It’s a brilliant, and terrible, maneuver. Reds will tear each other apart for such waivers.
“The Measures are to be upheld at all costs until the disease known as the Scarlet Guard is destroyed.” I stare into my own eyes on-screen, watching as I stop myself from choking on my speech. My eyes are wide, hoping my people know what I’m trying to say. Words can lie. “Long live the king.”
Anger ripples through me, and the screen shorts out, replacing my face with a black void. But I can still see each new order in my mind. More officers patrolling, more bodies hanging from the gallows, and more mothers weeping for their stolen children. We killed a dozen of theirs, and they kill a thousand of ours. Part of me knows these blows will drive some Reds to the side of the Guard, but many more will side with the king. For their lives, for their children’s lives, they will give up what little freedom they had left.
I thought being their puppet would be easy compared to everything else. I was so wrong. But I cannot let them break me, not now. Not even when my own doom lingers on the horizon. I must do everything I can until my blood is matched and my game is over. Until they drag me away and kill me.
At least my window faces the river, looking south toward the sea. When I stare at the water, I can ignore my fading future. My eyes trail from the swiftly moving current to the dark smudge on the horizon. While the rest of the sky is clear, dark clouds hover in the south, never moving from the forbidden land at the coast. The Ruined City. Radiation and fire consumed the city once and never let it go. Now it’s nothing but a black ghost sitting just out of reach, a relic of the old world.
Part of me wishes Lucas would rap on my door and hurry me along to a new schedule, but he has not returned yet. I suppose he’s better off without me risking his life.
Julian’s gift sits against the wall, a firm reminder of another friend lost. It’s a piece of the giant map, framed and gleaming behind glass. When I pick it up, something thumps to the ground, falling from the back of the frame.
I knew it.
My heart races, beating wildly as I drop to my knees, hoping to find some secret note from Julian. But instead, there’s nothing more than a book.
Despite my disappointment, I can’t help smiling. Of course Julian would leave me another story, another collection of words to comfort me when he no longer can.
I flip open the cover, expecting to find some new histories, but instead, handwritten words stare up at me from the title page. Red and silver. It’s in Julian’s unmistakable swirling scrawl.
The sight line of my room’s cameras beat into my back, reminding me I am not alone. Julian knew that too. Brilliant Julian.
The book looks normal, a dull study of relics found in Delphie, but hidden among the words, in the same type, is a secret worth telling. It takes me many minutes to find every added line and I’m quietly grateful I woke up so early. Finally I have them all, and I seem to have forgotten how to breathe.
Dane Davidson, Red soldier, Storm Legion, killed on routine patrol, body never recovered. August 1, 296 NE. Jane Barbaro, Red soldier, Storm Legion, killed by friendly fire, body cremated. November 19, 297 NE. Pace Gardner, Red soldier, Storm Legion, executed for insubordination, body misplaced. June 4, 300 NE. There are more names, stretching over the last twenty years, all of them cremated or their bodies lost or “misplaced.” How anyone can misplace an executed man, I don’t know. The name at the end of the list makes my eyes water. Shade Barrow, Red soldier, Storm Legion, executed for desertion, body cremated. July 27, 320 NE.
Julian’s own words follow my brother’s name, and I feel like he’s next to me again, slowly and calmly teaching his lesson.
According to military law, all Red soldiers are to be buried in the cemeteries of the Choke. Executed soldiers have no burials and lie in mass graves. Cremation is not common. Misplaced bodies are nonexistent. And yet I found 27 names, 27 soldiers, your brother included, who suffered these fates.
All died on patrol, killed by Lakelanders or their own units, if not executed for charges without base. All were transferred to the Storm Legion weeks before dying. And all of their bodies were destroyed or lost in some way. Why? The Storm Legion is not a death squad—hundreds of Reds serve under General Eagrie without dying strangely. So why kill these 27?
For once, I was glad for the bloodbase. Even though they are long “dead,” their blood samples still remain. And now I must apologize, Mare, for I have not been entirely honest with you. You trusted me to train you, to help you, and I did, but I was also helping myself. I am a curious man, and you are the most curious thing I have ever seen. I couldn’t help myself. I compared your blood sample to theirs, only to find an identical marker in them, different from all others.
I’m not surprised no one noticed, because they were not looking for it. But now that I knew, it was easy to find. Your blood is red, but it is not the same. There is something new in you, something no one has seen before. And it was in 27 others. A mutation, a change that may be the key to everything you are.
You are not the only one, Mare. You are not alone. You are simply the first protected by the eyes of a thousand, the first they could not kill and hide away. Like the others, you are Red and Silver, and stronger than both.
I think you are the future. I think you are the new dawn.
And if there were 27 before, there must be others. There must be more.
I feel frozen; I feel numb; I feel everything and nothing. Others like me.
Using the mutations in your blood, I searched the rest of the bloodbase, finding the same in other samples. I have included them all here, for you to pass on.
I know I don’t need to tell you the importance of this list, of what it could mean to you and the rest of this world. Pass it on to someone you trust, find the others, protect them, train them, for it is only a matter of time before someone less friendly discovers what I have—and hunts them down.
His words end there, followed by a list that makes my fingers tremble. There are names and locations, so many of them, all waiting to be found. All waiting to fight.
My mind feels like it’s on fire. Others. More. Julian’s words swim across my eyes, searing into my soul.
Stronger than both.
The little book sits snugly in my jacket, tucked in next to my heart. But before I can go to Maven, to show him Julian’s discovery, Cal finds me. He corners me in a sitting room quite like the one we danced in, though the moon and the music are long gone. Once I wanted everything he could give me, and now the sight of him turns my stomach. He can see the revulsion in my face, as much as I try to hide it.
“You’re angry with me,” he says. It’s not a question.
“I’m not.”
“Don’t lie,” he growls, eyes suddenly on fire. I’ve been lying since the day we met. “Three days ago you kissed me, and now you can’t even look at me.”