The Second Rebel, page 50
—something emerges from the black, a star larger than the others, brighter than the others, and growing brighter by the second—
“Once upon a time, a woman in gray who did not speak and her captain came to our father and asked for hospitality. Being that we are people of earth and sky, we knew what it was to want, and we granted the captain a place in our longships.”
—no, not a star at all, a planet big and blue, a landing place, a safe place, a home I have never known—
“I don’t like this story,” I say, but Hringar continues, heedless.
“The woman in gray and her captain feasted and slept well. When they prepared to leave, they asked for one of our finest warriors. After much thought and prayer, she decided to go with them. But the captain and his woman in gray did not want her as a warrior. They wanted her as a slave to wear their chains.”
—the place’s name is shifting in my mind, a liquid thought I cannot catch, wet and slippery like the blood running down my arm—
“So our warrior did what warriors do. You know what that is, don’t you?”
“Fight,” I say, and Hringar nods approvingly at me.
“That’s right. Our sister fought, the only way she knew how.”
—I fight to hold it in my mind, this place, a light against the darkness, and it grows, grows, grows, until the black sky is gone and the stars are missing and I feel my body shake and slow—
“I don’t like this part,” I tell him, covering my face.
“I know,” he says, pulling my hands away from my cheeks. “But you have to listen, because it’s important.”
—it’s important to stay awake, to seize my mind and hold on, though so little makes sense, and my body is racked with shivers and grows warmer until I feel sweat bubble on my forehead—
“Because the warrior scarred her face, the captain and his woman in gray felt that we had tricked them. They demanded payment in other ways, and if our father were to refuse them, they would bring more ships and bigger guns and more soldiers until we had no longships and no warriors left.”
“But they tricked us first—”
“Hush, little sister.” Hringar’s voice is firm. I bite my tongue. “Do you see why I must go?”
—my skin is on fire, my blood boils, I am falling, I am dying, I am a wildfire and there is nothing left to consume but myself—
I cry, big fat tears that roll down my cheeks, but Hringar wipes them away.
“Do you see why I must go?” he repeats.
“So that they do not come to kill us and demand more,” I say, and it is something I know he has said before, something he would approve of my saying now.
He nods and presses a hand to my chest, directly over my heart. “So that they do not come to demand what we are unwilling to give.”
—blood or sweat or tears, I do not know, but I am drowning in them, and the ground is coming, rushing up to meet me, small squares of brown and gray growing larger with each second—
I want to beg him not to go, not to leave me alone. What am I to do without my big brother to guide me?
I will have no one but myself.
—then I feel him all at once, he seizes control of my right arm and guides me, and my hand finds a button I did not know existed, deploying a parachute that slows my frantic descent—
“May I tell you a secret, little sister?” Hringar asks, withdrawing something from his pocket and hiding it in his fist.
I rub my hands against my cheeks and nod.
Hringar looks at me sternly. “Promise to tell no one else?”
“Promise.”
—the world is large and looming and throws open its arms in an embrace, welcoming me, beckoning me, a comet become a meteorite—
“Here is my secret,” he says.
When he opens his fist, he holds a golden star in the palm of his hand. In the darkness of the room, it shines with the brilliance of a sun. I take the gift in my childish fingers, and with the surety of knowledge I do not know how I possess, I pull the golden light to my mouth, slip it between my lips, and swallow.
I devour the star.
—there is nothing but the ground, nothing but the brown, nothing but the blood, nothing but me in this armor and I am dying, will die, will lose everything in this crash and—
“I promise I will never leave you.”
I feel I am choking on the star, that it grows in my throat, and my pupils flare wide, taking in all the light and shadow around me, but I focus on him, on Hringar, on my big brother.
“Always,” he promises.
I fight, like a good warrior, but I choke and then—
—and then—
Darkness.
* * *
I TASTE BLOOD on my tongue when I wake. I am cold, but I am… not dead.
The helmet display is cracked, half fuzzy pixels, the other half static. The only thing I see above me is a gray sky filled with thick black clouds and silver satellites, drifting lifelessly in orbit.
I try to move my hand. Feel only the wetness of blood.
No, I am not dead… not yet. But soon.
I want to close my eyes and rest. Want to slip back into whatever dream I was having of a childhood I do not remember. Would I be able to find out more, if I were to allow myself to drift away? Or is it just another pretty lie my mind has concocted to soothe me?
I cannot lie here, cannot die here, if I want to avenge Paola and Eden and all the others who have gone before me. I can almost imagine Eden here, red hair blazing, as she kicks the Ironskin and jolts me inside.
“Get up!” she would say, and her fury would spur me into action despite the overwhelming pain. “Stop lying there, feeling sorry for yourself.”
And she would be right. I do feel sorry for myself.
So get up.
It is hard to convince myself to do so when every piece of me cries out in agony. I cannot feel my legs, but I can move my right hand, and inch by desperate inch, I shift until I can reach the emergency release button.
I press it, my shoulder wound screeching, and the Ironskin bucks as it opens, vomiting me halfway out onto the frigid, hard ground. I swallow whatever sobs rise within me, my joints aching as if a knife were shoved between them, the plugsuit coated in dried blood. Immediately I begin shivering. It is so cold I can see my breath on the air.
I had the thought before I launched that I would not live long on Earth even if I were to survive the fall, and that thought returns to me now as I crawl the rest of the way out of the Ironskin and curl into myself on the ground.
I need to stand up. I need to walk. I need to find somewhere warm, because if I do not, the cold will kill me before anything else can.
I pull my arms beneath me. Move into a sitting position. Ignore the screaming of my body, the weakness in my limbs, and ready my legs to stand. They are harder to convince, and I wobble as I use the Ironskin to push myself to my feet.
Though my legs quiver beneath me, as weak as if they have never felt gravity before, I survey the land around me. My heart sinks as I turn, as I find that it is brown and flat and featureless in every direction.
I suppose it doesn’t matter which way I go, if they are all the same.
I take my first step. My leg buckles beneath me, and I fall. Hit the ground with a force that aches in my bones. Cry out in pain, and my voice echoes on the dead plains around me.
For a moment, I allow myself to wallow in the anguish that consumes me. But only for a moment, because this will not be what kills me.
There is nowhere to go but forward.
Forward, where I will find a way to return to Mars. Forward, where I will hunt Aunt Marshae and do what I should have done on the Juno. Forward, where I will find the truth of all who betrayed me and pay them back in kind.
A noise above me jerks me out of my thoughts. I roll onto my back and stare into the featureless gray sky. For a second, I cannot find what made the noise, but then I spot it.
A ship.
Something falling behind me, dropping to earth and retracing my exact path.
I do not know who they are, but I do not doubt that they are here for me.
I grit my teeth and dig my nails into the dirt. Pull my arms beneath me. Prepare to stand, to force myself onward.
Because there is nowhere to go but forward, and I am not giving up.
CHAPTER 49 THE FIRST SISTER OF CERES
I want to thank you, Aunt Briana, for watching over Ceres in my absence. It is with a full heart that I report I am on my way back with a new First Sister of Ceres at my side.
Message excerpt from Aunt Marshae, head of the Order of Cassiopeia
“First Sister of Ceres.”
It’s strange, the spike of pride I feel at that title when it means nothing to those below the surface. Growing up, I never cared who was in charge because it didn’t change anything. Even now, I half expect them to be addressing Astrid at my side.
But of course not. She’s gone. I’ll probably never see her again. And even if I did, she wouldn’t consider me a friend.
“We’re landing at the Temple now, First Sister,” the soldier says over the intercom. I shift in my seat, nose curling at the musty and slightly sweaty smell of the cabin. The journey from the Juno to Ceres’s surface wasn’t a long one, but the white noise from the dropship’s engine threatened to send me to sleep nonetheless. I’ve been sleeping poorly since… well, since that night on the Juno.
Are you the First Sister of Ceres? Astrid accuses in my memory, eyes wide with hurt.
The pilot puts us down in front of the multitiered stone building, and I exit via the extending ramp. It’s late, and a bad day at that. I rub my lower back, swallowing against the sharp ache, as I look up at the stairs—all two hundred of them—that lead up to its imposing columned entrance. I swallow a curse—if Astrid hadn’t turned the courtyard into a damned garden, I could’ve landed there—before I force myself into movement. As the newly named First Sister, I should enter the Temple of Ceres on my own two feet.
I take the stairs as quickly as I can and approach the large stone doors—when the Icarii were in power, they bore two snarling lions—decorated with curling metallic flowers of gold. The guards posted on either side move as a unified force, each taking a door handle shaped like a vine and opening the entryway to welcome me inside. As I pass into the hallway, they salute me, fists pressed over their hearts, but the gesture feels hollow when the only thing I smell is the citrus scent of cleaning supplies.
Inside, away from prying eyes, I move slowly through the Temple, not to admire its cold stone carvings or bathe in its golden lighting, but because my right leg burns as if it’s on fire. I can tell when it’s going to be a bad day, and when I woke up this morning with my foot aching—it always starts in my right foot before moving to my knee and then my hips and then my back—I knew this was inevitable.
By the time I reach the chambers on the second floor that Astrid claimed for the First Sister of Ceres, the guards posted along the hallway are navy hazes. I enter the sitting area and dump myself into the first chair I come across. I can’t sleep here if I want tomorrow to be any better than today, but I can rest here, at least for a little while, before I go to bed.
I feel something shift behind me—someone moving in the apartment—and I turn quickly, my hands balling into fists as if I could possibly fight off an attacker.
Aunt Marshae emerges from the office area—who else would’ve taken these chambers but her?—a pile of biopapers tucked beneath one arm. I flatten my hands on my lap—embarrassingly, one has pale patches over my knuckles, so I hide it beneath the other.
“Lily,” she says, “it took you long enough.”
I don’t stand to greet her. Should I? Does Aunt Marshae outrank me now that I’m the First Sister of Ceres? I stay rooted to the chair, if only because of the pain.
“Are these my chambers or yours?” I ask. “You’ll have to forgive me if I’ve made a mistake.”
“They’re yours,” Aunt Marshae assures me. “I was just waiting for you.”
“Apologies for my tardiness, then,” I say as kindly as I can. “The soldiers of the Juno seemed desperate for reassurance after everything that happened with…”
Astrid. I don’t say her name.
“Yes. Her.” Aunt Marshae’s upper lip curls as if she’s taken a sip of vinegar. She acts as if she were the one who woke up with Astrid pointing a gun in her face, and I have to swallow that thought down with all the other insults. Aunt Marshae threw me before the scythe to save her own skin, and I won’t forget it.
“We traced the Ironskin to Earth, to the west coast of the African Multinational Territory, but by the time security forces arrived, there was nothing to find.” Aunt Marshae’s grip on the biopapers tightens, nails bending them, fingers turning white. “Scavengers had even started dismantling the armor for parts.”
As my heart speeds at the good news—Astrid could be alive, Astrid could be out there—I keep my face as blank as possible. “Perhaps she perished on the journey. A soldier reported shooting her, after all. Offer a reward throughout the AMT for her, dead or alive, and see if anyone reports finding a body.”
Aunt Marshae strides across the room and settles in a chair across from me. The sharp tang of her perfume stings my nostrils. At first, I think she’ll reprimand me for speaking out of turn, but instead she offers a rare smile. “Wise,” she says. “It’s bothersome, though. We had her cornered. She was on a ship, for Goddess’s sake. She only could have escaped because she had help on board.”
Does Aunt Marshae suspect me? I must put those suspicions to bed. “That’s why I spent the day with the soldiers of the Juno. I hoped that one of them might admit to knowing something we could use to track down the culprit or culprits.”
“And?”
“Alas, if someone has a burdened conscience, they chose not to speak to me about it.”
“Disappointing, First Sister of Ceres.”
My lips twitch, but I don’t allow my smile to falter.
“Still, Aunt Margaret is exceedingly proud of you. She would be, that stuffy old bitch.”
Again, a muscle in my face spasms, this time near my eye. Is she trying to get a rise out of me by insulting the Aunt I’m closest to? Or does she expect me to agree after I fought with Aunt Margaret over Astrid?
How could you? I asked her again and again after Astrid was stripped of her title and I was granted it by the Agora. How could she accept Aunt Marshae’s money? How could she give Marshae access to Nat? I had trusted her with Nat’s safety. How could she?
Aunt Margaret’s sad expression will forever be etched into my mind. “We were outplayed, Lily,” Aunt Margaret said. “I didn’t have a choice. Marshae had piles of evidence against Astrid, and even more people willing to lie about her. The only thing I could do was accept the deal to save you and me.”
Which made the weight of what we’d done fall on Astrid.
It still stings that Aunt Margaret didn’t tell me about the deal because she knew I wouldn’t like it. Stings even more that Astrid believes I had some hand in it. If I could do it all again, I would’ve helped her escape somehow… at least, I’d like to believe I would.
I pull my eye drops from my pocket, if only to give my hands something to do. “What of the bargain Aunt Margaret struck with the Agora?”
“The Order of Pyxis will have its money. And look,” Aunt Marshae says, gesturing to the room around us. “You’re here as First Sister of Ceres.” She narrows her eyes. “Proof that I keep my word.”
We’ll see, I think, administering the drops that help me in these blasted lights.
“If only you had listened to me after Mother Isabel III’s death, we would have avoided the entire ugly thing with her,” Aunt Marshae laments, once more referring to Astrid. “Continue to please me, and I will put your name forward as the next Mother. I know that’s what Aunt Margaret really wants.”
And the power that comes with it, of course. But no one ever asks what I want. I suppose that’s the trouble of the Sisterhood: anyone who wants power shouldn’t have it.
“There is… one thing that concerns me, Auntie,” I say softly. I hope I’m not laying it on too thick, but I’ve never been accused of being a poor actress. Something about being quiet and shy, about looking like an innocent girl with pleading eyes, causes people to think I’m either harmless or stupid—both of which make them underestimate me. “About Eden…”
Aunt Marshae quirks a brow. Her face is still, but more like a calm before the storm than true peace. I’ve obviously stepped onto dangerous ground. “What about the Second Sister of Ceres?” Aunt Marshae asks, refusing to give Eden a name even in death.
Why did you kill her? The words are a lump in my throat, as hard and heavy as a stone. They’re choking me, and if I don’t get them out in some way, I will suffocate on them.
“Aunt Tamar has opened an investigation into her death,” I say, carefully choosing my words. “She believes the suicide letter is inauthentic.”
Aunt Marshae’s shoulders stiffen. She watches me closely, as if she could see into the heart of me, but I haven’t let anyone see into my heart for so long, Aunt Marshae could look for the rest of her life and still not find the truth.
You trusted Astrid, my conscience whispers. You tried to help her. You opened yourself up to her.
But not fully. There are only two people in this entire universe that I’ve been completely open with, and neither of them is Astrid. No wonder she looked at me with such accusing eyes as she pointed the gun at me. For all she knows, I’m just as bad as Aunt Marshae.
“Aunt Tamar’s investigation,” Aunt Marshae says, dragging me back to Ceres, “does not concern you, First Sister of Ceres.”
Her words are a warning, a slap on the back of the hand. I don’t heed them. “The night before Eden’s death, she visited with Aunt Tamar at length.”
A tremor runs through Aunt Marshae’s hands. “Did she speak with you afterward?” she asks, and that quaver in her voice, that naked fear in her face, is exactly what I wanted to see, what I needed to confirm that my suspicions were right.
