by Rebecca Rode
“The men in our village play while the women dance,” she said. “I’ll show you the rhythm.”
He choked and sat forward in the chair he’d just lowered himself into. “Oh no. I don’t play. I’ve never touched an instrument in my life.”
Ember didn’t push the issue. Instead, she sat on the edge of the stage across from Stefan and began to accompany the song unfolding in her head. Two deep beats and a fluttering, like a bird in flight. Ember closed her eyes, allowing the tune to take form in her throat. Then she released it in the form of a hum, the words coming next.
* * *
Tree climber, tree climber, high in the sky
You are rooted in the tree you climb
Deep in the earth you love.
* * *
The life flowing beneath your hands
Pulses also through tree veins, insects, plants
Through all things living and touched by life.
* * *
Deny not the death that has spread
For just as the sky extends
So does the ground, deep-rooted and strong.
* * *
The same flame you carry within
Is the life that binds us all.
The light that binds us all.
* * *
She let the rhythm drain from her fingertips as she held the last note. Then she opened her eyes.
Stefan’s mouth hung slightly open. He cleared his throat. “Uh, that’s the song you hum when you do readings. I recognize it.”
“It’s the only song I know in Common,” she said. She held out the drum again. “Your turn.”
“Oh no. My talents lie elsewhere. Can you—can you sing it again?”
Ember had sung this song for tourists before as a child, dancing for tips as visitors watched silently from the sidelines. She had always loved its wistful tone, its painful longing, and the warmth she felt when she became one with the lyrics. But her mother had told her to stop after awhile. It had taken her years to understand why. Gadje music was harsher, more grating on the nerves, with lyrics that fell hard on the ears. Tourists wanted to move, not be moved.
The fact that Stefan felt the same magic she did sent a pleasant tingle down her arms.
She nodded and sang the song again. This time she let herself sway to the music, wishing her father were playing so she could give the song proper observance with a dance.
Stefan looked thoughtful as she finished. “The life flowing beneath your hands pulses also through . . . I can’t remember. What’s the line?”
“Tree veins, insects, plants,” Ember continued. “Through all things living and touched by life. It’s a traditional song from centuries ago. My father taught it to me to help me learn Common.”
“Reminds me of the inner light,” he said. “You don’t suppose your people knew about it even then?”
Ember stroked the hand drum, feeling the softness of the fabric stretched tight across the top. It wasn’t true animal skin but something unfamiliar. “I’m sure they did. We’ve been reading futures for centuries. Maybe even a thousand years.”
“Interesting. Scientists have come up with all kinds of theories as to where flickers came from. Did you know the one common ancestral thread is Earth? The problem is, we’ve spread ourselves so thin it’s hard to find someone who doesn’t have Earth blood in them. I’ve heard theories about flickers originating with the Mayans. Others insist it was the Native Americans.” He leaned forward. “What if it was the gypsies all along?”
“Roma,” Ember corrected.
“Sorry. Roma.” His excitement only grew. “This is so fascinating. I’d love to meet your people, Ember. I want to know more about them. And I’d really like to learn more about you.”
Ember carefully set the hand drum down and stood, a twinge of worry forming in her stomach. “I think it’s time to retire for the night.”
“Look,” Stefan said. “I need to tell you something. Just hear me out.”
“No, my turn first. The viewing of Empyrean, the drinks, and now the music. Everywhere I go, you’re there. I want to know why.”
He looked taken aback. “Must there be a reason?”
“Yes, and I think you’re hiding it from me.”
Stefan finally met her gaze, holding it firmly. “Maybe I feel bad for what happened and I’m trying to make it up to you.”
“Possibly, but I doubt it.”
He sighed. “Look, I don’t have any ulterior motives. I never did, even that first day. I didn’t ask you to read my future because I was making fun of you. It’s because when I saw you sitting there in that market, I remembered something my grandmother said a long time ago.”
Ember wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but it wasn’t that. She sat down across from Stefan again, folding her hands, ignoring the nervous flutter in her stomach. “Go on.”
“I can’t believe I’m telling you this.” He sat back in his chair and crossed one leg over his knee. “It happened when I was a boy. I’d just been accepted to flicker pretraining. My parents threw a party for their friends and relatives the night before my departure. While they were drinking themselves under the table, my grandmother pulled me aside and said she was a flicker too but she’d never told anyone. She offered to read my future, saying it would help her feel better about me leaving.”
Ember nodded. His grandmother sounded much like her father.
“My grandmother told me I would someday meet a fierce girl with black hair and tan skin. She said that girl would refuse to conform to the Empire and would shape the universe around her instead. She also said I would help her do it.” He looked at the ground, his face coloring. “I forgot all about her prediction until I saw you in that market.”
Ember hesitated. “You know that could be anyone, right?”
“Of course. But what are the chances that you’d be a flicker? And that we both ended up right here, on the same station at the same time? The odds are almost astronomical.”
“I know you want to read something into this, and I don’t blame you, but, Stefan, I can’t stay. I have to get back to my father.”
He looked away. “So you’ve said. Many times.”
“I don’t mean to hurt you. I just have other plans for my life. Plans that involve my own people and my family. None of them involves the Empire or the military or . . . killing people. I believe the stars gave us these gifts to be used for good.” The words sounded hypocritical in her ears. Here she was, lecturing a man who had probably never killed anyone in his life. Not like her.
“What if this is why you have your gift? Think of what two flickers working together could accomplish.” His voice was pleading now. “We could change things, make the Empire more accepting of distant cultures and languages. Maybe nudge the flicker program in a different direction. You could make a huge difference here.”
He leaned toward her. Ember caught a whiff of soap from his slightly messy hair. Stefan’s chin was covered in stubble, and she wondered what it would feel like to brush her fingers along his jawline. She gripped her hands more tightly together at the thought.
“Please don’t rush off yet,” he whispered. “I don’t think this is an accident. I really believe you’re here for a reason.”
Ember sucked in a long breath, attempting to send oxygen to her light-headed brain. His closeness did something strange to her. Even worse, she really liked it.
She had to get out of this place, and soon.
She rose to her feet and tore her gaze away, breaking the connection. “Even if you’re right, my father is my priority right now.” I took my mother away, and now I have to take care of Dai as she would have. “I’m sorry.”
Stefan stood as well, his mouth twisted in disappointment.
There was a long silence as neither spoke.
Finally Stefan broke the silence. “Sounds like you know what you want. I won’t get in your way. If you’re ready to go, I’ll walk you back to your room.”
15
For the second night in a row, Ember didn’t sleep well. She awoke the next morning to the sound of bleating sheep. She yelled to the AI to discontinue the sounds, trying to remember whether she’d requested background noise last night. Maybe the AI was feeling particularly facetious this morning.
Ember had barely enough time to grab a quick pastry from the cafeteria before phase-two testing began. She arrived on time and seated herself with the rest of the flickers. Nearly a third of them had been eliminated at the interview round, leaving a bunch of empty seats. She was curious to know what had transpired in their interviews to knock them out of the running. Had the other officers required a demonstration of them as well?
She looked around, noting that it was almost identical to yesterday’s, except that there was only one door instead of six.
Talon stood and explained that today’s testing involved some kind of machine. Flickers would be called in one at a time. Ember did the math and sighed inwardly. They’d be here a long while again. At least it would give her time to plan her escape.
Failing the test wasn’t an option anymore, not with Kane so determined to make her a slave. The escape pod was out until she figured out how to get past its defenses. Besides, she didn’t know how to program a pod even if she did manage to eject it.
That left finding another cargo ship to hide away on. She didn’t even know where to begin. Mar had said the Empire stored their ships below the planet’s surface. But how did she get down there, and where would she find a pilot?
She caught a glimpse of Stefan near the front. Eris sat next to him, her head resting on his shoulder. The sight sent an odd pain through her. He’d cited politics as his reasoning for those particular friends, but she didn’t understand why he put up with Eris. What was so special about her? The girl acted as though she owned the station, and most everyone she met seemed to agree with the sentiment.
You rejected Stefan, she reminded herself. You have no one to blame but yourself.
She was the fourth flicker to be called up by Talon. “Ember Gypsy.”
“Getting closer,” Ember muttered. The guard opened the door, and she slipped inside. Instead of shutting softly behind her, it slammed with a metallic clang. It was lined.
The lights were dim, like in yesterday’s interview room. A tall machine much like a booth stood in the center of the square room, its opening barely wide enough to admit one person. A dark, one-way mirror lined the far wall, and a guard stood at attention to the left.
She reached out mentally to feel who sat on the other side of the mirror. It was difficult to penetrate the specially-lined walls, but she managed to sense six flickering lights in a small booth, all officials, none of them Kane.
“Ember Gypsy,” a woman said on the speaker. “Step inside the machine.”
“Roma, not gypsy,” Ember said automatically. “And first I want to know what it does.”
She could sense the woman’s light increase in brightness. Anger. Did the other flickers really obey so blindly? It could be a deathtrap, for all she knew.
“It assesses your abilities,” the official finally said. “It’s perfectly safe, I assure you. Step inside.”
The guard looked ready to toss her in. She glared at him as she slid into the narrow machine.
The machine whirred as the door closed, and then she was left in complete darkness.
“Please wait,” the official’s voice said. It was more distant now, fed into a smaller speaker near Ember’s right ear. “Someone is walking into the room now. This person will stand in front of the machine. You’ll reach out and try to read his or her immediate future. What you see will be transmitted for everyone else to watch.”
Such incredible technology. She was awed by the possibilities until she realized what the Empire would want to use it for.
She sensed another light entering, someone entirely different from the watching officials. Another woman, unfamiliar.
“Whenever you’re ready, Ember.”
She closed her eyes and reached out with her mind, but the machine made it difficult to grasp the light. Too much interference. They were probably testing her strength. She mentally reached for it again only to have her hand move right through the flame. Ember frowned, then released a long sigh and began to hum her song, the music helping her to focus and to forget where she was.
She reached out once more, and the vision came.
* * *
Liza Hosler trembled in her father’s embrace. She must be strong like he wanted. She blinked back the threatening tears and stood straight, just like they’d practiced.
“You be good,” her father said as he pulled back to examine her. “I’ll come visit you soon.”
“When you’re on leave?”
He winked. “Of course. What other lovely lady would I visit?”
Her eyes were growing blurry with moisture, and she blinked more rapidly. “I’m afraid of that school. Please don’t send me there.”
“Oh, honey.” He pulled her in against his chest, holding her tight and resting his chin on her head. She took in the scent of him. It felt like home. “I know it’s not what you’re used to, but it’s the safest place for you right now. That’s why I have to go—to make home safe for you again.”
“And then you’ll come back.”
“Absolutely.” He kissed her forehead and stood. “They’ll take you to your new room, and you’ll get to meet Miss Borringer. She taught me when I was your age. I think you’ll really like her. Okay?”
“Okay.” Her voice barely quivered that time.
* * *
Ember shuffled to another memory and let the vision fade. A new one surfaced.
* * *
The letters on the shiny metal walls all ran together in her mind. Sheet after sheet of them, name upon name. All words representing lives taken much too soon. There was a reason she never visited the memorial planet. She couldn’t quite grasp the magnitude of it all.
There. One metal sheet read “The Heroes of the Battle of Narrad.”
She filled her lungs slowly, frozen where she stood. She didn’t have to look. Maybe it would be better not to know. She could pretend he was still at war somewhere, that he’d never been taken by the enemy. That he would be home soon.
Her unconscious mind took control before she could stop it, scanning the names until one seemed a hundred times larger than the rest.
“Benjamin Hosler.”
The tears should have come then, hot and full of a decade of pain, loneliness, and uncertainty. That was what she’d expected from this visit. But now that she knew the truth, there was nothing. Just a deadness inside. She’d left her tears behind in a childhood that no longer existed.
* * *
Ember heard a strange sound, the mix of a gasp and a sob. Then the official’s voice spoke again. “You’re upsetting the host, Ember. We want the future, not the past.”
They didn’t understand. When she made a connection, she experienced everything. It was all-encompassing. She couldn’t move half a finger without affecting the other half. They were all parts of the same being.
She ignored her irritation and went deeper into the less-certain light, the part that flickered and popped like a dying fire.
* * *
Liza Hosler stood in front of the machine, shuffling her feet uncertainly. She had volunteered to do this because it meant a break from the shipping job she hated, and at first it had been interesting enough. Memories she’d long since buried flashed across a screen on the outside of the machine. But now, as she watched the machine before her begin to glow, she regretted her decision.
The white metal pulsed as if with an inner light. She could see the outline of a person inside, like a shadow in front of a flame. The screen began to flash, and lines appeared. This hadn’t happened with the previous three candidates she’d hosted.
Liza looked at the mirror impatiently. Any second now the officials would intervene. They had promised to keep her safe f
rom the flickers. But they were certainly taking their time. The machine had begun to turn a warm orange color now.
“I think—” the official began, but she was interrupted by a terrible noise. Liza watched, stunned, as the screen’s glass began to crack.
“Stop,” the official cried over the speaker. “Gypsy, stop this instant.”
The screen’s crack began to spread like a web over the glass. The images ended, but the machine continued to glow. It was a soft pink now.
“Stop it,” the official shouted. “End this now!”
* * *
“Now!” the woman cried.
Ember’s eyes flew open. Her entire body felt like it was melting beneath her clothing, and her exposed skin burned. She yelped and shoved at the booth’s tiny door, but it wouldn’t open.
Voices sounded from the room outside as Ember sucked the overheated air into her lungs. What had just happened?
The door finally burst open, and a wave of precious, cool air washed over her. She stumbled out, falling to the floor at a guard’s feet. All six officials gaped at her from the protection of the far doors. Even the woman she’d just read, Liza, stared at Ember as if she were the devil incarnate.
“What was that?” a man with white hair muttered from the doorway.
“That wasn’t the future,” another woman pointed out. “Seeing the present isn’t what we’re looking for.”
“Plenty of flickers have seen the present. None of them has broken the machine like that. I mean, look at it.”
Ember turned and choked. The metal booth barely stood upright, it’s walls melted as if made of wax. She rose to her feet and stumbled away, panting.