The Speaker

by Traci Chee

  I’m safe, he mouthed. But he couldn’t seem to find his voice.

  When he was calm enough, Kaito helped him to his feet. “I’m sorry, brother. I didn’t know.”

  They embraced swiftly, all arms and chests. “It happens to all of us,” Archer murmured.

  After that, Sefia didn’t watch the fights. It was like Archer and the others were addicted to violence, the thrill of it maybe, no matter how much it hurt them.

  When the skirmishes were over, Archer would come find her, wherever she was, alone with the Book. He’d be scraped and bruised, with skin peeling from his knuckles, and he’d explain how everyone was coming along. He’d tell her how Frey could hold her own against boys twice her size. How if Griegi got a hold on you he wouldn’t let go. How one time Versil wouldn’t stop dancing, laughing, around the ring until he let his guard down and Scarza hit him so hard it knocked his smile askew.

  Archer was happy—happier than she’d seen him since the Current of Faith.

  Sometimes they’d pass the rest of the watch together—Sefia leaning into him while she read, his fingers trailing gently through her hair. Sometimes he didn’t appear until she was walking back in the rain, and he’d catch her and kiss her in the downpour, water coursing down their faces, making their mouths slick and their fingers stray.

  Sometimes his lips tasted of blood.

  Later, when Archer returned to the tent he shared with Kaito and Sefia retreated to hers and Frey’s, Frey would be waiting up for her, whittling wooden utensils for Griegi or sharpening her switchblade, and she’d eagerly demand details.

  “It took almost a year to get Aljan to talk to me,” she said once, flipping her blade from one hand to the other. “It’d better not take that long for him to kiss me.”

  “I waited sixteen years for my first kiss,” Sefia said, settling into her cot.

  Frey twirled her knife in one hand before snapping it closed again. “I waited fourteen.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Render.” The boy who’d given her up to the impressors. The boy she’d killed.

  “Oh.”

  “This was his switchblade,” Frey said. “I took it back from the impressors the night you found us.”

  Sefia turned onto her side, watching the other girl in the darkness. “Do you think he would’ve wanted you to have it?”

  “I hated him, and I loved him, and I killed him.” She slipped the knife beneath her pillow before she crawled under the blanket. “I don’t keep it for him. I keep it for me.”

  Sefia reached over the side of her cot, where the green feather lay with her other personal items. As she caressed the vane, she remembered the night Archer had given it to her. The way its colors flashed. The shapes his fingers made in the starlight. How close they’d been without even touching.

  So much had changed since then.

  Archer still talked to her often about the impressors, the Book, her parents, but he had stopped telling her about the boys he’d killed. He had stopped telling her about his nightmares, if he still had them.

  “It’s done,” he’d say. Or, “It’s over. And there’s so much else to look forward to now.”

  In fact, the more he fought, the less he shared, and the happier he seemed, like fighting was a tide that washed away his past, his grief, his guilt.

  Until the tide came in again.

  As Archer spent more time sparring with the others, Sefia spent more time with the Book. She combed the pages for information about her parents—their lives before the Guard, their inductions, their Apprenticeships. She even watched them fall in love: from their first confrontation in the Library over the skull, through all their clandestine meetings in the greenhouse, to their first kiss under the frosted glass.

  She learned so much about Illumination from reading about them, gleaning tricks for the Sight and Manipulation she never would have discovered on her own.

  Often, while Archer and the others ran drills for the coming battle, she practiced lifting stones, throwing darts, watching decades revolve past her in golden circles while she remained rooted to the spot.

  Lon and Mareah had been so powerful.

  And now, through the Book, they were teaching her to be powerful too.

  The next night, after hours of reading, Sefia hefted the Book in her arms and headed back to her tent. Canvas domes dotted the campsite, leaking light and conversation through the cracks, and she meandered among them, listening idly to discussions to which she didn’t belong.

  Except for the watch, Archer and Kaito were the only ones still up and about, prodding the embers of the dwindling campfire and laughing like little kids as sparks flew into the air.

  As Sefia passed the twins’ tent, she stopped. Through the flaps, she could just make out Frey and Aljan sitting cross-legged on his cot, their knees nearly touching. Across from them was Scarza, practicing sailors’ knots Keon had taught him. He’d never been across the sea, and wanted to be prepared in case they left Deliene. Versil paced between them, up and down the center of the tent with his restless energy.

  “Sounds like a joke, right?” he asked. “How many boys does it take to win an imaginary war?”

  “That’s not a joke,” Frey said, plaiting her hair and pinning it up. “It’s a riddle with no answer.”

  The tall boy drummed a quick ratatat on one of the tent poles. “My money’s on Archer.”

  Outside in the shadows, Sefia went cold. No, it can’t be Archer.

  “What about Kaito?” Scarza tightened a knot with his teeth and lifted it to examine his handiwork. He’d missed a half-hitch, but he must have been satisfied because he allowed himself a shadow of a smile.

  “Kaito, yeah,” Versil said. “But he’s not the chief. He gave that up the night after we caught Obiyagi at the Rock Eater.”

  The rifleman shrugged, the lamplight gleaming on his silver hair. “He kept us alive.”

  “Archer’s keeping us alive now.”

  “It’s not Archer,” Frey said. “The boy dies in the Red War, remember? Sefia would never let that happen.”

  Suddenly the Book felt heavy, as if Sefia were carrying all of Kelanna between her hands, all of destiny, including Archer’s. Not for the first time since the ambush at the Rock Eater, she wondered if she truly was striking back against the Guard, or if she was as much their pawn as one of the impressors.

  Versil’s mood darkened abruptly. He clenched and unclenched his fists, his white palms flashing. “This next crew of impressors, they’re the ones who give their boys a second brand, aren’t they? Here.” He pointed to his narrow chest.

  Boys. They never called themselves candidates, Sefia had noticed, as if by using the term, they’d be giving the impressors power over them.

  “Like everything else they did to us wasn’t enough. Remember the kid of theirs I fought? The kid I . . . he was younger than Mako.”

  Scarza nodded once and began undoing his knot with one hand. “I remember.”

  “He didn’t stand a chance. He was never going to win against guys as big as you or me. They shouldn’t have taken him.”

  “They shouldn’t have taken any of us,” Frey added.

  Without warning, Versil struck one of the tent poles with his fist. The canvas shuddered. Sefia jumped, clutching the Book to her fast-beating heart.

  “Who does this? Who does something like this?” Each time he spoke, the tall boy hit the pole again. The wood splintered. His knuckles bled.

  Sefia shrank back, as if he might see her, who she really was, what her family had done.

  Versil was always the happy-go-lucky twin, always the one making jokes. He never let her see this part of him. He was supposed to have been a Historian, Aljan had told her. Their parents had been so proud when he’d gotten his apprenticeship. But after the impressors, he couldn’t focus, couldn’t get his memory t
o hold on to anything. He’d always be a jester and a storyteller, but he’d never be a Historian now.

  The impressors had changed that.

  Her parents had changed that.

  “Who does this? Who does this?” he demanded. The pole cracked. Tears crept into his voice. “Who’s so sick they—”

  “Brother,” Aljan said quietly.

  Versil whirled on him, the pale patches of skin above his eyes making them appear wider, wilder. “One boy. They wanted one boy. For some stupid war that’ll never even come.” When he laughed, it came out like a sob. He punched the tent pole again. Something cracked, and he reared back, cursing and cradling his bloodied hand.

  Aljan was already there, enfolding his brother in his arms, and for a few moments they stood in the center of the tent, silent except for Versil’s soft crying.

  Guiltily, Sefia crept away. She couldn’t watch them anymore, or listen to their questions when she could have answered them all.

  My father did this.

  My mother did this.

  My family did this.

  The secret sat inside her like a stone, cold and heavy in her gut.

  She knew the frustration, the confusion, the anger, felt them every time she thought of Lon and Mareah, every time Archer avoided her questions with a laugh and a kiss.

  She looked for him now, but he was nowhere to be seen. The embers were cold. The camp was dark and empty. And she’d get no answers from Archer anyway, she knew.

  Alone in her tent, she turned to the Book. The gilt-edged pages flashed in the moonlight.

  She descended through the paragraphs, taking one after another like rungs on a ladder. Goose bumps rose on her arms. A chill trickled between her shoulder blades. When she looked up, she half-expected to see snowflakes come gusting under the tent flaps.

  The Book had taken her back to the winter before her parents found Nin on the plains outside Corabel, before they told her to run.

  THE

  Family

  Lon & Mareah

  —WINTER

  —Gorman?

  —20 years ago

  Mist rose from a stand of black pines along the lake, obscuring and revealing the snow-veined mountains and the early periwinkle sky. Crouched behind a driftwood log stuck fast in the ice, Tanin shivered in her furs. She’d been waiting on the shore since before dawn, watching the trail of smoke coiling from the cabin’s stovepipe, certain this was where she was supposed to be, terrified of knowing for sure.

  A fur-wrapped figure opened the cabin door and stepped out into the trees. She stood in the shadows for a moment, staring intently across the ice, before stalking to the frozen shore. On the sharp bits of shale, she barely made a sound.

  It was her. It had to be her.

  But it wasn’t until the woman knelt, brushing frost from the lining of her hood, that Tanin’s suspicions were confirmed.

  Her brown cheeks were windburned, but there was no mistaking her pointed chin, her dark eyes and whip-like lashes.

  Mareah—the Second Assassin—who’d been like a sister to Tanin ever since she’d been inducted into the Guard.

  She remembered standing in the Great Hall, with its marble columns and stained glass ceiling, impossibly high. She remembered her own voice distorted by the pale stone and curving vaults, echoing the final words of her oath: “For today I am a Guardian, and so shall I be to the end.”

  She remembered her loneliness as Master Dotan led her to the Administrator’s Office deep in the mountain, and the way her tears dampened the pillow.

  And she remembered Mareah’s voice in the darkness, rousing her from sleep: “Don’t be scared.” The light of a match flaring in Mareah’s eyes. The strength in her grip as she took Tanin’s hand and led her up the winding staircases to the greenhouse, where Lon and Rajar were waiting.

  On the edge of the lake, Tanin stood.

  Mareah looked up. Her eyes widened.

  With fear? Tanin wondered. The thought skewered her. She’d never wanted anything from Mareah but affection and pride.

  And now, answers.

  What Lon and Mareah had done to Director Edmon was awful; their theft of the Book, even worse. But deep inside, Tanin still hoped she could return them both to the fold, if only they would tell her why.

  Mareah’s hood fell back, and her black hair streamed around her shoulders, across her face. “You shouldn’t be here,” she said.

  Tanin’s voice wavered in the chill air. “I had to come. You’d have come too, if you were me.”

  How many times had they helped each other? How many times had Mareah tutored her in Manipulation? How many poisons had Tanin brought her from the laboratory, to dip her blades in or tip her darts with? How many wounds had Tanin slathered with ointment or stitched up so expertly they never left a scar?

  “Go home to your Guard,” Mareah said.

  “It was your Guard too, once.”

  “Not anymore.”

  Tanin took an unsteady step forward. “Why? What made you do this?”

  Mareah sighed. A cloud of condensation bloomed from her mouth. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “I would, if you just explained—”

  Before Mareah could answer, Lon emerged from the trees. Even now, his clothing was too big for him, making him seem small, young. But none of them were children anymore.

  “How’d you find us?” He blinked, using the Sight to search the white-capped ridges that surrounded the mountain lake.

  “One of the Fragments in the Library,” Tanin said. Someone had known they’d come here. Someone had copied out the location perfectly, down to every peak and promontory, the hunting cabin, the couple whispering within. “Come back. We can explain to everyone—”

  “We can never go back,” Mareah interrupted.

  “You can. We’re family.”

  Family. That was what they’d called themselves—Lon and Mareah and she and Rajar. The new Guard. The greatest in generations.

  Lon and Mareah exchanged one of their looks, indecipherable to anyone but them.

  “You and I were never family,” Mareah said.

  Moisture gathered at the corners of Tanin’s eyes, freezing in the cold. She knew then that she had not come to take them in. She had not come to punish them for what they’d done to Edmon. She hadn’t even come to retrieve the Book.

  She’d come for their secrets. For their trust . . . and their love. She might even have abandoned the Guard with them, if they’d believed in her.

  But she knew now that they would share nothing. And somehow, that was worse. The not knowing. The questions. The confusion and the doubt and the fear that maybe there was something wrong with her, something defective that she couldn’t see.

  Tanin took another step forward. “What am I supposed to do now?” To her surprise, her voice no longer quivered. “I looked up to you. I loved you. What about me?”

  “What about you?” Mareah’s words burned like ice.

  Tanin felt sick.

  “Mareah!” Lon cried.

  Quickly, the Assassin scanned their surroundings. When she looked back at Tanin, her expression was so full of venom that Tanin staggered back onto the ice.

  “You,” Mareah snapped.

  Tanin glanced over her shoulder. On the far shore, the dark figures of the trackers were racing across the lake. She looked back at Mareah. “What else was I supposed to do?”

  “You led them here.” Raising her hand, Mareah cut the air.

  Tanin scrambled backward. Again and again, she dodged, until at last her feet went out from under her. She landed on her back on the frozen surface of the lake.

  Gunshots echoed off the peaks.

  Lon lifted his hand. The bullets sank into the snow around him, hissing on impact.

  Tanin stood shakily, thoug
h her voice remained steady. “You brought this on yourself.”

  Mareah flung out her hand. Great fissures appeared in the ice, spiderwebbing through the frozen surface.

  Halfway across the lake, the trackers skidded to a stop. Their cries of alarm rose like spurts of flame in the frosty morning.

  And then Tanin was no longer confused or doubtful or afraid. She was hurt, and she was angry. They should have trusted her. “You’ll regret this,” she muttered, “one day.”

  Lon took Mareah’s hand. “Come on,” he said.

  Tanin’s chest burned. Heat flared up her neck, down to her arms and hands and the tips of her fingers. She blinked. The Illuminated world sprang to life behind her eyes, sparking with gold. In an instant, she narrowed in on the whitened logs on the beach, saw their seams, the way they were woven together with brittle threads of light.

  She lifted her hands.

  The logs exploded, sending shards in all directions. Mareah flicked her wrist, deflecting the fragments.

  But she didn’t get all of them. A spear of wood lanced toward Lon. It tore along the side of his face.

  Tanin blinked. Her vision returned to normal. She’d struck Lon. Hurt Lon. Who’d welcomed her and trained her and encouraged her all those years. She regretted it as soon as she saw the blood, red and steaming in the morning air, pouring from his head. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him, not really, had only wanted them to listen. To stay. To let her in.

  But that would never happen now. Some things you couldn’t come back from.

  Mareah palmed the air. Spars of ice jutted up around Tanin. The lake was fracturing, sending up pops and groans.

  On the ice, Tanin swayed. The trackers shouted in fear.

  Mareah spoke. Not loudly, but hard and cold as steel. “If you follow us,” she said, “I’ll kill you.”

  Taking Lon’s hand, she hauled him toward the woods. At the edge of the trees, she raised her hands once more.