But bloodright rule has never touched the Corinthian Empire. Their emprex is appointed by a democratically elected council, and a similar system trickles down to the lower echelons of planetary and city government. It all sounds very egalitarian—and it seems to have done wonders for Isla’s transit infrastructure—but its weakness is made readily apparent in how fiercely the mob has taken root in this city.
Better for us to get clear soon.
Gal crumples up his ration pack and tosses it behind him. With a wary look toward Wen, he clambers around to my other side, dragging his pack with him. Isla’s glow cuts through his rumpled hair as he settles next to me. The open night sky is leaching away the summer heat fast, but not fast enough to calm the nervous sweat that prickles across my skin as he scoots closer.
“So that’s it, then?” Wen asks, peering around me.
“That’ll do.” Gal reaches into his pack and pulls out a jacket, tugging it over himself. “Wake me if they find us,” he mutters into my arm as he slumps against me.
I roll my eyes, resisting the urge to shove him away. Wen gives me a look, but I don’t know her well enough to read it. “He’s had a long day,” I say. A weak excuse, but it’s enough for now. Wen slumps back against the wall, folding her blanket tighter around herself as she stares out toward the downtown. The lights glimmer in her eyes. From this angle, I can’t see her burned side at all, just her pitted, uneven skin smoothed out by the darkness. “Sorry,” I offer.
She keeps staring, but her lips tighten. I think she’s done talking for tonight.
Which stings, because I’ve finally figured out the only question I want to ask her. How? I want to whisper, low enough that Gal can’t hear. How did she do it? How did she keep a thirst for revenge alive for eight years? How did she keep her fire when her enemies literally tried to scorch it out of her? Listening to her story made me realize how inadequate all of my excuses are. How did I end up broken, empty, and twisted into an Umber soldier when she’s still fighting, even though she’s the only one left who carries her cause in her heart?
I need to figure it out. And that means that we’re sticking with her for as long as that takes.
So I sit between them. Gal on my left, pretending to sleep—I know he hasn’t dropped off yet, because he always twitches when he does. And Wen at my right, her eyes fixed on distant heights. I wish I could dip into both of their heads. Know exactly what’s causing Gal’s brow to wrinkle as he tries to slow his breathing. Feel the same things Wen does as she looks out over the rooftops she was born to own. I don’t know what forces conspired to bring me here to this moment, perched between the two of them, but I think the god of this system must be playing a cruel joke on me.
On my left, power without fathom in the fragile body of a boy. On my right, a nightmare of a girl who should be ruling these streets. And in the middle, there’s me.
And I know a little of what it is to be both of them. To leave your life behind. To watch helplessly as the world turns over. To fight from the bottom to carve a place in the new order. My mind circles and circles around the places we intersect, the way everything we’ve ever done has brought us to this quiet rooftop and the three of us drifting off under an open summer night.
All the while, I push away the inescapable fact that one of us is destined to rule the galaxy.
I sleep, but not really. My consciousness comes and goes in flickers. More than once, a loud, distant crack or the rumble of a nearby engine jolts me fully awake, sending my heart hammering back to my early days on the streets, to the muffled thunder of buildings the bombardment hadn’t quite finished with collapsing in the night. Gal slumbers on, undisturbed, but when I look to my right, Wen’s watching like she already knows why that instinct is locked so deeply inside me. When our eyes meet, there’s a flicker of understanding between us. A moment where we recognize some deep, ingrained sameness.
Then we both close our eyes and drop off again.
* * *
—
As the sky starts to gray with the oncoming morning, Wen slips off, muttering something about finding a convenience store with a bathroom. My anxiety spikes the second she drops out of sight down the closest fire escape. If she ducks out on us now, we’re basically humped.
Rather than sit here and worry alone, I nudge Gal awake. He’s shifted during the night, tucking himself under the warmth of my arm, and he startles at my touch, rolling back to reclaim the distance between us once he sees that Wen is gone. “Already?” he groans, even though he’s the one who managed to sleep the longest.
“Wen’s scouting a bathroom.”
“Oh, good. My mouth tastes like rotten meat,” Gal says as he rolls onto his back.
“Tragic.” I chuckle, tilting my head up. The ship traffic above the city is sparse, the travel lines barely drawn as speeders trace their vectors several thousand feet above our heads. “What does she want from us?” I ask.
Gal shrugs. “A fast pass off-world seems straightforward enough, doesn’t it?”
“Not when that fast pass means marching right up to an Archon resistance base.”
“Honestly, I’ve warmed to it. I’ll take it over another night on a rooftop, that’s for sure.” Gal stretches, twisting until his spine pops. “And you still think it’s our best option, right?”
There’s a layer to his question that I wish I couldn’t notice. He’s wondering if I’m still with him.
When I don’t answer immediately, his face falls. “I know I’m asking a lot. I never thought it’d go this far. And look, if you want to drop the fake relationship—if that’s too hard—”
I shake my head. “You’re right. We need an excuse for privacy.”
“I…” He groans, pinching his brow. “I feel like I’m driving you away. And nothing is worth that—if I lose you, I have nothing left.”
But you will, I think. “But you won’t,” I tell him.
His weary, sleep-glazed eyes turn up to find mine. And even though his breath reportedly tastes like rotten meat, for a dizzying instant, a tug in my chest reminds me how easy it would be to lean over and close the distance between us.
“Should get moving,” I mutter, and the cold truth of that statement is enough to dislodge the dangerous moment.
CHAPTER 15
THE MONORAIL STATION is nearly empty before dawn. A few people wander the platforms, and even fewer wait out on the farthest one, where our train is due to arrive. We blend in well among them—most people outbound from the city at this hour are coming off night shifts.
I stretch out on a bench with Wen curled up beside me while Gal orders tickets at a kiosk. She wears a hoodie Gal loaned her, keeping the burned side of her face tucked safely in its shadow. “You watch him like he’s going to disappear,” she notes, then pulls a face when I scowl at her. “Just saying. I know from experience. Sometimes when you come up from nothing, it makes you hold on too tight.”