audience cheers him. He must have someone else address the people for him, because his own voice has the rasp of someone deeply ill. I instinctively shrink behind the silhouettes of taller people, hoping he doesn’t spot me in the crowd.

  The second person standing beside the announcer, a long, lean woman with a slight hunch in her shoulders, looks more reserved. She wears a white coat, and her eyes are so deep set that the light beaming down on her swathes her gaze in shadow. Although she doesn’t speak, I sense the tension in her, the tightness of her posture and the stiffness of her muscles, frozen like a rabbit before its predator.

  It’s the woman from Red’s nightmares.

  “And now,” the man continues, offering a formal hand in the woman’s direction, “a demonstration of the Chief Architect’s abilities.”

  She startles a bit at this sudden introduction. Then she steps forward, turns her back to the crowd, and faces the cages. As she does, the crowd instinctively shifts to murmurs, their faces intent on her.