“Yes,” I reply, gesturing to myself. With my faded hair, dirty clothes, and defeated eyes, what else could I be? He stands in stark contrast, his shirt fine and clean, and his shoes are soft, reflective leather. He shifts under my gaze, playing with his collar. I make him nervous.
He pales in the moonlight, his eyes darting. “Do you enjoy it?” he asks, deflecting. “Living there?”
His question almost makes me laugh, but he doesn’t look amused. “Does anyone?” I finally respond, wondering what on earth he’s playing at.
But instead of retorting swiftly, snapping back like Kilorn would, he falls silent. A dark look crosses his face. “Are you heading back?” he says suddenly, gesturing down the road.
“Why, scared of the dark?” I drawl, folding my arms across my chest. But in the pit of my stomach, I wonder if I should be afraid. He’s strong, he’s fast, and you’re all alone out here.
His smile returns, and the comfort it gives me is unsettling. “No, but I want to make sure you keep your hands to yourself for the rest of the night. Can’t have you driving half the bar out of house and home, can we? I’m Cal, by the way,” he adds, stretching out a hand to shake.
I don’t take it, remembering the blazing heat of his skin. Instead, I set off down the road, my steps quick and quiet. “Mare Barrow,” I tell him over my shoulder, and it doesn’t take much for his long legs to catch up.
“So are you always this pleasant?” he prods, and for some reason, I feel very much like an experiment being examined. But the cold silver in my hand keeps me calm, reminding me of what else he has in his pockets. Silver for Farley. How fitting.
“The lords must pay well for you to carry whole crowns,” I retort, hoping to scare him off the topic. It works beautifully and he retreats.
“I have a good job,” he explains, trying to brush it off.
“That makes one of us.”
“But you’re—”
“Seventeen,” I finish for him. “I still have some time before conscription.”
He narrows his eyes, lips twisting into a grim line. Something hard creeps into his voice, sharpening his words. “How much time?”
“Less every day.” Just saying it aloud makes my insides ache. And Kilorn has even less than me.
His words die away and he’s staring again, surveying me as we walk through the woods. Thinking. “And there are no jobs,” he mutters, more to himself than me. “No way for you to avoid conscription.”
His confusion puzzles me. “Maybe things are different where you’re from.”
“So you steal.”
I steal. “It’s the best I can do,” falls from my lips. Again, I remember that causing pain is all I’m good for. “My sister has a job though.” It slips out before I remember—No she doesn’t. Not anymore. Because of you.
Cal watches me battle with the words, wondering whether or not to correct myself. It’s all I can do to keep my face straight, to keep from breaking down entirely in front of a complete stranger. But he must see what I’m trying to hide. “Were you at the Hall today?” I think he already knows the answer. “The riots were terrible.”
“They were.” I almost choke on the words.
“Did you . . .,” he presses in the quietest, calmest way. It’s like poking a hole in a dam, and it all comes spilling out. I couldn’t stop the words even if I wanted to.
I don’t mention Farley or the Scarlet Guard or even Kilorn. Just that my sister slipped me into Grand Garden, to help me steal the money we needed to survive. Then came Gisa’s mistake, her injury, what it meant to us. What I’ve done to my family. What I have been doing, disappointing my mother, embarrassing my father, stealing from the people I call my community. Here on the road with nothing but darkness around me, I tell a stranger how terrible I am. He doesn’t ask questions, even when I don’t make sense. He just listens.
“It’s the best I can do,” I say again before my voice gives out entirely.
Then silver shines in the corner of my eye. He’s holding up another coin. In the moonlight, I can just see the outline of the king’s flaming crown stamped into the metal. When he presses it into my hand, I expect to feel his heat again, but he’s gone cold.
I don’t want your pity, I feel like screaming, but that would be foolish. The coin will buy what Gisa no longer can.
“I’m truly sorry for you, Mare. Things shouldn’t be like this.”
I can’t even summon the strength to frown. “There are worse lives to live. Don’t feel sorry for me.”
He leaves me at the edge of the village, letting me walk through the stilt houses alone. Something about the mud and shadows makes Cal uncomfortable, and he disappears before I get a chance to look back and thank the strange servant.
My home is quiet and dark, but even so, I shudder in fear. The morning seems a hundred years away, part of another life where I was stupid and selfish and maybe even a little bit happy. Now I have nothing but a conscripted friend and a sister’s broken bones.
“You shouldn’t worry your mother like that,” my father’s voice rumbles at me from behind one of the stilt poles. I haven’t seen him on the ground in more years than I care to remember.
My voice squeaks in surprise and fear. “Dad? What are you doing? How did you—?” But he jabs a thumb over his shoulder, to the pulley rig dangling from the house. For the first time, he used it.
“Power went out. Thought I’d give it a look,” he says, gruff as ever. He wheels past me, stopping in front of the utility box piped into the ground. Every house has one, regulating the electric charge that keeps the lights on.
Dad wheezes to himself, his chest clicking with each breath. Maybe Gisa will be like him now, her hand a metallic mess, her brain torn and bitter with the thought of what could have been.
“Why don’t you just use the ’lec papers I get you?”
In response, Dad pulls a ration paper from his shirt and feeds it into the box. Normally, the thing would spark to life, but nothing happens. Broken.
“No use,” Dad sighs, sitting back in his chair. We both stare at the utility box, at a loss for words, not wanting to move, not wanting to go back upstairs. Dad ran just like I did, unable to stay in the house, where Mom was surely crying over Gisa, weeping for lost dreams, while my sister tried not to join her.
He bats the box like hitting the damn thing can suddenly bring light and warmth and hope back to us. His actions become more harried, more desperate, and anger radiates from him. Not at me or Gisa but the world. Long ago he called us ants, Red ants burning in the light of a Silver sun. Destroyed by the greatness of others, losing the battle for our right to exist because we are not special. We did not evolve like them, with powers and strengths beyond our limited imaginations. We stayed the same, stagnant in our own bodies. The world changed around us and we stayed the same.
Then the anger is in me too, cursing Farley, Kilorn, conscription, every little thing I can think of. The metal box is cool to the touch, having long lost the heat of electricity. But there are vibrations still, deep in the mechanism, waiting to be switched back on. I lose myself in trying to find the electricity, to bring it back and prove that even one small thing can go right in a world so wrong. Something sharp meets my fingertips, making my body jolt. An exposed wire or faulty switch, I tell myself. It feels like a pinprick, like a needle spiking in my nerves, but the pain never follows.
Above us, the porch light hums to life.
“Well, fancy that,” Dad mutters.
He spins in the mud, wheeling himself back to the pulley. I follow quietly, not wanting to bring up the reason we are both so afraid of the place we call home.
“No more running,” he breathes, buckling himself into the rig.
“No more running,” I agree, more for myself than him.
The rig whines with the strain, hoisting him up to the porch. I’m quicker on the ladder so I wait for him at the top, then wordlessly help detach him from the rig. “Bugger of a thing,” Dad grumbles when we finally unsnap t
he last buckle.
“Mom will be happy you’re getting out of the house.”
He looks up at me sharply, grabbing my hand. Though Dad barely works now, repairing trinkets and whittling for kids, his hands are still rough and callused, like he just returned from the front lines. The war never leaves.
“Don’t tell your mother.”
“But—”
“I know it seems like nothing, but it’s enough of something. She’ll think it’s a small step on a big journey, you see? First I leave the house at night, then during the day, then I’m rolling around the market with her like it’s twenty years ago. Then things go back to the way they were.” His eyes darken as he speaks, fighting to keep his voice low and level. “I’m never getting better, Mare. I’m never going to feel better. I can’t let her hope for that, not when I know it’ll never happen. Do you understand?”
All too well, Dad.
He knows what hope has done to me and softens. “I wish things were different.”
“We all do.”
Despite the shadows, I can see Gisa’s broken hand when I get up to the loft. Normally she sleeps in a ball, curled up under a thin blanket, but now she lies on her back, with her injury elevated on a pile of clothes. Mom reset her splint, improving my meager attempt to help, and the bandages are fresh. I don’t need light to know her poor hand is black with bruises. She sleeps restlessly, her body tossing, but her arm stays still. Even in sleep, it hurts her.
I want to reach out to her, but how can I make up for the terrible events of the day?
I pull out Shade’s letter from the little box where I keep all his correspondences. If nothing else, this will calm me down. His jokes, his words, his voice trapped in the page always soothe me. But as I scan the letter again, a sense of dread pools in my stomach.
“Red as the dawn . . . ” the letter reads. There it is, plain as the nose on my face. Farley’s words from her video, the Scarlet Guard’s rallying cry, in my brother’s handwriting. The phrase is too strange to ignore, too unique to brush off. And the next sentence, “see the sun rise stronger . . .” My brother is smart, but practical. He doesn’t care about sunrises or dawns or witty turns of phrase. Rise echoes in me, but instead of Farley’s voice in my head, it’s my brother speaking. Rise, red as the dawn.
Somehow, Shade knew. Many weeks ago, before the bombing, before Farley’s broadcast, Shade knew about the Scarlet Guard and tried to tell us. Why?
Because he’s one of them.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
SIX
When the door bangs open at dawn, I’m not frightened. Security searches are normal, though we usually only get one or two a year. This will be the third.
“C’mon, Gee,” I mutter, helping her out of her cot and down the ladder. She moves precariously, leaning on her good arm, and Mom waits for us on the floor. Her arms close around Gisa, but her eyes are on me. To my surprise, she doesn’t look angry or even disappointed with me. Instead, her gaze is soft.
Two officers wait by the door, their guns hanging by their sides. I recognize them from the village outpost, but there’s another figure, a young woman in red with a triple-colored crown badge over her heart. A royal servant, a Red who serves the king, I realize, and I begin to understand. This is not a usual search.
“We submit to search and seizure,” my father grumbles, speaking the words he must every time this happens. But instead of splitting off to paw through our house, the Security officers stand firm.
The young woman steps forward and, to my horror, addresses me. “Mare Barrow, you have been summoned to Summerton.”
Gisa’s good hand closes around mine, like she can hold me back. “W-What?” I manage to stammer.
“You have been summoned to Summerton,” she repeats, and gestures to the door. “We will escort you. Please proceed.”
A summons. For a Red. Never in my life have I heard of such a thing. So why me? What have I done to deserve this?
On second thought, I’m a criminal and probably considered a terrorist due to my association with Farley. My body prickles with nerves, every muscle taut and ready. I’ll have to run, even though the officers block the door. It’ll be a miracle if I make it to a window.
“Calm down, everything’s settled after yesterday.” She chuckles, mistaking my fear. “The Hall and the market are well controlled now. Please proceed.” To my surprise, she smiles, even as the Security officers clench their guns. It puts a chill in my blood.
To refuse Security, to refuse a royal summons, would mean death and not just for me. “Okay,” I mumble, untangling my hand from Gisa’s. She moves to grab onto me, but our mother pulls her back. “I’ll see you later?”
The question hangs in the air, and I feel Dad’s warm hand brush my arm. He’s saying good-bye. Mom’s eyes swim with unshed tears and Gisa’s trying not to blink, to remember every last second of me. I don’t even have something I can leave her. But before I can linger or let myself cry, an officer takes me by the arm and pulls me away.
The words force themselves past my lips, though they come out as barely more than a whisper. “I love you.”
And then the door slams behind me, shutting me out of my home and my life.
They hasten me through the village, down the road to the market square. We pass by Kilorn’s run-down house. Usually he’s awake by now, halfway to the river to start the day early when it’s still cool, but those days are gone. Now I imagine he sleeps through half the day, enjoying what little comforts he can before conscription. Part of me wants to yell good-bye to him, but I don’t. He’ll come sniffing around for me later and Gisa will tell him everything. With a silent laugh I remember that Farley will be expecting me today, with a fortune in payment. She’ll be disappointed.
In the square, a gleaming black transport waits for us. Four wheels, glass windows, rounded to the ground—it looks like a beast ready to consume me. Another officer sits at the controls and guns the engine when we approach, spitting black smoke into the early morning air. I’m forced into the back without a word and the servant barely slides in next to me before the transport takes off, racing down the road at speeds I had never even imagined. This will be my first—and last—time riding in one.
I want to speak, to ask what’s going on, how they’re going to punish me for my crimes, but I know my words will fall on deaf ears. So I stare out the window, watching the village disappear as we enter the forest, racing down the familiar northern road. It’s not so crowded as yesterday, and Security officers dot the way. The Hall is controlled, the servant had said. I suppose this is what she meant.
The diamondglass wall shines ahead, reflecting the sun as it rises from the woods. I want to squint, but I keep myself still. I must keep my eyes open here.
The gate crawls with black uniforms, all Security officers checking and rechecking travelers as they enter. When we coast to a stop, the serving woman pulls me past the line and through the gate. No one protests, or even bothers to check for IDs. She must be familiar here.
Once we’re inside, she glances back at me. “I’m Ann by the way, but we mostly go by last names. Call me Walsh.”
Walsh. The name sounds familiar. Paired with her faded hair and tanned skin, it can mean only one thing. “You’re from . . .?”
“The Stilts, same as you. I knew your brother Tramy and I wish I didn’t know Bree. A real heartbreaker, that one.” Bree had a reputation around the village before he left. He told me once that he didn’t fear conscription as much as everyone else because the dozen bloodthirsty girls he was leaving behind were far more dangerous. “I don’t know you though. But I certainly will.”
I can’t help but bristle. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean you’re going to be working long hours here. I don’t know who hired you or what they told you about the job, but it starts to wear on y
ou. It’s not all changing bedsheets and cleaning plates. You have to look without seeing, hear without listening. We’re objects up there, living statues meant to serve.” She sighs to herself and turns, wrenching open a door built right into the side of the gate. “Especially now, with this Scarlet Guard business. It’s never a good time to be a Red, but this is very bad.”
She steps through the door, seemingly into the solid wall. It takes me a moment to realize she’s going down a flight of stairs, disappearing into semidarkness.
“The job?” I press. “What job? What is this?”
She turns on the stairs, all but rolling her eyes at me. “You’ve been summoned to fill a serving post,” she says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
Working. A job. I almost fall over at the thought.
Cal. He said he had a good job—and now he’s pulled some strings to do the same for me. I might even be working with him. My heart leaps at the prospect, knowing what this means. I’m not going to die, I’m not even going to fight. I’m going to work and I’m going to live. And later, when I find Cal, I can convince him to do the same for Kilorn.
“Keep up, I don’t have time to hold your hand!”
Scrambling after her, I descend into a surprisingly dark tunnel. Small lights glow on the walls, making it just possible to see. Pipes run overhead, humming with running water and electricity.
“Where are we going?” I finally breathe.
I can almost hear Walsh’s dismay as she turns to me, confused. “The Hall of the Sun, of course.”
For a second, I think I can feel my heart stop. “Wha-what? The palace, the actual palace?”
She taps the badge on her uniform. The crown winks in the low light.
“You serve the king now.”
They have a uniform ready for me, but I barely notice it. I’m too amazed by my surroundings, the tan stone and glittering mosaic floor of this forgotten hall in the house of a king. Other servants bustle past in a parade of red uniforms. I search their faces, looking for Cal, wanting to thank him, but he never appears.