by David Estes
Returning his gaze to Tristan, who is standing as still as a statue, his muscles noticeably tensed, he says, “My scientist built what she wanted: a set of microchips, that, when attached to the spinal cord, could communicate with each other and with the brain. What could she want with such devices? It took me a long time to figure it out. But I’m getting ahead of myself. After she got the chips, she disappeared. Do you remember it, son? The day she left us? I thought it was just her throwing another tantrum, not carrying out a treasonous plan against me.
“The next day my scientist came to me, asked me how the microchips were working. Needless to say, I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, and I told him so. He told me everything, about your snaky mother, about what he built for her. I still didn’t know what she was planning to do with the microchips, but I knew it couldn’t be good, so I sent Rivet after her.”
My stomach churns as I remember the grotesque and scarred face of Rivet, the president’s killing machine, who I killed after he murdered Cole in cold blood. The thought of him hunting down Tristan’s mother makes me ill. Based on the greenness of Tristan’s face, I can tell he feels the same way.
And the microchips? Could it be? Could Tristan’s mom and her microchips be the link Tristan and I have been missing this whole time?
“I know what you’re thinking: how could you? Rivet is crazy—he’d kill her! I gave him strict orders not to harm her, just to bring her back. Well, as it turns out, he couldn’t find her and she returned a few days later on her own. It seems she wasn’t willing to leave her children even to save herself. She told me she needed a holiday, apologized for leaving without telling me, and said she wouldn’t do it again. Can you believe her nerve? Lying to my face like that?
“That’s when I made a mistake. I let my anger get the better of me. I killed her on the spot, that filthy, no-good, whore of a wife. I crushed her windpipe like a piece of plastic.”
Something snaps in Tristan and he charges the steps, but a guard appears and closes the large metal gate with an ominous clang. Backing up a few steps, Tristan runs at the high wall beneath our seats, springs off his toes, grabs for the ledge at the top, his fingers falling short as he slides down the wall with a dismal groan.
I can’t see him anymore, but I can hear him, his anguished, ragged screams of, “I’ll kill you!—how could you?—I hate you!” I feel broken inside, seeing him like this, hearing him like this, knowing what he’s gone through. Despite being a sun dweller, the son of the President, having everything handed to him since he was born, his life has been every bit as grief-filled as my own, as anyone’s in the Lower Realms.
I feel closer to him than I’ve ever felt.
I want to go to him, but right as I consider how I might be able to break free and jump below, I shiver as the cold steel is once more at my throat. “Silence!” President Nailin bellows. “Or she dies!”
Tristan, still out of sight, stops his yelling, and Roc rushes to him, speaks in soft tones. I can’t hear what he says, but a minute later he and Tristan walk back into view. Tristan’s longish hair is in his face, disheveled by sorrow-filled fingers. His face isn’t moist as I expected it might be; rather, it’s cracked, full of lines that I’ve never seen before, as if each of his father’s words were blades, tearing long, bloodless streaks across his forehead, cheeks, and chin. His single dimple is still there, but it’s a hole, filled with despair, not a sign of joviality.
The knife slides away from my skin.
“Why’d you kill her? What did she do that was so bad?” he demands.
“Welcome back,” the President says. “I was about to tell you when you lost control of yourself. Besides lying to my scientist, she lied to me after I confronted her. She kept on with her lie about taking a vacation. She wouldn’t tell me where she really went. I should have tortured her, pushed her farther, threatened you and Killen’s lives, forced her to admit the truth, but she wouldn’t. I guess we’re cut from the same mold Tristan—like you just did, I snapped, I lost control. I killed her.”
“We’re nothing alike,” Tristan says. He’s back in control of his emotions now. Still angry, yes, but in control. Thinking, trying to gain facts, come up with a plan. “When did you find out the truth?” he asks.
“Oh, now you want to talk? Luckily, I’m in a chatty mood. It wasn’t until recently and was quite by accident. When you left, I was furious, wanted to find out where you might be headed, what you might be planning. I was afraid you’d let the bat out of the bag, so to speak. So I had your room searched.”
“There’s nothing in my room.” There’s no concern in Tristan’s voice, like he believes there was nothing to find.
“There was,” his father insists. “You just didn’t know it. Before your mother left on her little road trip, she hid something in your room, something she hoped you’d find eventually. But you never found it, never even thought to look for it.” He grins. “But I found it, tucked inside your mattress. A brief recounting of her thoughts after seeing the New City, but before leaving the Sun Realm with the microchips. Want to see it?”
Tristan nods slowly.
“Fine. I have no further use for it.” He pulls out a thin book, and with a flick of his wrist, flings it over the balcony. Soft-bound, it flutters slightly, its pages flapping, before dropping to the ground beside him. He retrieves it, his hands shaking slightly as he runs them along the cover.
“The pages are numbered—there are only twelve of them. Read page six.” His father sits back, his arms folded across his barrel-like chest, as smug as I’ve ever seen him.
Tristan’s folds back the cover, his eyes glancing at the writing on the first page, which is probably tempting him to read from the beginning, but then flips a few pages forward. He reads aloud:
“Tristan, I’m so sorry for doing this without your knowledge, but it was the only way I could keep you safe until the time came when you were old enough to stand up to your father. You might be twenty or much older, and I might be gone or dead”—he pauses on the word—“if your father has learned of my actions; but know that I’m with you every step of the way. What I’m about to tell you will be hard to believe, but know that I did it with a pure heart and good intent. It is the truth. Tristan, I implanted a microchip in your back; you have a small scar now.”
He looks up at me, his eyes brimming with understanding. “The crescent,” I whisper, earning a shift in the President’s gaze to me.
Tristan looks down again, finding his place with a finger. “I will now attempt to find the leaders of the Resistance, convince them to implant one of their children with an identical microchip, one that will draw you together eventually, creating a bond that will hopefully save us all. For it is not until you escape the Sun Realm that you will truly understand what the world is like outside of our bubble, how bad it is. It is not enough for you to fight on your own. You must fight alongside the Resistance, even lead them if they will have you.”
My heart skips a beat. I can feel the President’s eyes on me, but I can only stare at Tristan, who’s still reading. I don’t hear his words, just feel the intensity as the truth comes out. The confirmation that our bond, our connection, our feelings of energy—at first deep and agonizing pain, and then scalps tingling, spines buzzing—were a fabrication, the result of a microchip on our spines, without which, we’d never have met. Even though part of me already knew it, it still hurts that everything that has mattered to me in the last month has been a fraud. I’m numb with shock and anger and questions, so many questions, most of which I’ll probably never get the answers to, and which probably don’t matter anyway. Because I’ll be dead soon.
Tristan is still reading, and I manage to fight away my thoughts to listen.
“For I know that the fight against your father’s evil will last long after my life, long after the Resistance leaders’ lives, and therefore, we need someone to keep the fight alive, to combine what you know with the spirit inside those that seek change in t
his world. I hope you can understand why I did what I did, and forgive me for it.”
Tristan stops, closes the book while continuing to stare at it, tucks it in a hidden compartment in his tunic, finally looks up, but not at me.
“You found a way to turn off the microchips?” he asks his father.
“You noticed, did you? What did it feel like, son? Like all the feelings you had for this moon dweller—”
“Her name is Adele.”
“Her name doesn’t matter! Didn’t you realize that she was nothing more than a stupid girl? That your connection with her had suddenly disappeared? I’m surprised you didn’t dump her then and come back to where you belong.”
To my surprise, Tristan laughs. “Is that what you thought I’d do? I knew you were arrogant, Father, but come on! I never even considered returning to you. And guess what? My love for Adele has nothing to do with some microchip. It never did. Nothing has changed.”
I hear the end of his speech, but I don’t comprehend it. I’m still stuck back on one word. Did he say love? My heart is alive and torn, ripped open with the weight of what I’ve just learned, but buzzing with the excitement of Tristan’s profession of love. And if my feelings aren’t being pushed and pulled in enough directions already, I realize something else: either my mother or father or both of them were in on everything. Tristan’s mother said it in her note. She would try to convince the leaders of the Resistance—my parents—to implant one of their children with the paired microchip. I feel like I’ve been punched in the gut. I don’t know whether to be extremely pissed they would do something like that to me and keep it a secret for so long, or if I should be thanking them for bringing me to Tristan, for whom my feelings are the most mixed up of all.
Love. The word rings through my head, silencing all other thoughts. But do I love him back? Does it matter? The Moon Realm is about to be destroyed and the Star Realm will fall shortly after, and I’m about to watch Tristan face off against his best friend, both of whom I care deeply about.
Tristan’s father is apparently also shocked by Tristan’s declaration, because two seats down he’s fuming, his face a red mess, his hands fisted like clubs at his side. “Then you’ll pay the consequence for your choice!” he roars.
“I will not fight Roc,” Tristan says calmly.
“Not yet you won’t. I have another challenger for you first.”
A door opens at the far side of the space that’s been turned into an arena. Killen walks through the door.
Tristan
My brother’s wearing red body armor and carrying a duel-edged sword, freshly sharpened by the looks of it. He’s also wearing a sneer that reminds me so much of my father it’s scary. My first thought is to talk to him, but his evil smile washes away any thoughts of trying to change his mind. I’m going to have to fight him—that’s all there is to it.
How can I possibly fight after what I’ve just learned? The confirmation that Adele and I were brought together by something outside of our control, by the actions of my mother, in some crazy, half-chance that we would come together against my father? It all seems so wildly farfetched that it can only be true. What better way to seed a rebellion than to unite the son of the President with the daughter of the Resistance leaders? It’s genius, really. And the proof is in the results. We’re here, trying to assassinate him, to bring equality and balance to the Tri-Realms. If we’d only succeeded in our mission, it all would’ve worked to perfection.
Instead, I have to fight my brother.
A guard enters the pit, aims a gun at Roc’s head, says, “Drop the swords.” It’s the first gun I’ve seen any of the guards using, which is interesting. They could have annihilated us back in the throne room if they’d used guns. Probably another of my father’s ideas. He wanted to watch us fight the guards—for his entertainment.
Roc obeys, scattering the blades on the floor. The guard escorts him up the steps and sits him in a section separate to Adele and Tawni.
“You want to show you’re the strongest Nailin?” my father says. “Kill your brother, or be killed by him. The winner will be my successor.”
Turning toward Killen, I say, “Killen, we don’t have to—”
Killen rushes at me, his fifteen-year-old body looking more grown up than I remembered. Clearly he’s been training. I react quickly, instincts kicking in, as I roll to the side and scoop up both swords, one in each hand. My right hand is sticky with blood from the wound on my arm, but appears to have dried well; there’s already a deep, almost black crimson film that’s crusted along the gash.
I don’t want to fight him, but I also don’t want to die yet. Not until I read the rest of my mother’s words; not until I can speak to Adele.
I back away, getting a feel for the two swords, letting Killen come to me. Whenever we practiced together growing up, he was always the aggressor, relying on emotion over skill. Things haven’t changed.
He lunges at me, slashing his sword with a lightness that shows his improvement. As I block the attack with my left blade, I hear my father clapping heavily, encouraging the guards to shout and cheer. He’s enjoying watching his sons try to kill each other.
I flash my right sword at Killen’s leg, but he blocks it with a deft defensive maneuver that I’ve never seen him perform before. When he sweeps a leg at me, I see my opening. I block his kick with a raised leg, catching it on my boot, cut at him sharply with both swords simultaneously. He blocks one with the edge of his blade, but the other one clangs off his body armor with a force that jars my arm and knocks him off balance. I put so much strength into the blow that I nearly cut through the armor.
Killen, wide-eyed and probably realizing that he’d be dead if not for the armor, backs away, staring at the dented metal plate strapped to his side.
“What are you doing, son? Get him!” my father yells. I’m not sure if he’s talking to me or Killen (maybe both of us), but Killen looks up, embarrassment pink on his face for just a second. He’s still just a little boy trying to please his father. The thought makes me sad and want to drop my sword, but then anger kicks in and he scowls, pushing the body armor up and over his head, letting it drop to the floor behind him.
“It slows me down,” he explains. “You don’t stand a chance now.”
“Don’t do this, Killen,” I say.
“Scared to die, brother?” he asks, twirling his sword over his head.
I don’t answer him, don’t want to tell him that I’m scared to kill him. If my mother knew, it would break her heart.
“Time to die, Tristan,” he says, charging me.
I step to the side, letting him run by me, blocking his probing swing with my left sword. He pivots and then launches a barrage of blows, side to side, up and down, slash and parry, jab and block. By the end of it we both have a thin sheen of liquid coating our arms and legs and faces.
“I’m just warming up,” Killen says.
I’m just biding my time, trying to think of a solution that doesn’t involve me killing my brother or him killing me. But there’s just no way around it. It seems that in our world, someone always has to die. And it won’t be me.
I go on the offensive, distracting him with a left, right, left combination so I can sneak a kick into his chest. It works—I was always better at using my skin-and-bone weapons better than him—and he goes down hard, dropping his sword. Surging forward, I jump on him, lean a knee on his chest, hold him down, the tip of my sword against his breast.
“You’re beaten,” I say. “Don’t make me kill you. Mom wouldn’t have wanted this. She wanted us to stand up to Father, to stop him from hurting people.”
Breathing hard, Killen says, “I—I can’t, Tristan. All I want is for him to respect me, to follow in his footsteps. If I surrender to you he’ll always think of me as weak.” His face is pale and red at the same time—blotchy. For a second I just see my younger brother, the one I used to play knights and dragons with, who used to sit on my mom’s left knee while I sat on the
right, who shared a room with me when we were little. And then I blink and he’s gone, replaced by a mirror image of my father with one thing on his mind: killing me.
He slips a knife from a hidden scabbard, thrusts it at my face.
Adele
I think it’s over, that Tristan will let Killen get up, that maybe they’ll hug and make up and join forces against the man who raised them. Yeah, right. That’s a happy ending and this isn’t a fairytale.
A glint of steel flashes and at first I think Tristan stabbed his brother. But then both brothers strain against each other, exertion in their arms and faces. Tristan still has his right sword hovering directly over Killen’s heart, but his other hand, now without a weapon, is holding his brother’s wrist, trying to push it away from his face. In Killen’s hand: a dagger, sharp enough to kill.
Kill him, I think. Tristan, you have no choice, you have to kill him. For us. For everyone.
But still he fights against the will of his brother, tries to push his weapon away. I can feel the spectators—even the guardsmen—collectively holding their breaths as the life-or-death struggle continues. For a moment it appears that Tristan will fight off Killen’s knife hand, but then, with a stomach-turning quickness, his brother surges with strength, pushes the knife blade within inches of Tristan’s eye. He’s about to be half-blinded at the hand of his own brother! I struggle against my bonds, try to rip my hands free, to do something to help. I scream, in anger and fear and frustration as the ropes cut into my wrists, tearing the top layer of skin away until they’re raw and tender.
The blade’s an inch away, maybe less. One of Tristan’s beautiful night blue eyes is about to be torn to shreds.
Suddenly and unexpectedly, Killen’s hand falls away, the knife clattering to the floor. Tristan slumps on top of him, his head buried in his brother’s neck. What happened? I wonder. I’m paralyzed by fear as Tristan’s body lies motionless, my mind repeating the same words over and over and over again, until the words mix and swirl around and confuse themselves: get up, get up, up get, get get, up up, get up, up, up, up.