by Emily Colin
Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes dark pools. “I know,” she says. But then she steps into me and kisses me again, hard enough to bruise. I feel my teeth cut into my lip, but for the first time I can remember, pain doesn’t clear my mind. Or maybe it does, and when everything else falls away, all that’s left is Eva.
Boldly, I trace my fingers down her spine, beneath the sheath of her sverd, let my hands fan out over the curve of her hips. And then I am moving again and she is moving with me and I feel as if I am at the top of one of those rollercoasters they used to have before the Fall, everything inside me coiling building surging toward her, inching closer and closer to a precipitous drop from which there can be no return.
Desperately, I try to think, to find my way back to some semblance of reason. I dig deep, searching for the famed willpower and restraint of the Bellatorum, but it has deserted me. I am a stranger to myself, and it is both unnerving and the purest thrill I’ve ever known.
Then Eva’s hands rise slowly, as if countering a great weight, and frame my face between them. She pushes me away a fraction of an inch and holds me still.
We stand there, her leaning against the tree and me leaning against her, both of us shaking. Her hair is mussed, coming down everywhere, and I can feel the thud of her heart against my chest. Or maybe it is mine.
Eva gives me a trembling smile. “Wow,” she says.
It takes me a couple attempts before I can pull myself together enough to speak. “You’re not kidding,” I manage at last. Seeing her pupils dilated, her dark hair disheveled, her clothes in disarray—and knowing it’s because of me, because of what we did together...it ignites something unfamiliar inside me, a feeling for which I have no name.
Mine, I think with a fierceness that takes me off guard, troubling me even more than the wild, driving sensation of her body yielding to me, her mouth rising to meet my own. I grew up in the Nursery with communal teddy bears; what makes me think I have the right to an entire human being? I draw a deep breath, centering myself, and don’t move a millimeter. For the first time in my life, I don’t trust my own body, don’t trust what I might do.
When I hazard a glance at her again, Eva is worrying at her lip, looking more unsettled than I’ve ever seen her. “That was—it was—well.” Her face heats, a gratifying sight. I’ve rarely seen her blush before, nor be at such a loss for words. “They’re right. It is a deadly sin. I could get lost in it. Lost in you. And I would forget everything else—what’s right, what I’m supposed to do. Who I’m supposed to be.” Color rises in her cheeks. “I did forget that,” she accuses. “You made me forget.”
“You know what?” I trace the beads of water in the hollow of her throat. “You made me forget, too...and I liked it. So if this is a sin—I say, let us sin, then, and be damned for it. I’ll gladly go to the devil with you, Eva Marteinn. Although preferably not in a soggy pile of leaves.”
Eva looks appalled. “You don’t mean that. It isn’t a joke, Ari. Not a game. You’d really risk everything—for this?”
“Oh, I would,” I tell her, even though deep down, I’m not sure it is the truth. Still, right now bravado is all I have—and so I bluff, and hope Eva can’t see through me. “I’m trained for battle and deception. What is this but another kind of fight?”
“You do look like you’ve been in a fight, Bellator Westergaard,” she says, a slight smile curving her lips. “And lost.”
I open my mouth to reply, just as she tilts her head, listening—and then shoves me, so hard I almost lose my balance and go sprawling in the rain-slick leaves. “Someone’s coming,” she says, voice thready with panic.
“What? How can you—”
“We have to get out of here,” she hisses, fumbling in the muck for her dagur. “Straighten your clothes, for the Architect’s sake!”
I pull my gear into something resembling order, tugging my shirt to rights, listening for all I’m worth. And then I hear it—footfalls approaching through the woods, a long way off, crushing small branches as they come. We’re in no immediate danger, and I eye her, puzzled. “They’re nowhere near us, Eva. How did you—”
Her face closes down, the smile gone. “It doesn’t matter. What we did—if anyone found out—by the Architect, what do you think would happen? We can’t just erase it with a confession to the Priests. The way you touched me—the things we said—we have to stop it now, before it goes any further.”
She’s only echoing my own thoughts, but the idea of never being with her like this again sends a sick, spinning bolt of loss through my stomach. “We could be careful.” It’s a stupid, dangerous thing to say—but worth it, to me.
“It’s a sin,” she says, brushing past me.
I pull her up short, one hand wrapped around her upper arm, and gentle my voice. “I know you’re scared. But don’t run away. We can figure this out together.”
Eva’s expression ripples like water, from regret to anger to something I can’t decipher—before it settles into firm, determined lines. “Stay here all night if you want,” she says. “I’m leaving.”
Turning her back on me, she strides off through the woods, away from the sound of the footfalls, toward home.
16
Ari
After Eva leaves me in the woods, I storm off in the opposite direction until I can’t hear her or the other bellators—assuming that’s who they are—and spend a considerable amount of time punching a tree. The hell with all this—trying to train an impossible apprentice, struggling with temptation every time I turn around, Riis and his attitude problem, Kilían and whatever he’d started to tell me yesterday. The hell with my feelings for Eva, and the hell with her too. I am a bellator, bred and trained for fighting. What do I know about taking these kinds of chances, the ones that leave your body intact but lay your soul bare?
Nothing, obviously. I’d made myself more vulnerable for Eva than I’d ever done in front of another person, and she’d thrown it in my face. How will I train her now?
Wrath has never been one of my primary sins, but tonight is a different matter. I’m infuriated by the rules that confine and dictate my behavior, sick of people telling me what to do, and on top of everything else, my pride is injured—a lethal combination. I stalk back through the woods, rubbing my bruised knuckles, kicking leaves out of my way, and grateful that, close to midnight as it is, no one else stumbles across my path.
I stop periodically to listen, but the other bellators are gone. Doubtless they’d had the same idea I did—challenging each other to a lethal game of hide-and-seek in the storm-soaked dark, the weather upping the ante by playing havoc with their tracking skills. I’d be willing to bet the trajectory of our evenings diverged in dramatic fashion, though. Surely they hadn’t ended up pinning their apprentices to a tree, her hands buried in their hair and her mouth—her taste—
It takes considerable effort, but by the time I’ve reached the edge of the Commonwealth, I’ve mastered myself again. My face is blank as I press my hand to the pad outside the door of the Bellatorum’s headquarters and go in search of Kilían, who is known for the late hours he keeps. Perhaps that is one problem I can resolve tonight, hopefully with violence. My body trembles with the need for it, desperate for release. The Architect help Kilían—or anyone else, for that matter—if he crosses me.
He’s not in the armory, or the kitchen, or the common area, all of which are deserted. At last I find him in the training room, alone, a sverd in his hand. When he sees me, he pauses mid-lunge. “Westergaard,” he says by way of greeting. “What happened to you?”
I glance down at myself—rain-drenched, muddy, gear flecked with fallen leaves—and shrug. My voice comes even, betraying none of my frustration. “I was training Eva in the woods, and things got a little out of hand. She leapt out of a tree after me and knocked me in the mud. Landed with her knife to my throat. It was quite impressive, really.”
Kilían’s face breaks into a genuine smile. “So she turned out to be a worthy opponent, af
ter all.”
“It would seem that way. But I’m not here to talk about my apprentice, promising though she may be.” I straighten, dropping a hand to the hilt of my throwing knife. Kilían’s eyes track my movement, and he shifts his weight, body tensing. Primed for battle as I am, the sight gives me a visceral satisfaction. “Yesterday, you said you had something important to tell me. That I should come and find you. Well, here I am.”
“Here you are,” he echoes. “Looking more like you want to knock me on the ground than listen to what I have to say, but beggars can’t be choosers, eh? Did you see anyone on your way up?”
“I did not. What’s this all about, Kilían? Cut to the chase, if you don’t mind. I’m well aware patience is a virtue, but to be perfectly honest, I’m running low on it tonight.”
Kilían gives me a long, considering look. He strides to the doorway and steps into the corridor, looking left and right. And then he pulls the door closed behind him and turns to me. He draws a deep breath, turning his sverd so light reflects off the gleaming blade, and meets my eyes. “You’re not a regulation citizen, Westergaard. You never were.”
I freeze, staring at him in shock. Of all the things I expected him to say, this is probably the last. Regulation citizens are what we call everyone in the Commonwealth who was born by acceptable means. The alternative—well, the alternative doesn’t make any sense in my case. How could it? I stare at Kilían some more, waiting for him to retract his statement or utter a comprehensible sentence, but he doesn’t. He just stands there looking at me.
The shock retreats like the tide from the shore, leaving behind the sharp-edged wreckage of my shattered control. “What are you saying?” My voice comes low, dangerous. I almost recoil from it myself, but Kilían doesn’t flinch.
“I’m not trying to insult you, Westergaard,” he says. “Though by the time I finish talking, you might prefer it if I were.”
I don’t want to believe a word that’s coming out of his mouth. But although Kilían is a spectacular liar—it comes with the territory, being Lead Interrogation Specialist and all—I don’t think he’s lying to me now. His face is grave, his expression sincere. He holds my gaze, lets me look him over, and on his face I see a flicker of something unfamiliar: pity.
It’s that look that scares me more than anything else.
No one has ever pitied me before.
I hadn’t been frightened when the bellators tied my arms to the post in the square and the lash came down, or when Riis put his blade to my throat on Choosing Eve and forced me to climb down the rope to the ground five stories below my dorm. I wasn’t frightened the first time I leapt into the rapids, or when Efraím put a knife in my hand and told me to fight. But looking at Kilían’s solemn face, seeing that hint of pity reflected in his eyes, I taste the bitter metal of fear.
“Start talking, then,” I say roughly. “And I’ll let you know.”
He looks me up and down. I hold myself still, trying not to betray my discomfort, but knowing Kilían, he sees it anyhow. “Your parents,” he says, “they were sinners. Your mother was a scholar; your father was a medic. They—well, they committed the sin of fornication. Your mother tried to hide it, but she was bearing heavily during the summer season, and that was impossible. The High Priests did what they always do—imprison the male, confine the female under guard in the hospital. She had you there, and then the two of them were sentenced to death, together.”
The walls are wavering strangely, leaning in toward each other, compressing the room and taking all the air with them. I gulp, tasting tin. “And then?”
Kilían shakes his head. “They were sentenced to death. But the sentence—it was never carried out.”
“How?” I’m amazed by how level my voice sounds. Efraím would be proud.
“They ran,” Kilían says simply. “The night before they were scheduled for execution, they escaped.”
I can’t help it—I gape at him, open-mouthed. No one has ever escaped the Commonwealth. Who would want to? There’s everything a person could want here: food, shelter, a sense of purpose to guide your days. Out there, in the Borderlands, there’s only the wreckage of the War, the crumbled remains of abandoned cities long dead, the barbaric hordes, and—if they’re lucky enough to survive—the occasional exiled wanderer, driven mad from solitude and extremity. Certainly none of the other Commonwealths would risk taking in an exile. “How?” I say, disbelief clear in my voice.
Kilían doesn’t answer. Instead, he tugs another sverd off the wall and tosses it to me. “Here,” he says.
“You want me to spar with you?” In my current mood, this is akin to picking a fight with one of the Bastarour. Kilían knows this, knew I was craving the release of a physical altercation before he even said a word. Yet here he is, placing a blade in my hand. “Is this some kind of test?”
“No, you moron,” Kilían says, and sighs. “I want to create a plausible reason for the two of us to linger here so late at night, and this is the best option at hand. The noise will cover our conversation, and there’s only one entrance to the room. Pay attention, boy. En garde.”
Ignoring the insult, I settle into my fighting stance, my eyes automatically flicking over him for signs of weakness. “Gardez-vous,” I reply, and lunge.
I am a better swordsman than Kilían, have always been, and I block his blows effortlessly, breaking through his defenses, then pulling back at the last minute to give him a chance to attack. “If you’re lying to me,” I say, my tone empty, “you and I will have a problem.”
“I’m not lying,” Kilían says, getting his blade up in time to block mine. The clash of metal echoes through the armory as I dance backward, out of reach.
“No? How did they escape, then? Did a little bird come down and fly them away?” I duck to avoid the downward slash of his sverd, roll underneath it, and come up on one knee.
“It’s complicated.” He’s panting, a fine sheen of sweat on his forehead. I take in this evidence of vulnerability and exploit it as I have been trained, lunging upward to press the point of my sverd against his chest.
“You have my undivided attention,” I say.
“Hmmm.” He bats my blade away with his hand, then thrusts his sword forward in a textbook seconde. “I don’t expect you to believe me, Westergaard, but there are those who are not in perfect accord with the aims of the Commonwealth. Those who seek to reclaim the freedoms—and the gifts—of the world we have lost.”
His words take me off-guard, more so than any of the hits I have absorbed from his sverd. “What do you mean?” I say, forgetting to parry for an instant. “Like a rebellion?”
He is on me at once, his blade sweeping under mine, aiming for my throat. “No,” he says. “Not yet. More like...a resistance.”
I narrow my focus, retreating, parrying, and then lunging forward with a vicious riposte. “And you’re telling me—what? That my parents were members of this secret resistance movement? How would you know, anyhow?”
“I know,” Kilían says quietly, “because I was there.”
I pause, my blade an inch from his chest. “You knew my parents?”
He nods. “I knew them both. Your father, especially—his cot was next to mine in the dormitory during my seventh-form year. I would never have guessed there was anything between him and your mother. They were distant in public, very proper. I hardly ever saw them speak. No one was more shocked than I when the verdict came down.”
“But…” I say, for once at a loss for words, “how did they get through the gate without someone noticing? The Bastarour—”
“Not the gate,” Kilían says, shifting his weight onto his back leg. Sweat soaks his shirt, and he pulls it over his head, dropping it to the ground in a sodden puddle. “There’s another way.”
“Another way out of the Commonwealth? You’re kidding.”
“I’ve never been more serious in my life.”
“Well, what is it?” I say, kicking his shirt out of the way.
> He regards me through narrowed eyes. “I’ll tell you that one day, Westergaard. When I know I can trust you.”
Fair enough. “Let me guess, Kilían. This resistance, whatever it is, is alive and well. And you’re one of its starring members.”
“It’s a brotherhood, actually,” he says stiffly. “The Brotherhood of the Wolf.”
Unbelievable. One of Efraím’s Thirty, a traitor.
His blade clangs off mine again, and I drive him backward with the force of my blows, letting the fierce joy of battle flood me. “No girls allowed, huh?”
“It is a sexist name. I’ll give you that.” He forces the syllables out from between clenched teeth. “What, are you feeling sensitive about your little protégée?”
“Just making conversation.” I feel lightheaded, at once in perfect control of myself and as if some omnipotent force is urging me forward, directing my blade with unerring precision. Step by step, I force him to retreat. He gives ground reluctantly, but give it he does. He has no choice.
If he is telling me the truth—if I am natural-born—then how can I fight the way I do? We are taught natural-born are lesser...slower, ignorant, worthy of carrying out the most menial tasks the Commonwealth has to offer. Why would the Executor—for surely he knows the truth of my origins—appoint me to a position in the Bellatorum? None of it makes sense—except the desire I feel for Eva. That piece of the puzzle comes into stark relief with an awful inevitability, making me gasp for air. The sins of the fathers, I think, and shudder.
“Tell me about my parents,” I say, and feel my lips rise in that smile I have that isn’t really a smile at all. “They left me behind, then. They gave me up?”
“They were told you were dead,” Kilían says, breathless. “By the Architect, Westergaard, I’m just the messenger. By the time we realized you weren’t, it was too late. They were gone, and what had happened to you—well, it was already done.”