The Diatous Wars 1: Rebel Wing

by Tracy Banghart

  Aris tried to keep her face blank, tried to be the soldier, but she couldn’t hold back the tears. They ran down her cheeks, stinging in some places, until her whole face was on fire. She wasn’t a soldier anymore. And, with Commander Nyx’s story, it’d be like she never had been. “Does Milek know?” she whispered. Surely he wouldn’t let this happen if he did?

  The Commander didn’t answer.

  Aris could hardly breathe. “Am I—does this mean I’m going to jail?”

  The lines of his face remained unforgiving. “We received authorization to remove your Military brand.” Like a criminal. “For now, you’ll be going home, but if you reveal your involvement in Military or Ward Vadim’s rescue, you will be prosecuted. Do you understand?”

  “But I helped save Ward Vadim.” Aris hadn’t expected to stay Aristos forever, but she didn’t realize she’d just be erased, her actions forgotten. “I was a good flyer. I helped people. Why do I have to lie?”

  “Because there are no women in Military.” For a split second, Commander Nyx’s eyes softened. “And there never will be.”

  Chapter 58

  It was happening again. Aris was in the white room, trapped beneath the sheets, and the blue fire was getting closer. Only this time it was held by one of the blank-faced Safaran soldiers she’d killed. His uniform was burnt away by solagun fire, his skin blackened and rotting. He smiled; he would enjoy exacting his revenge.

  She struggled to get away, but strong hands held her down, shook her, and somewhere she heard a woman scream.

  “Aris, Aris!” a voice from her childhood called to her.

  She fought against the hands, fought against the sheets. The soldier was holding her down, and his eyes were so cold and black and flat they looked like doll’s eyes. Blank and inhuman.

  She screamed again.

  And then she was free, ripped from that barren white room and into her father’s arms. Her face burned, her throat was raw, and all she could do was gasp and cough as he held her, whispering her name over and over in her ear.

  “I’m okay,” she murmured, staring over his shoulder at the half-open shades of her bedroom windows. The milky glow of Lux’s pathways painted the floor with silver. This was her bedroom. She was home.

  Her father didn’t answer her, didn’t let go, and she realized he was crying.

  “Father, I’m fine.” She wiped the tears from his cheek, wishing it were true. “It’s okay. Really.”

  He leaned away from her, squeezing her shoulders once before letting go. There was so much pain in his face, etched in the furrow between his brows, the sagging skin beneath his eyes. It killed her. But he didn’t say anything, just kissed her forehead and left the room, his shoulders hunched and his steps dragging.

  She swallowed; her throat still throbbed.

  She slipped out of bed and pulled on black leggings and a short exercise tunic. The dim light coming through her windows was changing to the grayish gold of dawn.

  After padding to the washroom, she splashed cool water on her face and stared at herself in the mirror, as she did each morning, hoping that by some magic her reflection had changed.

  It never did.

  Aris ran a tentative finger across the angry red rope of scar that began at her temple and slashed across the bridge of her nose to the opposite corner of her lips. There was no way to hide it, to hide from it. It had been weeks, and still the scar burned red.

  Her hair had grown to a sleek dark cap; a little while longer and she’d have curls. She still caught herself running her hand across her head, surprised to feel soft hair, rather than smooth skin or the hitch of stubble.

  She drew the neckline of her tunic up and tried to cover the fading yellow bruises that circled her neck. Zaro said her voice would never sound exactly as it had . . . the man had done lasting damage to her vocal chords when he’d tried to rip her throat out. Some days Aris pulled down the corner of her tunic to stare at the small red scar on her shoulder, where the solagun blast had burned clean through, but today she didn’t. It was just another reminder.

  The only way she’d survive was to try to forget.

  She turned away from the mirror and walked through the house, her feet quiet against the tile. The door to her parents’ bedroom was shut; her father had probably gone back to bed. She slipped from the house without a sound.

  It didn’t take her long to descend the steep path to the beach. By the time the sun had risen above the village, she had run for miles, her bare feet sinking rhythmically into the sand. Already, the air that streamed against her face was warm and moist with humidity.

  She knew her father didn’t mean to look at her the way he did, like she had died and was her own ghost, haunting him. But that didn’t make it easier to bear.

  When she had arrived at her parents’ door, Commander Nyx made Gus and Krissa sign confidentiality agreements like the one she had signed. But he’d let her tell them the truth, or most of it anyway, that she’d been part of a search and rescue unit, disguised as Aristos. She wasn’t allowed to mention the Ward of Ruslana.

  Her father had been so angry. “You mother and I thought you’d disowned us, that we’d never see you again. But this is so much worse. How could you do such a thing?”

  And she had tried to explain. “I wanted to be with Calix,” she’d said, her voice still a hoarse whisper. “And then . . . that didn’t even matter anymore. I was happy as a flyer,Father. It fit. Like it was what I was supposed to do.”

  But everything she said just made his face go redder. “You could have been killed, and for what? A stupid crush? Some misplaced act of rebellion?”

  “It wasn’t about rebelling!” she responded, her own face heating up. “It was about doing the right thing. I saved lives, don’t you get that? What I did was important.”

  “You think fighting in this war is important? Even the Ward of Ruslana is urging us to work with Safara. If we’d just give them what they want—”

  Aris slammed a hand on the counter, rattling dishes and making her mother gasp. Her voice low, dangerous, she growled, “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You have no idea what Safara is capable of, how close they are to destroying this dominion. Stop talking about things you don’t understand!”

  Her father’s jaw had dropped.

  She had stomped away, slammed her bedroom door . . . and felt the thick swell of shame threaten to drown her. She’d never spoken to him that way before. She’d never been a violent person, never wanted to punch walls or slam doors. But she’d been Aristos for too long.

  Aristos wanted to tell Gus the whole truth, that he wasn’t just a flyer, but the flyer who’d helped save Ward Vadim. Only no one knew that Ward Vadim had needed saving. There’d been nothing on the news; Aris had no idea if the true Ward had resumed her place yet or not.

  Aristos wanted to spar with Dysis, wanted to punch and weave and parry until he was too tired to think, too exhausted to care.

  But Aris couldn’t do those things. So she ran instead. The irony. She never would have thought it possible, but running was the only thing that gave her any sense of freedom now. She pumped her arms harder, pushed herself faster as she flew along the beach.

  And still her worries paced her, refusing to be left behind.

  Calix had turned his back on her. Milek had disappeared. And she was a girl again. No longer a member of the Atalantan Military. No longer a flyer.

  She had nothing.

  She was nothing.

  Every few days, Krissa pushed her to dust the groves, saying it would ease Gus’s mind. But Aris couldn’t fly anymore, not even to dust. Not even for her father.

  The nightmares wouldn’t let her.

  •••

  When Aris returned to the house, her parents were in the great room watching the news vid with their breakfast. She could hear the murmur of the monitor in the distance, but no one called hello or came to meet her when the front door slid closed. She moved around the kitchen, fixing a cup
of strong tea and rummaging in the foodsaver for leftover bread and cheese from dinner the night before.

  Through the main arch, she could see a corner of the monitor and her mother’s knee. “Anyone need anything?” she called, on impulse.

  “We’re fine, doll,” came her mother’s voice in response.

  Aris bit off a chunk of bread, hoping that today her stomach would settle, today would be the day the nightmares wouldn’t follow her, when she heard the sound of something shattering.

  Dropping the piece of bread, she ran to the main room.

  Shards of glass glittered on the floor at her father’s feet, and a dark puddle of tea was spreading across the cream tile. But no one was looking at it or moving to clean up the mess.

  Aris glanced at the monitor, the reporter’s voice jangling incoherently in her ears. She gasped.

  The Ward of Ruslana—the fake Ward Vadim, Aris could tell, face devoid of any scarring—stood at a podium before the Council Building, but she wasn’t speaking because a host of soldiers in Ruslanan blue were swarming the stage. Behind her, Ward Nekos, his wife, Bett, and Ward Balias stood frozen. A number of other dignitaries were screeching in fear and struggling to escape into the audience of reporters.

  “Pardon me,” the fake Ward was saying, obviously flustered. “There seems to be some sort of situation.” At first she seemed to think they were there to protect her. Even Ward Nekos stepped forward, surveying the crowd for danger. But then one of the men drew Ward Vadim’s arms behind her back and clapped restraints on her wrists. “Now wait a minute,” she said, her voice still amplified by the microspeaker on her lemon-yellow dress.

  Aris watched, eyes wide.

  “What the blighting hell is going on?” Gus asked, the worry thick in his voice. The puddle of tea was still spreading around his feet.

  Another woman walked onto the stage, helped by a tall man with a thin scar that drew his lip into a sneer. Milek. Her heart lurched.

  “Watch, Father.” Aris sank into a chair, eyes glued to the screen.

  “People of Ruslana, you have been deceived,” the woman said, her microspeaker throwing her voice over the murmurs of the crowd. She turned to face the camera. It zoomed in on her red, disfigured face.

  Krissa gasped.

  “This woman is not who you believe her to be.” The woman with the wounded face walked to stand beside the Ward. “I am the real Galena Vadim, and as you can see, someone has gone to great pains to ensure that you never discovered this truth.”

  The camera panned out, and Aris could see Milek again, his face grim with determination as he moved to flank the woman pretending to be his mother. She didn’t even seem to recognize him. The whispered exclamations and questions from reporters threatened to drown out what was happening on stage.

  “This is ridiculous! How can you—I am just appalled. Where is my security?” The woman who looked like Galena sputtered and yelled, her voice carrying over the murmuring crowd. The real Galena reached up to the back of her double’s neck and released the device Aris knew she would find there.

  Immediately, the woman’s features shimmered, melted, and reorganized themselves. She still looked a lot like Galena once had, but her nose was longer, her lips thinner, her cheeks gaunt. The crowd gasped.

  There was a clatter and a thud as Ward Nekos’s wife threw herself forward, knocking over the podium in the process. She stood nose to nose with the real Galena. The camera zoomed in on her; she didn’t flinch, even that close to the Ward’s ravaged face. “How did you get free?” Bett hissed, moving as if to grab Ward Vadim’s arm. The crowd had quieted, and the microspeakers picked up every word.

  Milek stepped forward and put himself between them.

  “Why, Bett?” Ward Vadim asked.

  Bett held on to her anger for a second longer and then, gradually, it bled from her face, leaving her eyes hollow. She buried her hands in the brilliant orange fabric of her dress. “It was for the good of the dominion. I’m sorry, Galena,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, but it was the only way.”

  The crowd in front of the stage was silent, and Aris had the strange sense that she’d walked in on the rehearsal for a play. She wondered how long the cameras would be allowed to record the drama, when someone would remember that the world was watching.

  Ward Nekos stepped in front of his wife. “What have you done?”

  A shout cut through Bett’s reply. The fake Galena was fighting her restraints, trying to get away. Milek took Bett’s arm and nodded to Ward Vadim, then he and his soldiers led the captive women off the stage.

  In a whisper, a reporter’s voice recounted the events that had unfolded: “It seems there was a plot to replace the Ward of Ruslana with a double using some kind of device. It’s unclear to what purpose, but one can gather it had something to do with the war. As we’re watching now it appears Ward Nekos’s wife was involved as she’s being led away . . .”

  Ward Vadim again spoke over the crowd. “As the rightful Ward of Ruslana, I would like to announce a few policy changes, effective immediately.” She turned to stare at Ward Balias, who was standing still as a statue at the corner of the stage, that strange smile of his fixed in place. “First, I am reinstating all military and economic sanctions on the dominion of Safara.”

  The crowd didn’t make a sound.

  “Second, I am establishing a tribunal. I hereby formally charge Safaran operative, code name Elom, with war crimes against the Ward of Ruslana.”

  In her mind’s eye, Aris saw the man’s black, pitiless eyes as he clutched at her throat. She swallowed, her hands shaking. Elom. Now she knew his name.

  “And finally,” the Ward said, taking a deep breath, “I would like to pledge to Atalanta whatever Ruslanan military and economic support is necessary to defend the dominion, now and forever, from Safara.”

  The news agents erupted with shouted questions.

  Krissa tapped the panel on the table beside her chair, and the screen went blank. For a moment, the room hummed with silence.

  Gus turned to Aris, as if somehow he thought she would have the answers. “What you said about Safara destroying us. Do you know something about this?”

  She stared at him, her chest tight. She couldn’t stop herself from telling him the truth, not this time. “I helped save her. The real Ward. I helped Milek save her.”

  His face was pale, his skin papery and creased with wrinkles. He looked so much older now than she remembered. Confusion and anguish warred in his eyes.

  He opened his mouth. “I . . .”

  “I’ll get a towel for that spill,” she said, and she fled the room.

  Chapter 59

  “It’s so sad for the Ward, don’t you think? That she’s so ugly now? I mean, obviously she can still do her job and everything, but if I were her I’d have to get it fixed or something. I wouldn’t want everyone staring, and you know they’re going to stare. She’s a public figure for Gods’ sake!” Echo tossed her enormous cloud of hair and took a sip of her drink, and Aris was grateful for the moment of silence.

  Echo’s newest ring, Bynne, sat next to Aris. He was tall and solid, with thick black hair and terrible hand-eye coordination. Aris had already saved her glass from his wandering elbow twice. She was confident she could take him in hand-to-hand . . . he was big but clumsy, and she’d learned to dodge pretty well.

  Aris shifted again on the stool, hoping no one would notice her fidget. She was wearing a dress for the first time since she’d returned home, and she kept forgetting to keep her knees together and ankles crossed.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I think there’s a strange kind of symmetry to the scars,” Phae said. Her silver dress and glitter-streaked black hair shimmered in the low light of the bar. “Once they heal completely, the pattern could be quite beautiful.” She leaned closer to Rakk, her eyes soft. He smiled back, his expression more relaxed than Aris had seen since he was sent away.

  Echo’s laughter tinkled out over the table. “Scars, beautiful? Co
me on.” And then she gasped, just as Aris felt a sharp movement beside her. Aris glanced at Phae and guessed she’d probably kicked her, because Echo hastened to add, “But not all scars are ugly, I mean, there are plenty . . . um . . . tasteful—”

  Aris knew Phae hadn’t been objecting on her account. She couldn’t bring herself to look too closely at Rakk; the pattern of his burns reminded her of the last time she’d seen Galec. “Why don’t we just say ‘scars have character’ and move on?” Aris suggested, and Echo nodded eagerly. The table lapsed into awkward silence.

  The Toad was relatively quiet. The band hadn’t started yet, and their group was wedged into a corner away from the dance floor.

  Rakk leaned across Phae. “So, Aris,” he said, his voice serious. “In your consulting trips, did you find that things were getting worse or better? When I was in Bieza, fighting was almost daily. Was it—”

  “She doesn’t want to talk about it, Rakk,” Phae interrupted. “Leave her alone.”

  Aris wanted him to finish his question; she did want to talk about it. All of it. The truth. Even if it meant getting sent to jail. Because maybe if she told someone what had really happened, how she felt, she wouldn’t be so terrified of falling asleep at night. Maybe she’d be able to put the past to rest.

  But she couldn’t.

  So she smiled and leaned into Phae’s side. “Thanks,” she said, pretending they were still friends, that there wasn’t an ocean of silence and secrets and disappointment between them. Pretending that she really had worked in Panthea and missed Phae’s wedding for one of her consulting trips. “I don’t know much about the war, anyway. I was far from the front lines.”

  “It’s a shame, how the Ward’s wife sold that veiling tech and all, just to try to help Atalanta, and how it all backfired on her.” Bynne stared at his glass. “She thought what she did would make Safara end the war . . . and now she’ll face a tribunal. Poor Ward Nekos.”

  “Poor Ward Vadim,” Aris grunted.