TEN

7.1 km from flash curtain

THEY DIRECT US to one of the domed pods that stick up out of the ground in rows. I lean onto the balls of my feet and peer down through the clear roof. I can’t make out more than a circular floor and a pair of cots.

“Go on,” Greash says, ushering us toward a ladder built into the side.

“What is this place?” Dram asks.

“Safest quarters in the Overburden—other than Fortune. But that’s something altogether different.”

I descend the ladder, and cool air envelops me.

“Rest up,” Greash calls down to us. “Someone will come for you after the council decides what to do with you.”

“What’s going to happen to us?” Dram asks.

“Nothing good,” Nills answers. He tosses a bottle of water and a pair of nutri-pacs onto one of the cots. Then his camo-cloth shifts from shades of shadow to light as he climbs back up. The dome seals behind him.

Light glows above us, steady and golden, spreading around the room in a narrow ring.

“Halo,” I whisper.

“What?” Dram asks.

I collapse onto a cot. “Graham told me once about angels with glowing crowns of light.” I point to the pod lighting. “Halo.”

“Fire, I think you need sleep even more than I do.”

I laugh bleakly. “Or angels. Angels might be helpful right about now.”

“No angels here,” he mutters, falling with a sigh onto the other bed.

“None that we can see, anyway.” I toe my boots off and close my eyes.

“He called this a Delver’s pod,” Dram says. “What do you think a Delver is?”

“Someone who gets a bed,” I mumble.

“Right. Let’s hope they make us Delvers, then.”

I smile despite my exhaustion. “I think they’re already onto us, Subpar. You sort of announced it to everyone when you busted into my processing tent.”

“Ah, right. Do you think Subpars get beds here?”

I laugh. “Yes, and castles with cirium shields around them.” My cot shifts as Dram eases beside me and draws me into his arms.

“Just in case,” he whispers. I close my eyes and sigh against his chest. I listen as the spaces between his breaths grow and wonder if I’ll ever get to listen to Dram fall asleep again. We have no idea what awaits Subpars found in the Overburden.

I focus on Dram’s arms wrapped around me, the safety I feel in this moment.

Just in case they don’t give us castles.

*   *   *

The flashfall wakes me. Streaks of green and yellow wave from the other side of the domed glass roof. All at once I’m reminded that I’m back in a place of death. Dram sleeps on, even after I slip from his arms and sit up. I study his features, my chest tight. It’s possible his fatigue is the first sign of radiation poisoning. Other than his Radband indicator. The amber light that is really—

I don’t let myself finish the thought. Reeves was at red when we fought our way through the cordons, and his sickness was obvious. Maybe Dram’s indicator isn’t like mine.

And maybe the Congress is fair.

The latch on the pod lifts, and Dram jolts upright, his hair sticking up.

“You’re smiling,” he says. His voice is different when he first wakes. Deeper. I hold on to the thought like a talisman. “You remember where we are, right?” he asks, raising a brow.

“You didn’t take out the silver charm.” I saw it when he woke, tangled beneath the layers of his hair.

“Told you—that one’s important.”

“The flashfall is red,” I murmur.

“I see that.” Red aural bands mean Radlevels are high. Today will not be easy. “You shouldn’t have followed me into this hell,” Dram says.

“Step in my steps.” I touch his face, skim my fingers over the thin scars I know so well.

“Let’s go,” a soldier calls. “Time for your commissioning.” It’s the same Strider from yesterday. Greash.

We climb up out of the Delver’s pod and follow him through the camp. We pass Striders’ barracks, an infirmary, and a handful of other buildings lined up across from a massive fence with a corral tower and turnstiles. The seal of Alara waves from a pole beside a Radlevel indicator flag. Greash glances at it as we walk past.

“Try not to breathe any more than you have to,” he says.

“Tell me about Delvers,” I say. “How can we become one?” Only Delvers have access to Fortune, Aisla said. And Fortune is where the Congress has safeguarded the cure.

Greash eyes me through his face shield. “Delvers are carefully selected, or commissioned in the Trades. They’re tested in a gorge at the boundaries of the Overburden for a chance to win Fortune. Delvers with Fortune live inside the compound.”

“I thought Fortune was a place?”

“More than that. It’s a designation, a ranking higher than Striders. Inside Fortune, the Delvers take orders directly from the council.”

“So,” Dram says, “as far as commissioning goes, Delvers with Fortune are at the top. What else is there?”

Greash lifts a gloved hand toward a cluster of people clothed in Radsuits and armor. “The squads are made up of Miners and the people who protect them. We call them Dodgers. There are also Brunts.”

“What are Brunts?”

His looks away, and I sense his hesitation. “Their purpose is to draw the threats away from the Miners. They’re injected with transmitters that attract the creatures.”

I stare at him, telling myself I couldn’t have heard him right.

“They’re bait,” Dram says.

“Just until the Dodgers can take down anything that attacks.”

My eyes slide shut. I remind myself to breathe.

“The system is necessary. Efficient. Without it, the Miners are unsuccessful.”

“How many Brunts die in a day?” I ask, my voice hollow-sounding as I feel inside.

“Many,” he says, looking toward the cordon. “But their sacrifice serves a greater good.”

“What glenting good is another Subpar or Conjie death?” Dram asks.

“Flash dust,” I answer. For the good of everyone in the city. For the good of humanity.

“Flash me,” Dram mutters.

“Exactly,” I murmur.

Greash directs us toward a small crowd gathered before Gems in uniform. As we approach, he activates his suit.

“Give me more space, Subpar,” he says. “Even this setting would do some damage.”

“You didn’t have your armor charged?” I ask.

Greash shrugs, a barely discernible movement under his ridges of armor. “I only activate it if there’s a threat.” He gives me a look. “Were you planning to attack a Strider bare-handed?”

Wouldn’t be the first time. I have enough healthy fear of Striders to not speak the thought aloud. But the memory filters through my mind. The dust beneath Dad’s bed, where I crouched, hiding, as a Strider marched into the room. Glass crunching as we fought; his scream when an ore mite’s parasites dug into his skin.

“What does that patch mean?” I ask, motioning toward the patch on his sleeve, beneath the seal of Alara. It’s round, with a cresting wave at its center.

“It means I earned my commission in the Trades.”

“The Trades?”

“You Westfallers probably don’t know much about that.”

What I know is it’s the last place Dram’s father was seen. “What kind of a place is it?”

“It’s more than a place. It’s a phase of life. It’s where Alara’s youth are sent. Most of them, anyway. It’s three years of instruction and … challenges. Age sixteen to eighteen.”

“I had thought…” I search for words, difficult when all my preconceived ideas about Alara are shifting around in my head. “I used to think about girls my age in Alara. I imagined them safe.”

“Then you were half right. The girls in the Trades, though…” He shakes his head. “Nothing safe about that. How you perform in the Trades determines your role of service to the city-state. You have three years to prove your worth.”

“And if you don’t?”

“Then you remain in the outlier regions, which, trust me, isn’t something anyone wants to do.” He adjusts his armored glove, revealing a cirium hand.

Dram staggers to a stop. “You’re a Conjuror?”

“Tempered.” Greash tightens his glove. “What? You thought all Striders were Naturals?”

“Did you choose this?”

I’m glad Dram’s asking all the questions I have, because I’m too shocked to speak.

“Yes. I fought for it. I earned this.” He motions to the Strider patch on his arm, the coiled snake and its Latin banner. “Some people in Alara are rich enough to purchase their commissions. The rest of us head to the Trades.” He looks out over the cordon. “The Trades are…” He shrugs. “You learn quickly that you have to fight for what you want.”

“But you at least have a choice.”

“Choice is relative.” The words are softly spoken, but I don’t miss his caustic tone. “I know you think you had it bad in the outposts. But there are worse places.”

“How can you say that?” I step toward him, heedless of his charged armor. “We watched our friends and family die!”

“So did I. How big do you think Alara is, that everyone born there gets to stay? We’re all citizens, but a place in the city must be earned.”

“Oh, yes, I know all about earning a place in Alara!”

“Get. Back.” He bites the words out, and I realize how close I’ve gotten. “The other Striders here won’t try to protect you. You come at them, they’ll meet you halfway—and laugh as you’re shocked.”

“Why would you even want to be one of them?”

“Because there’s more than this. A city full of life and technology and hope for our future, and it needs to be protected.” He directs us into a line of people. “Stay here. They’ll commission you according to your abilities.”

“Commission,” Dram says. “That’s a grand word for sorting us into death squads.”

“You won’t be made Brunts,” he says. “They save that for the sick or the old. Or the noncompliant.” His words tingle along my nerves, a visceral warning.

I glance at Dram and see that he’s thinking the same thing. They move our line into a square patch of cordon sand, a pen where people are being separated into groups by Gems in gray uniforms.

“Be good, Rye,” he murmurs. His gaze skips over the Striders lining the fence with their feet braced, guns held at the ready. My gaze travels back to them as we wait. My vision of them is overlaid by the things Greash told us. I squint, trying to see the expressions of those with their face shields up. A few are young, like Greash, and I wonder if they wear the Trades on their sleeves. If they’ve earned the viper through a choice that wasn’t really choice.

I fought for it. I earned this.

Who or what exactly did Greash fight in the Trades?

Bade showed us maps, months ago, when we first arrived in the mountain provinces. The Trades border the sea. I assumed the region was named after our sanctioned trade zones with city-states like Ordinance. But maybe it’s more about trading the life you have for the one you want. I had always considered that a Subpar thing.

We step to the front of the line and stand before a compliance regulator. The Gem examines our Radbands. “Subpars,” she murmurs. “Miners, both.” The man beside her steps forward and appraises me.

“Are you the one they call the Scout?” he asks.

“Yes,” I answer. “I was lead ore scout of Outpost Five.”

“She’s not just any Subpar,” he says to the compliance regulator. “If what I’ve heard is true, she’s a Delver.” My ears prick at the word. Only Delvers can earn a place inside the underground compound.

“I’m commissioning her as a Miner.”

He leans in. “Meredith will want her alive.”

“If what you’ve heard is true, she’ll survive long enough for Meredith to get here and commission the girl herself.” She lifts a pile of clothes and shoves them into my arms, followed by a satchel, canteen, and items I instinctively reel back from. A flash dust pail and sifter. “Take them,” she orders.

I grasp the pail, staring her down with everything I feel. I can’t believe I’m back to being the Congress’s miner. I yank the sifter from her hand, but I’m not prepared for the memory that crashes into me.

Mere.

Roran’s mother. My friend. The woman who took in Winn with open arms, and in the next moment gave me her only hand so I’d have a chance at surviving Cordon Four. Her appendage was just like the sifter I’m grasping now. A sound escapes my lips, a breath pulled from my chest like it was punched loose.

“What about me?” Dram says, towing me back and stepping between me and the Gem. He darts a glance at me—a look of warning and understanding combined.

“Can you fight?” the man asks, sizing Dram up.

“We both can,” Dram answers.

The man hands him a rifle and a pouch of ammunition. “Don’t try shooting Striders, Gems, or anyone else. Triggering mechanism on these only recognizes the biometric signatures of vultures, gulls, and other cordon creatures. You aim at anything else, and the Striders will take you down without a second thought.”

Dram nods at me. “She’s better than anyone you’ve ever seen fighting the things in the cordons. If you’re passing out weapons—give one to her.”

“We need a scout more than we need another Dodger.”

“A … Dodger?”

“You avoid all the dangers out there—and you help everyone else do the same.”

Dram has the look he wears when he’s trying not to curse in someone’s face.

“Next!” the Gem calls.

“Wait.” I step forward, willing her to be compassionate, because I have nothing—nothing—with which to bargain. “I have a friend here,” I say quickly, my words tumbling over each other. “He was processed at the same time. A Conjie. Can you assign him to our squad?” I am the reason he is here. I don’t say those words. Perhaps my eyes do. There is a black space inside me, widening with every moment—every horrific encounter here—because I know that whatever we’re going through, it’s worse for Roran. I still have my hands.

“I could mine extra dust, work longer—”

“Your memorial pendant.”

“What?”

Her violet eyes drop to my neck. “I’ve heard that Subpars from the outposts wear them. Do you have one?”

“Two.” My voice is a stark whisper.

“Orion—” Dram says.

“Wait.” I loosen my coat and reach inside my shirt, like another part of me is going through the motions. I free my glass pendants so that they hang down my chest, one blue, one yellow.

“Don’t.” Dram bites out the word.

I remember Roran, his hands braced against the tree he conjured, laughing as it wound upward above our heads. I remember those hands touching his mother’s arm, in the place she could still feel. When she could still feel.

I slip Mom’s pendant over my head. Dram curses and kicks the dirt. He won’t watch me give this away because he knows it’s part of me—as much as my skin, or blood. Maybe more.

The Gem takes it with wide eyes and a look of delight that’s out of place on her stern features. “How … quaint. We’re told your traditions, and there’s a Subpar pendant on display in the museum. It holds someone’s ashes, right?”

“My mother’s,” I lie. Now it just holds a bit of dirt from the provinces. If it still held Mom’s ashes, I’m not sure I could’ve given even that small part of her away. With trembling fingers, I grasp Wes’s pendant and lift it over my head. I tuck my brother’s memorial glass into the Gem’s hand. “Please.” My voice breaks, which is right because I am breaking apart inside. Her fist clenches around it, and I wait to see if it will be enough.

The Gem slips my pendants into her pocket. I wonder if she has any idea, the worth of them. They are memory and promise and hope bound together and worn as a testament. Invisible threads connecting me to the people at the other end of them, on the other side of this life. They were the last tie I had to my life before, to the girl I was.

“Find your friend.” The Gem sweeps her hand toward the lines of Tempered Conjies. “I’ll assign him to your squad.”

Dram doesn’t say anything as we search, but the space between us is weighted with our unspoken words.

I can’t believe you did that.

It was all I had to give.

It wasn’t something you give away. Ever.

I think of the bonding cuff I tore off my wrist and trampled in the dirt yesterday. I am losing pieces of myself all over this stretch of leached earth.

A crowd mills around between the Striders and compliance officers, most of them cradling their arms against their chests, still coming to terms with severed limbs. Fear pushes through my veins, reminding me that I still have full circulation.

“There,” Dram says, pointing at Roran. His back is to us, his dark hair still woven with twigs, tangled now. I can’t see his hands. Or whatever the Congress has replaced his hands with.

“Roran!” I call.

“Rye, maybe it’s better if I talk to him—”

But I’m steps ahead, pushing past Tempered Conjies to get to him, to—

He knows me at once. I’m so relieved that he’s still inside there—that the horror of processing didn’t destroy him—that I’m even glad to see the resentment banked in his dark eyes. Hate is better than hollow.

“You’re going to be in our squad. We’ll look after you—” My words stop. They’ve hit the wall of Roran’s bloodshot gaze. It tells me not to come any closer, that I’ve already trespassed too much.

Dram clasps his shoulder. “If we’re going to fight our way out of this, we need to stick together.”

“Step in my steps,” Roran mutters.

I’ve earned it: the mocking tone, those words thrown back in my face. I’ve led Roran straight into his worst nightmare.