NINE

7.4 km from flash curtain

A MAN IN a gray uniform walks the length of our group, his eyes bouncing from one face to the next, like he’s analyzing some invisible data. He murmurs something to a Strider.

“All men, come with me,” the soldier calls.

“No—” I grasp Dram’s hand through the chain links of our binders. “Your Radband,” I gasp. The men are being ushered toward the curtain, and I’m terrified for him. His body can’t take more exposure.

“Orion—” Dram leans down, his voice low, urgent. “Take off your bonding cuff first chance you get.” I stare at him, derailed by his train of thought. “They think we’re Conjies.”

“But—”

“They’ll cut off your hands, Orion!”

He drags his bound hands through his hair and tears free the bit of birch wood, then the acorn. His kohl-lined eyes meet mine, and I don’t tell him that he still looks exactly like a free Conjie. He pulls at the sash tied at his hips, tears it off with a rending of silk. I glance at the bits of shell and carved wood I sewed on it myself, crushed underfoot as I’m jostled away from him. He shoves back and reaches for me. Cold metal presses my cheeks, and the cirium links pinch my skin as his bound hands draw me close.

“Find a way out,” he says, and then he’s gone, swallowed by the crowd.

Dram. We’ve been pulled apart before, but this time there’s a finality to it. This time, he’s wearing an amber Radband and heading to a processing tent in the cordons.

They steer me into a line where a grim-faced Gem walks from person to person, unlocking our binders. My fingers go to my bonding cuff. I haven’t taken it off since the day Dram placed it on my wrist. I follow his movement through the crowd as he’s herded toward a processing tent. He turns, and my gaze collides with his.

His bonding cuff drops to the dirt.

Take it off, he mouths.

My fingers fumble at the interlocking bands. I remember when he twisted them into place. The night he showed me the stars.

Hurry. Dram’s worried blue eyes follow me as I’m suddenly pushed forward.

My cuff falls to the ground, and I watch as it’s trampled into the dirt.

Step in my steps? I’d asked Dram that night.

Always, ore scout.

I search for him, but he’s lost from view, surrounded by Striders. Men shout and a current of unease ripples through the processing station. Men and women, dressed in uniforms I’ve never seen before, patrol the loading docks before the hovers. They don’t wear Radsuits or headpieces, and their sleeves are cut away to reveal the glowing symbols in their forearms.

Gems. And yet … different. They carry no visible weapons, but the threat they emit is stronger than the Striders’.

“What are they?”

A girl at my side leans close and answers. “Vigils. From Ordinance.”

Vigils. I remember Aisla drawing an inverted V in the snow. If you ever see this symbol on a Codev … run.

A pair of them walk past, and they read each face like a screencom. I get the impression they’re evaluating data the rest of us can’t see. I duck my head, my heart pounding.

Striders urge us toward the red tents, and all at once, I smell it: burning flesh. Bile rushes to my throat. I stumble, and the woman at my heels slams up against me.

“Keep moving,” a Gem in a gray suit orders.

I struggle to move, my legs two numb sticks, because now I can hear the screams. Mere told me once, in halting, spare words, of the day she was Tempered. It was the only time I saw her strength diminished, as if the weight of the experience was still too much for her to bear. I could barely stand to listen as she described the physics in red uniforms, the smell of cauterized stumps, the liquid burn of cirium injected through tubing into arms.

Beside the canvas entrance, people lie on the ground where they’ve fainted from the procedure. I weave on my feet, unsure I’ll even make it that far.

“I’m not a Conjuror,” I whisper. But my terrified murmur is lost to the wind and screams filling this dead place.

The woman behind me slumps to the ground. They force us forward, and she’s heedless of the feet crushing her hands, legs knocking her head. I crouch and grasp her hands. Hands she won’t have much longer.

“I have friends who went through this,” I say, helping her up. “We’ll make it through.”

“Noncompliant Conjurors,” a man calls from a platform. He wears red bars on the sleeves of his uniform. “As Constable of the Overburden, I order you processed according to your crimes,” he announces, his voice flat, like he’s said the words so often they no longer have meaning. “After your Tempering, you will be given the opportunity to serve Alara and earn remediation for your noncompliance.”

My ears prick at the word earn. It is a lie. One the Congress has perfected.

“How can we serve our city-state without glenting hands?” I say, loud enough that everyone around me turns. The constable looks stricken—he’s apparently not used to his listeners responding. A Strider winds through the line toward me.

“Tempered Conjies perform a vital role,” the soldier says, his voice amplified behind his face shield. “They make up the squads that head into the cordon. Since you’re eager to know, I’ll move you to the front of the line.” His gloved hand clamps around my wrist and I’m towed forward.

They are going to cut my hands off. They will shove tubes of cirium up my arms and cauterize the stumps. I am next in line. But somewhere between tearing off my bonding cuff and listening to the constable, my anger bubbled up past my fear. I’m so full of terror, there’s no room to contain my rage.

We are close enough to the flash curtain that I sense its reach and pull. Even now, the flash curtain sends tendrils of energy snaking past its boundaries. And no one here has any idea.

The Strider stands so close to me that his electrified armor lifts the hairs on my arms. And then, suddenly, it doesn’t. The low hum of his suit stutters, like a hover engine stalling out. I leap at him, and he falls back, taken off guard by my attack. He hits the ground hard as my weight slams into his chest. His eyes widen, and he gasps for air.

“Not so tough without your suit,” I growl. He makes a wheezing sound, and I lean down into his whitening face. “I will stand at the front of your glenting formation, and lead them right out of the cordon.” His hands fist in my hair, but I’ve got my arm wedged across his windpipe. “With or without my hands!”

I’m pulled off the Strider. Rough hands shove me forward, and the electrified armor hums to life once more. Now tackling a soldier like that would kill me. But it was enough. The curtain interfered with their tech just long enough for me to make a point.

As I’m pushed toward the processing tent, white flowers float down, petals twirling on wind drafts like snow. Small white blossoms—Roran’s flowers—like the one I handed to Mere through the fence of Cordon Four. My Conjie family knows the story, and someone here used their last moments of conjuring to send a message.

Hope.

I search among the faces and find Roran. He nods once, his expression solemn. Whatever happens next for all of us, this isn’t the end. We will find a way.

I’m swept toward a processing tent, my boots crunching over bloodstained sand.

“Move, Conjie,” the Strider orders. He shoves me, the edge of his armored sleeve brushing me enough to shock. My breath stutters, and I lurch between the tent flaps.

Blood. Heat.

It’s a visceral wall of sensation. I can practically see remnant pain radiating from the instruments, the table, the bucket of vomit by my foot. The stench singes my nostrils, and I gag. Torment has a smell, and it is its own punishment.

My courage flees, and terror takes hold.

“I’m Physic Conrad,” a man says, as I’m steered toward the gleaming metal table. He offers me a brief explanation of the process, his tone gentle, like what he does here is not butchering. He works a cord over my right hand, tightening it so that my arm slides forward, wrist exposed.

“I’m not—” My words catch in my throat. “Not a Conjuror,” I say louder. The assistant looks at me, but no one speaks. I suppose they’ve heard this before.

My scout senses prickle, awakening to the presence of so much flash dust. The incinerator is an arm’s reach away, a smaller version of the one we used in Cordon Two to deposit bodies and gain access to Sanctuary. The thought makes my stomach heave. They are going to incinerate parts of my body right in front of me.

The assistant pulls the cord, and my arm slides across the table. “I have pendants,” I gasp. “Memorial pendants. Only Subpars wear them!”

The physic’s gaze slips to the blue and yellow pieces of glass that once held my mother’s and brother’s ashes. They look like Conjie adornment.

“Proceed, Strider,” Conrad murmurs.

The soldier makes a motion with his hand, some kind of salute, then steps to the table. “For the crime of sedition against our city-state,” he says, his voice hard as steel, “by the authority granted by the commissaries of Alara—”

“She’s a Subpar!” a voice shouts. We all turn as a man breaks into the tent. “Don’t Temper her! She’s not a Conjie!” Dram shoves his way forward, and the Strider seizes him. “She’s an ore scout—the best there is. You can use her!”

The Strider’s head swivels from Dram to me, like he’s assessing a foreign threat. One of the Ordinance soldiers—a Vigil—leaves her post and walks toward me.

“She’s got a Radband!” Dram shouts, fighting the soldier holding him. He gets one arm free and tears his sleeve up, baring his forearm. “Look at her wrist!” He holds his toward the Vigil, the biotech that’s marked him from birth as the Congress’s miner.

“Show me her other wrist,” the Vigil demands. The Strider draws up the sleeve of my left arm, working the fabric back to reveal my glowing yellow Radband.

“Westfall tech,” she murmurs. Her eyes narrow on me. “Who are you?”

My name sticks in my throat. What if Bade is right, and they’ve heard about me here? What will these people do to the Scout, who crossed the cordons with a cure?

“Orion Denman,” I whisper.

The impact of my admission ripples through the soldiers. They share glances with each other, but not the Vigil. Her eyes are locked on me.

“We found these,” says a Strider, walking to her side. He holds our bonding cuffs. Dram’s gaze meets mine, then flicks away. If they discover we’re linked, it won’t take them long to figure out who we are.

“Subpars with Conjie bonding cuffs,” the Vigil murmurs, examining our bands. She reads the words etched inside. “Step in my steps.” Her brows push together. “What is that?”

“Cavers’ creed,” I say softly. “Something we say down the tunnels.”

“He said you were a scout?”

“Yes.”

“Scout,” she muses, her fingernail scraping over the words on the cuffs. She strides to the waste bucket and drops them in. “Bring the boy here.” Two Striders bracket Dram and drag him forward. “Your name,” the Vigil demands.

Dram stares at her like his eyes are weapons. If my name was bad, his is so much worse—son of the leader of the resistance. My name has the power to rally people to hope; his, the ability to tear the Congress apart.

“I don’t ask twice,” the Vigil says. She grips my arm and pain riots through me. My cry seizes in my throat as I convulse.

“Stop!” Dram shouts, lurching toward me. Blood trickles from my nostrils. I am in agony, my nerves raw, scorched—too much too much! Dimly, I’m aware of Dram shouting.

“Fire, stop!” he cries. “It’s Berrends. I’m Dram Berrends.” The Vigil lifts her hand and I sag, swaying on my feet. Her eyes narrow on Dram as if she’s registering something the rest of us can’t see.

“Secure them in a Delver’s pod,” she commands. “I need to alert the council.”

The soldiers leap into action, hauling Dram and me away from the others, away from the scents and sounds of agony. I work to regain my footing, as I strain to see past the soldier’s shoulder, to see Roran. He’s no longer in line. Which means he’s facing a physic like Conrad, and a vat of cirium.

“How can you do this?” I hiss at the Strider gripping my arm.

“I don’t make the laws.”

“You think that since you don’t wield the knife, you’re not responsible for that butchery?”

“Orion.” Dram shoots me a warning look.

“They brought this upon themselves,” the Strider answers. “The rules of compliance are clear.”

“Where are you taking us?” Dram asks.

“Delver’s pod,” he replies. “If I let you walk on your own, you going to give me trouble?”

I shake my head, and he releases me, keeping one hand on his gun. “Quit dragging the boy, Nills.”

If anything, the Strider’s grip on Dram tightens. “You know who he is?”

“I heard the Vigil, same as you.”

“This kid’s father blew up a squad of soldiers.”

“So hurting him’s gonna make you feel better?”

“Damn right it will.” He presses a sequence into his screencom, and his armor hums to life, buzzing with current. The Striders lift their rifles at the same time. I freeze when my escort steps in front of me.

“Stand down.” He levels his rifle at Nills.

The man gapes in shock. “I think you’re confused about who’s the enemy, Greash.”

“Anyone noncompliant,” Greash answers. “And right now that’s you. The Congress wants these Subpars. Alive.” Time suspends itself as we all wait to see if reason will relax Nills’s trigger finger.

“You’d kill me to protect this subhuman?”

“I don’t have to kill you to stop you.”

Nills swears and lowers his rifle. “Don’t give me a reason, Berrends,” he says to Dram. “Next time I’m not yielding.” His gaze shifts to me. “You’re the one they call Scout?” Dread tingles along my spine, worse than the cordon embers burning my exposed skin. “You’re a lot smaller than I imagined.” He makes a sound like a laugh and a sneer mixed. “I think people made up half the stories I’ve heard about you.” He leans in, so close I can smell his acrid breath. “You’re nothing here,” he says softly. “A girl in a cordon, and you’re going to die.”

“You’ll need more than words to beat me down,” I murmur. Nills just shakes his head.

“You’re already beaten, Subpar. You just don’t know it yet.”