Dead Moon Rising

by Caitlin Sangster

  Reifa says something in Port Northian. I squeeze June’s arm, hating that I can’t just understand. I’m determined to start learning Port Northian so I can talk for myself. “She says, ‘He did a lot of bad things.’ ” June’s brow crinkles. “ ‘More bad things than good things. That’s why he’s in a cell instead of free like us. But that doesn’t cancel out the fact that he loves you.’ ”

  Yi-lai walks to the Chairman’s cell door, fiddles with the key for a moment, and then slides it into the slot. I start to turn away, but Yi-lai calls my name, gesturing me to come into the Chairman’s cell.

  The Chairman looks more disheveled than I’ve ever seen him, wearing threadbare clothes and bearing dark circles beneath his eyes. When he sees his son, his eyes light up as if there’s a soul inside him somwhere. I nod to Yi-lai, then go wait outside.

  Inside the cell, June translates for Yi-lai and the Chairman, and I try not to listen. When they come out, Yi-lai has tears on his cheeks, but he doesn’t look back. When I start to follow them, the Chairman’s voice calls out after me. “Jiang Sev? I know you’re still there.”

  Closing my eyes, I debate. He doesn’t deserve my time any more than he deserves Yi-lai’s. And yet, I let his voice, so familiar, pull me back into the cell. When I’m standing in the doorway, he looks me over. “How am I any different from your mother? She gave up everything to save you.” He stares past me, up the hall, to where his son is disappearing, his eyes so tired that his indignant rage looks more like dull anger. Yi-lai’s head bows, uncomfortable. “I did what I had to in order to save my son.”

  “My mother gave up everything she had.” I take a step back, tempering my tone to smile at Yi-lai, like grown-ups pretending they aren’t fighting when a child sits listening. “She gave up her family, her home, her position, her power—everything to save me, you’re right.” I hold his gaze for a moment. “You gave up everyone else.”

  * * *

  June links her arm through mine as we walk back toward our quarters. It feels good to leave the Chairman, General Hong—everything that’s happened—behind me. It isn’t my decision what happens to them. Not my job to go find the doctor’s dead body. And it’s too exhausting to be upset or angry about them anymore. The tyrants who came before us might not change. Probably won’t ever see things from any point of view but their own, convincing themselves that what they were doing was for the good of everyone despite abundant proof that was not the case. But I can walk away and leave it behind. Spite and arguing and spitting in old enemies’ faces doesn’t help me or anyone else, so I choose to think of other things.

  I don’t know if it’s me or June who steers us down the back hallway that goes past Howl’s room. At this point the route has become a habit.

  When we get there, his door is open.

  Surprise and nerves jolt in my stomach, warring with fear. June grips my arm hard, holding me in place as if she’s afraid I’ll bolt. Is someone in there? One of the people Howl worried would find him? Or is he well enough to be up and just hasn’t gotten around to telling me?

  The door swings the rest of the way open even as I watch, and an entire kaleidoscope of butterflies dance in my stomach as Howl steps out the doorway. The arm that was limp in a sling after the gore attack now hangs free by his side, thick red scars peeking out from his T-shirt where claws scored his shoulder. He leans on a crutch, and there’s new-healing skin on his arm where the bullet went in.

  He looks me up and down, swallowing over and over again as if he can’t find the right words to say. When he finally speaks, it’s with his familiar drawl. “Well, you look much healthier than the last time I saw you.”

  June groans and lets go of my arm. She gives Howl a meaningful glare before stalking up the hall and leaving the two of us alone.

  “You seem healthy-ish too.” My mouth dries up for a second as I look him over again, the way he stands curved around the crutch, his arm so red and blotched, much worse than any scars of mine. “How long have you been up?” Uncertainty boils up inside me. I’m suddenly noticing how far away he’s standing, the way he isn’t smiling even a little.

  He shrugs, then flinches, touching the bandaging at his chest.

  Is it because I left him in the southern garrison? Because he got shot and I didn’t help him immediately? Did I do something else wrong to make him not want to see me? Or he could just be tired.… I firmly stop my brain before it goes any further. We’re standing so far apart a passing medic walks right between us, hardly looking up from his clipboard of notes to notice that we’re here. I stare at my toes, fire flooding my cheeks.

  If this is how he wants it, then I’m not going to push him. “I’m going north,” I say, taking a step down the hall after June. Toward our room, away from the awful awkwardness between me and Howl because it’s almost worse than the blank door. Another step, and then another, and somehow Howl is limping along beside me. “I’ve got to get some things ready before we leave.”

  “Wait.” His hand touches my shoulder, pulling me to a stop. My heart starts beating with a terrible goose step of a rhythm. “I… I want to come with you.”

  “You want to come tour the farms? See Port North again?”

  He nods.

  I finally look up and meet his eyes. “I can’t really stop you. I mean, maybe that crutch could. I think I’d like it if you came. Depending on a few things.”

  “Like what?”

  Nervous energy spirals through me as I make myself hold his gaze. But it’s not just nervousness. Some of it is anger. Weeks of staring at that door, watching Sole go in and come out, reports of things he’d said to her, things he’d asked for. But no room for me. Not even to say good-bye, if that’s what he wanted.

  “I want you to tell me what the hell is wrong with you. Why wouldn’t you let me come see you?”

  Howl blinks once, then reaches out to pull one of my hands from my pocket. “Do you remember the story I told you that first night after we left the City? We were up on a ledge, you had dead guy caked on your shoes, and there was a gore trying to eat us.”

  “What does that have to do with—”

  “I remember wondering how you could possibly survive. You seemed too young. Too frail. You were already persuaded you were broken.”

  Tears are burning behind my eyes. Whatever he’s trying to say hurts, and I want it to be over. I want to run. “I remember. Zhinu and Niulang. The first story you ever told me about two people who loved each other ending up on opposite sides of the sky.”

  “Hey. You forgot the birds that let them hang out once a year.”

  My lips press together. I’m not willing to joke.

  His hand on my arm rubs a thumb along the inside of my wrist. “Listen. Back then I was just telling stories so you’d follow me. Turns out it takes more than one lying, idiotic Menghu to break you. It takes more than a whole army. More than two of them.” He laughs. “You found the cure. You tried to save me even when it was impossible. Believed in me when no one else in the entire world did. When I first met you, I thought I was the strong one, the one who had seen the world and knew how to survive in it. But I was just…” He smiles, grimacing at himself. “I’m not what you want. I’m not what you deserve.”

  The anger inside me burns. He’s trying to make this decision for me when it’s mine to decide. “Howl, do you remember the night I told you that you can’t tell me what to do?”

  “Which time?” He’s smiling now, just a little. Bending closer as if there are magnets between us and it’s all he can do to stop himself touching me.

  But why stop? I don’t understand. “If you’re mad at me, fine. If you don’t want to be around me anymore? Great. Maybe you fell madly in love with your pillow and need some more alone time? Go do that. But if you’re trying to tell me to jump again, you’re too late. I already did jump, that day at the Arch. And I jumped with you. You aren’t any of the things you’re pretending to be. A monster? A killer?” I throw my hands up in the air, my w
ords coming faster and faster, anger building up like heat behind my lips. “I know you’ve had to make horrible decisions. We’ve all had to. I shot Dr. Yang, Howl! And I meant to kill him. I’m so sick of you telling me I’m supposed to sit up on my pedestal and keep my hands clean. So stop pretending that you’re the only one who has had to do horrible things to survive and protect those you love.”

  Because I love Howl. The word feels like honey on my tongue, thick and sweet and impossible to say. I don’t know why it’s hard when I’ve said it before. Before, it was a potential good-bye, a last breath. A deathbed confession. But there is no death in this hallway, not that I can see. It’s a start to something rather than an end. A start that I want. But before I can say it, he does.

  “I love you, Sev. And it’s terrifying.” He grits his teeth when he says it, as if he expects me to laugh.

  I close the space between us, threading my hands through his hair and pulling him close to me. “I love you too.” My air seems stuck in my lungs. I’m too scared to speak or think or do anything but stare up at him because I know moving would disturb the cosmic forces that are allowing us to have this moment. “Also, you promised me a treehouse. I take promises very, very seriously.”

  A grin spreads across his face, the grin I didn’t even know how much I’d missed until it’s there and it’s for me.

  And before he gets the chance to kiss me, I kiss him first.

  * * *

  They say war isn’t a dinner party, and I’ve decided I agree. At least, it’s not any dinner party I’d want to have. I’d prefer my parties to leave less scarring.

  It was war that took my family. It was also war that brought me the family I have now. A family made up of the most unlikely bits and pieces. June, Howl, Sole, maybe even Luokai and my aunt back at Port North. Things that have been so empty inside me are now full. The world that seemed so divided by what we look like, the sounds and syllables of our names, or the sizes and shapes of our scars is changing. It’s growing. And even if not everyone agrees yet—some with guns still in their hands—there are voices arguing to make room, and that is the first step.

  War is awful, evil, destructive. But it changed other things that were evil, awful, and destructive too. It gave us a chance at something better. I suppose that’s the way things are. Nothing and no one is all the way good or all the way bad.

  Life isn’t a game of black and white stones. In life, you can only move forward.

  The air nips at my skin as Howl and I walk to the newly cleared section of forest to wait for the heli, but every bite seems toothless, as if it’s too tired to fight any longer. June comes next with Reifa, Xuan, and Yi-lai, the Chairman’s real son and Howl looking at each other curiously as we wait for the whine of propellers to emerge from the frozen blue sky. Howl walks over after a moment, and it’s sort of surreal to see the two of them standing opposite, a hint of the Chairman in both their features even while the man himself is already partially forgotten.

  Sole comes next, Luokai a step behind her. They don’t look at each other, but they’re closer than I’ve seen them up until now. Luokai steps up to Howl, and when the two meet eyes, Howl nods to him. Not a wonderful beginning, but beginnings don’t have to be wonderful. It’s the end that counts.

  When Howl comes back to stand by me, the world seems as if it has gone truly quiet. Not the quiet of danger or of fear. Not the ugly silence of compulsion ready to strike, or the shocked stillness after a gunshot. It’s the hush of calm, of peace, of the future waiting to be stepped into.

  We took up our weapons and fought because the world was in the dead of winter. Now, though, outside in the open air, I swear I can smell a hint of spring.

  PRONUNCIATION GUIDE

  Baohujia

  Bow (rhymes with “cow”) hoo-jeeaha

  Cai Ayi

  Tsie (rhymes with “my”) AH-yee

  Cale

  Cayl (rhymes with pale)

  Bai

  By (rhymes with “my”)

  Dazhai

  Dah Jie (rhymes with “my”)

  Feng Liu

  Fung Leo

  Helix

  Hee-lix

  Hong Tai-ge

  Hong (long o like in “tome”)

  Tie (rhymes with “my”) guh

  Huifen

  Hwey-fun

  Jiang Gui-hua

  Jee-ang GWAY-Hwa

  Jiang Sev

  Jee-ang Sev

  Kasim

  Kah-sim

  Lihua

  Lee-hwa

  Mei

  May

  Menghu

  Mung (rhymes with “rung”) hoo

  Peishan

  Pay-shan

  Song Jie

  Sohng Jee-eh

  Sun Howl

  Soon Howl

  Sun Luokai

  Soon Loo-oh-kie (rhymes with “my”)

  Sun Yi-lai

  Soon Ee-lie (rhymes with “my”)

  Xuan

  Shwen (rhymes with “pen”)

  Yang He-ping

  Yahng (long a as in “fawn”) Huh-ping

  Ze-ming

  Zuh-ming

  More from this Series

  Shatter the Suns

  Last Star Burning

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To all you readers who got lost in Sev’s world, thank you. You are amazing. It still boggles my mind that I get to write stories and people like reading them. Without you, this book would have been an idea that never came to light.

  Writing is the best thing in the world. It is also the worst thing, which is why I’m glad I don’t do it alone. I started Sev’s story as a sort of coping mechanism for being a stay-at-home mom to a little one-year-old. I felt as if I’d lost myself in a wave of baby boogers, spaghetti on the floor, and nonsense words because interacting almost exclusively with a baby makes you forget how to speak like an adult. Writing helped me feel like I wasn’t a nonperson who existed only to serve a miniature overlord. The baby in question is nine now and still attempts overlording when he can, but he’s much better at holding intelligent conversations these days.

  For this last book (and all the others), thanks cannot be adequately expressed for my extraordinary editor, Sarah McCabe. She should add Reader of Too Many Words to her business cards because my initial drafts are always suffocatingly long. Maybe her second title should be Wielder of Common Sense and the Delete Button because she persuades me to scale back and always makes me believe it’s my idea. Sarah, you’ve taught me a lot about getting to the point.

  Thanks to David Field and Isaac Yeram Kim for putting together such a beautiful cover, Jessica Handelman for the gorgeous series design, and Heather Palisi for the jacket design. I write the words, but you all make them look good. I’m so grateful to get to work with the rest of the Simon Pulse team: Mara Anastas, Chriscynethia Floyd, Liesa Abrams, Michael Rosamilia, Katherine Devendorf, Rebecca Vitkus, Sara Berko, Caitlin Sweeny, Alissa Negro, Anna Jarzab, Emily Ritter, Christina Pecorale and the rest of the Simon & Schuster sales team, Michelle Leo and her education and library team, Nicole Russo, and Samantha Benson. You make authoring a delight.

  As always, I can’t say thank you enough to Kristen, Cameron, and Aliah, who waded through my first draft of this book (though I don’t think I ever gave them the end. It turns out okay, guys!). Thanks also go to the Wellies, Rebecca, Hillary, Marcella, and Elizabeth, who are so upbeat and awesome, but still manage to show me where things are wearing thin. I’d probably die without my Utah Valley writing family—I’m so glad to live in a place where there are so many lovely, smart people who know exactly what it means to write a book.

  I’d die even more without my actual family. To my kids, you are so much more fun than anything I could dream up for a book. Thank you infinity to my husband, Allen, who is the enabler to all this madness. Without you, writing would be impossible.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CAITLIN SANGSTER grew up in northern California, moved to Xinji
ang when she was eighteen, and has been fascinated with how much she doesn’t know about the world ever since. She graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in Asian Studies and is the person you avoid at parties because she will probably start talking about Shang dynasty oracle bones. Caitlin lives with her husband and four children in Utah. Visit her at caitlinsangster.com, @caitsangster on Twitter, or facebook.com/caitlinsangsterauthor.

  Visit us at simonandschuster.com/teen

  www.SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Caitlin-Sangster

  Simon Pulse

  Simon & Schuster, New York

  ALSO BY CAITLIN SANGSTER

  Last Star Burning

  Shatter the Suns

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  SIMON PULSE

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  First Simon Pulse hardcover edition November 2019

  Text copyright © 2019 by Caitlin Sangster

  Jacket illustration copyright © 2019 by Isaac Yeram Kim and David Field

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.