I never got to learn what Captain Wolff thought. The sound of heavy footfalls against the metal floor interrupted her. Aleksandra had returned. Her boot heels clopped against the floor.
“Mother!” she called. “It’s worse than we feared. We’ve been unable to contain them. Perhaps they’ll listen to you.”
The captain nodded slowly. “We’ll deal with this later,” she said, tapping the dusty screen. She turned to her talmid, regarding him gravely. “Silvan, you stay out of the fray.”
Hannah’s voice lifted up from the speaker, contorted with pain.
“Please send a recovery shuttle. Please . . .”
Captain Wolff glanced down again. Her black eyes had gone huge at the sight of the screen. For the first time I realized that her gaze wasn’t cold, as I’d long thought. No, only proud. And now that pride had vanished behind her worry over Hannah, over her people.
“Wait!” I called, remembering Aleksandra’s threat. The captain turned to me, her gaze softening.
“The Asherati need me,” she said. The realization hit me like a slap. Captain Wolff didn’t see herself as apart from the rest of us because she hated us—but because she wanted to protect us, as a parent might. She gave me a small, tight smile. “Don’t worry, Terra. We’re almost to the surface. Soon you’ll be living the life your father always wanted for you.”
The thought of my father made me sway. It was all too much for me—my memories of Abba, Zehava, the wine. Hannah on the view screen, blood trailing over her face. And the people behind her. So strange, so familiar . . . As I tried to steady myself on my feet, Captain Wolff disappeared behind the sliding doors. For a long, gaping moment Silvan and I were left alone in the musty room.
“Are you all right, Terra?” Silvan asked, stepping close to me. I licked my lips, groping for words. But they didn’t come.
“I’m sorry,” he said. I felt the warmth of his breath on my ear, noted the effort it seemed to take for him to get the apology out. I didn’t think Silvan was a boy who apologized often. “I guess we won’t be married today. You do look beautiful. We’ll get married when this is all over, though. Right?”
I didn’t answer. Instead I turned, letting my eyes linger on the strong, stubbly line of his jaw. My gaze drifted down to his shoulder and rested on the violet threads all tangled with gold. He and Captain Wolff were the only citizens who wore those colors. Soon Silvan would be the only one.
Unless I did something.
“Silvan,” I said, my voice hushed, “stay here. Stay out of the fray.”
With that, I stepped out of my silky wedding shoes. I couldn’t run with them on. And I needed to hurry. I handed them to Silvan. He frowned at them—at me.
But there was no time for that. I took off running toward the lift.
“Terra!” I heard Silvan calling after me. “Terra!”
But I only slammed my hand against the panel, then stepped inside. The doors were already sliding closed when I shouted back. I don’t know if Silvan heard my hysterical, echoing words.
“She’s going to kill her!”
But I realized that it didn’t matter if he heard me. Not one bit.
He was behind me now, left alone in that dark room as the lift plunged down into the ship. It was as if the taut string that had held us together had finally been severed. I’d expected it to hurt, but it didn’t. It felt good. I knew then that I would never love him, that our marriage would never be sealed.
The doors slid open. What was revealed was nothing short of chaos. The stone pavilion around the lift was swarmed with citizens, who had descended upon the hospital and school and lab buildings in droves. They’d shattered every window, storming inside to liberate the computer terminals and gadgets and doodads from the oppression of their outlets. Only the library stood untouched, the stained glass dark and perfect in the evening light.
The crowd shifted and swayed around me like wheat stalks in a breeze. I waited until the crush of bodies parted—and then I surged forward.
The crowd stank of sweat and alcohol. Furious limbs surrounded me, jostling my body as I raced over the pavilion and toward the dome. At last my bare feet found the familiar cobblestone of the dome path. I jogged past the grain storage, barely noticing the people who poured out with arms piled high with ears of corn. Overhead, I knew that Zehava twinkled and shone—pinpricks of light illuminating the purple dark of her continents. I wanted nothing more than to stare up, to study the swirling blue oceans and the white clouds that passed over them. But there was no time for that. I ran forward.
At last I spotted a familiar face. Laurel Selberlicht. She and Deklan were running hand in hand across the green pasture before me. Each of them held sizable stones in their fists. Deklan’s hands were bloody. I couldn’t tell if the red that dripped from his knuckles was from his body or someone else’s. I watched, stunned, as they vaulted themselves over the pasture fence. They’d almost run right by me, but I shouted out to them.
“Laurel! Deklan! Have you seen Aleksandra Wolff?”
Laurel stopped, turning toward me. The frantic smile that had lit her lips fell. She lifted one hand—the one that was weighted by the stone—and pointed toward the desiccated fields.
“They say she took her mother there,” she said. I glanced doubtfully down between the rows of corn. Before I could answer, Deklan gave Laurel’s arm a tug and dragged her down the path.
I stood on the edge of the field, my hands balled into fists. The last time I’d run through the corn, I’d been with Koen. Back then my only worry had been getting him to press his lips to mine. Now I had bigger problems. Captain Wolff. Aleksandra. That knife she kept tied to her waist. My bare toes curled into the soil. I threw my weight back, readying myself.
And then I bolted forward.
Most years the rows would have been plowed under by now in preparation for the long, cold winter. This winter, our last on the ship, they’d been left high. I almost cursed myself to realize it—how the Council would have never left the cornfields in such a state if they’d truly intended for us to stay in the dome. A contingency plan—it had only ever been a contingency plan. Captain Wolff didn’t want to stay inside this dome any more than I did. Mara was wrong and Van was wrong and the Children of Abel were more wrong than any of them. How many little details had I ignored to believe the lies that Aleksandra had seeded among us so that she could put herself in a position of power?
The dry leaves rustled all around me, smothering every trace of noise beyond. There was no shouting. No sound of footfalls or glass shattering behind me. There was only my own breath and the papery-dry swishing of the stalks as I slipped through them.
And then, a voice. Captain Wolff’s voice. I’d heard it lift up over the gathered crowds a hundred times before. Now it was low, grave. I slowed to a stop.
“You can’t do this. Put the knife down, Alex.”
My chest still heaving from my sudden sprint, I turned toward the sound of their struggle. There was a rustle, and then I heard something heavy strike the frost-hard ground. I parted the leaves, peering forward. Aleksandra had wrapped her mother’s braid around her gloved fingers, forcing the captain down onto her knees. Captain Wolff lifted her scarred face to watch her daughter.
“They won’t follow you,” Captain Wolff said. “Not after they’ve discovered that you killed your own mother.”
“Good thing they won’t find out,” Aleksandra said. I saw her free hand flash down to her hip.
Move. Move, I told myself. I pushed forward through the corn, cupping my hands around my mouth, letting out a scream.