ONE MONTH AGO
The generals planned to take the naval base at night. With the base sitting on open beach, its straight-edged walls just brushing the jungle and its campus otherwise exposed, darkness only played to a Theuman advantage. It would be a mobilized attack, consisting of all the labor camps that had fallen and been resurrected under Theuman control, aided by Yarongese freedom fighters. They had the advantage of the dark, local expertise, and the Congmi war armor, yet Kochin still held his breath with aching nervousness. Too much hinged on tonight, all of it out of his control. If they could not siege those brick walls, if he could not find the documents he needed, if Daltanny had never even discovered his answer …
Well, then all this would be for nothing.
Kochin clenched his fists to quell the tremor in his hands. They’d divided up the battlefield as a twelve-hour clock with the base at its center, and he’d been assigned to five o’clock—the thick of the jungle, where the hill sloped up to overlook the water. He imagined the island in its prime, back before any foreign touch: the cradle of the earth curving around the bay like a lover curled in bed, the dark water a perfect mirror of the Star Belt, the white-sand beaches unstained by spilled blood.
Now, the geometric, concrete eyesore of the Daltan naval base marred the landscape like a pale scab, starkly separated from the rest of the island by austere walls, cubic compounds, and chained fences. Docks jutted into the water, some lined with battleships but most empty; the majority had been drawn out into naval warfare by the Theuman navy this morning.
Kochin didn’t know what conquering the naval base meant to Theumas. There was talk in the air: freedom restored to Yarong, eliminating the closest Daltan threat to Theumas. Despite his mother’s roots on this island—his roots on the island—Kochin couldn’t find the energy to care about those far-off plans. There was only one thing on his mind.
She was with him now in the silence and darkness. Nhika’s apparition appeared everywhere and nowhere, her figure lingering at the edge of his vision only to disappear when he turned, replaced by the shadow of a fellow soldier. But he knew she was there, could feel her warmth against the sticky humidity of the jungle night. Perhaps her ghost was hanging on to the outcome of this night as much as he was—because this battle determined everything. Wordlessly, he and the rest of his squadron watched the base, waiting for the signal to advance.
It came as a silent flash in the night: a lone meteor, the blaze of a mortar arcing through the sky with a smoke trail to follow. Half a dozen more launched in its wake, and as they reached their apogee, every soldier around Kochin held their breath.
Sound only returned to the jungle as the mortars landed. The blast was a sharp knife, a clean slice through the whisper of the leaves, and a cloud of debris plumed up from the southernmost naval complex. All at once, the beach exploded to life.
Great lights turned on in the complex, whiter than any electric light Kochin had seen before. It blinded him to look at them, so he kept his gaze low as he followed the forward shuffle of his squadron, picking his way down the hillside. Resembling ants from a crushed mound, little Daltan soldiers scurried around the base, assimilating into some defensive position, as alarms wailed through the jungle. Kochin heard the familiar whir and click of war armor as Guardians mobilized, tearing their way through the foliage.
Now, he was grateful for the weeks he spent in boot camp. With the disadvantage of darkness, this forested slope would’ve been untraversable if not for the habits formed during that time, the instincts that kept him light on his feet as the ground fell away beneath him and the stamina that kept him going even as his legs burned.
When he reached the base of the hill, the Guardian leading his squad had already breached the fence. The devastation in his wake was animallike, as though an ox had raged through a chain-link fence, dragging the posts with it and bowing metal bars under unnatural strength. Kochin and the other soldiers slipped in behind it, ducking away from the scattered fire of mounted guns.
“Help me!” cried a strangled voice, drowned in panic. Kochin dipped in that direction, separating from his squadron under a spatter of brick dust. Bright beams of light swept near his position, then over the injured soldier. Kochin waited for them to clear before creeping forward, keeping close to the wall as his comrades advanced their front under the cover of a Guardian. By the stroboscopic light of gunfire, the war armor looked like something out of a nightmare, impossibly fast and fearfully strong. Fire sprayed from its limbs and bullets sparked off its plating, drawing fear even into Kochin’s throat. The Congmi logo was visible on the breastplate; it may have been the last thing so many soldiers saw before they fell. In Theumas, the Congmi name was synonymous with innovation; to the Daltans, it would mean nothing but violence.
Turning his gaze forward, Kochin reached the injured soldier. PHUA, read her ID tag. She was clutching her shoulder with both hands, a stripe of blood running down her cheek and teeth clenched with grit. She panted heavily, eyes wide with panic though she tried to hide it behind a falsified fortitude.
He dropped to a knee. Slung his pack around. Drew out trauma shears. It was too loud to hear his own breath over the rolling thunder of gunfire, too loud even to hear Phua as her lips moved. She was asking him something, but the words were lost to the clamor.
He made a gesture for her to let him see the wound. Her lips were thin with reluctance as she loosened her fingers, but not so much that he could see the extent of the damage. He soothed her as he sheared away her vest, visualizing the wound even before her blood-damp shirt fell away from it. It was a shot through her ribs, and the metallic taste that rose on his tongue told him the bullet was still lodged somewhere in there. The wound sucked air and he could feel the burble of blood in her lungs, red in his vision. It drew him back in time, to a hospital hallway drenched in moonlight where he drowned in his own blood. There was Nhika bent above him, so close. Tears streaked her cheeks, pupils blown with distress.
He saw the bullet trace a line through the air, spinning on its axis as it embedded itself in Nhika’s chest. Time slowed to a crawl as she recoiled, the full spectrum of her shock and pain playing on her face in torturous clarity. Her name snatched the breath from his throat as she fell away, hand gripping his shoulder and eyes glazed with anguish.
“Help me, Kochin,” Nhika cried, the words breathless.
Help me. He reached out, but she was too far, and his body had failed under his control. How? How could he help her when his gift could only take from her? When there was no way to return what she had given him? When he was not enough? Help me.
“Help me!” Hands snatched at his coat lapels, yanking him forward. Kochin blinked back to the battlefield. Phua had grabbed him close, her bloodied grip tight around his jacket and her eyes bugged with panic. “Please.”
Kochin let out a shuddering breath, heartbeat ramming its way out of his rib cage. The vision was slow to clear until he saw the glare of moonlight off Dr. Santo’s gun was just the blare of the base’s lampposts, and the smell of blood was not from him, but from Phua. His hands shook violently when they never had before, and the gunfire was suddenly overwhelming. He wanted to be anywhere but here; he yearned for the warmth of his houseboat, for the comfort of Nhika’s palms against his.
Instead, he clamped his fingers down over congealing blood. “You’re going to be all right,” he assured her, and whether or not she believed him, some of the tension seeped out of her body.
Now redrawn into reality, Kochin worked fast, digging up gauze and bandages from his bag and stopping the bleeding. It was at least a clean entry, easy to cover with a chest seal. He leaned in close to say, “Can you walk?”
She tried with great effort, but he stopped her when he saw the pain spike in her expression. Kochin expanded the field stretcher hooked to his bag and helped her roll on before draping a blanket over her. Even in the heat of the tropical summer, he worried that shock could set in quickly. He gave her something for the pain before dragging her out under the threat of crossfire. In his luck, his squadron had pushed toward the middle of the naval base, all fronts of combat converging toward the center, the vanguard fronted by those Guardians. Still, Kochin was vigilant for the dark brown uniform of a Daltan soldier, reassured by the weight of the gun at his hip. All he saw was the blue-and-black livery of Theuman infantry as he dragged his patient around the curve of the hill, where the medics had set up triage under the protection of sharpshooters.
His companions rushed to help his patient when he arrived. Kochin set down the handles of the drag stretcher, only now noticing how his palms burned with fatigue. His muscles shook, shoulders aflame, and his heartsoothing felt the sourness of acid in his legs. He’d turned to help his patient when a rumble shook the earth, the sound of a collapsing building and an upward draft of concrete dust to follow. Kochin whipped his attention back to the naval base, eyes widening with horror as he saw a mountain of rubble where one of the towers once stood.
No … no, no, no! The word caught in his throat; he was too afraid to say it aloud, too afraid to be anything but a Theuman combat medic, ready and loyal. But the Theuman mortars and armored soldiers were collapsing buildings. The very thing he’d come here for may well be lost under a mound of rubble. If the Theuman forces planned on leveling the naval base in their siege, he needed to find any Daltan research within first.
“I’m returning for another!” he called to his medic-in-arms, then sprinted back toward the base.
Gunfire welcomed him as he reentered the envelope of battle. Kochin threw himself behind a wall as a mounted gun rounded its aim toward him, shielding his head in his arms when its bullets buried themselves into the dirt beside him. Somewhere from the far end of the base, he heard a blast that lit the sky for a chilling moment. Seconds later, he felt the wave of heat pass over him, choking his breath and drying his eyes. Braving the open, Kochin edged toward the corner and threw a glance toward the expanse of the base. If he had to guess, the research ward would’ve been in the central compound, rather than the peripheral hangars. He’d have to infiltrate the heart of the base, somehow.
Serendipity brought his answer. A mortar rained from the sky like a shooting star, whistling as it fell. It crashed through the ceiling of the compound, its blast carving a yawning hole in the side.
Sensing a lull in the gunfire, Kochin ran. His trajectory took him into the open. Broad-beam lights swept across his path and bullets shrieked past him as he sprinted. His legs pushed harder than they ever had before. Every nerve in his body tensed in anticipation of pain, a bullet to end him or a blast to cripple him.
Someone called for a medic. He registered their voice automatically above the cacophony, and for just a moment, his steps faltered. Their voice was ripe with desperation and muted under hailing artillery. Would anyone else hear them? Would anyone else know?
For a moment he stood frozen in the open, stunned into inaction. But then another mortar glanced off the base, collapsing a portion of its corner, and Kochin started forward again. He drowned out the cries for a medic with the heaviness of his own breathing; there was no time for anything else. In the moment, all he knew how to do was run.
A band of Daltan soldiers found him just before he reached the cover of the building. They called something out in Daltan and his eyes widened as they turned rifles toward him. Kochin leaned forward in a full sprint as gunfire unleashed in his direction, then he lunged for the cover of the wall. Pain traced a length across the back of his neck as he did, a bullet grazing skin.
Kochin hit the far wall of the building hard. He’d made it to cover but allowed himself no time to rest before sprinting through the darkened hallways of the naval base. His hand reached up toward the new wound, finding a steady bleed down his neck. If the bullet had been any lower, he would’ve been left with a spine too shattered for even heartsoothing to fix.
As he continued on, turning wherever he saw fit, the sounds of the Daltanny soldiers’ pursuit dimmed to a silence and the walls of the compound muffled the terror outside. At last, when an empty hallway full of dead lights stretched before him, Kochin allowed himself a moment to breathe.
He was here. After all this time, he’d made it.
This part of the compound had been emptied. Linoleum floors and stark walls made up the interior of the naval base, and there was little here to suggest he was still on Yarong. This was the Daltanny he’d read about in textbooks, the austere concrete architecture carving a place for itself on this part of the beach. All the signage was in Daltan, but the language shared a root with Theuman, and he guessed at the meaning of phrases as he hobbled forward, hand on his pistol. The building shook with the ferocity of an earthquake at indeterminable intervals, the rumbling brought on by the Theuman onslaught.
“Hurry. This building is due to collapse,” came a voice, and Nhika’s image sidled up from behind him.
“Nhika,” he exhaled, so relieved to see her even if only a ghost. For a blissful second, he could almost forget where he was.
“There are lights down the hall,” she warned, halting them both. He glanced up at the signage on the wall, determining that the hallway led nowhere good, and turned inward at the first junction he came to. Nhika followed, and he was briefly saddened at how his clearest memories of her were in places they weren’t meant to be.
“There!” she said, pointing to a sign above them. “‘Rechesh’—research. That sounds promising.”
He nodded. It was a part of a longer phrase, with an arrow leading down the stairs. He banked left and hastened down a floor, following signage until he came to an underground part of the base molded out of concrete and lined with cables. The electric lamps overhead still worked down here, though they swayed and flickered with each rumble traveling the earth. Dust trickled from holes in the ceiling, and he hesitated to enter these undergrounds, lest the building collapse and trap him under twelve feet of stone.
But Nhika had continued forward, and he followed her as she strode past the main foyer, where offshoot hallways extended in each direction. From somewhere down the hall, footsteps turned the corner and the shadow of a Daltan group splayed across the wall. Kochin ducked behind a corner just as they turned into his hall.
He tensed. Fire worked through his muscles, down his arm—until he was flexing his fingers in anticipation to soothe.
No, to carve.
But it never came to pass. Someone burst out of a bisecting hallway, crashing into the first of the soldiers. Bullets spattered, bulbs burst, and Kochin retreated back into cover. When next he glanced into the hallway, he found a girl standing over the bodies, a pistol in her hands.
It was the translator from earlier, but that role was ill fitting. With her shirt torn, a bandanna wrapping a wound in her arm, and cuts lacing her skin, she was a soldier.
She stepped past the downed soldiers and turned left down the hall. Once she’d gone, Kochin came out of hiding.
“Seems like you’re not the only one who abandoned your station,” Nhika said.
It did nothing to lighten his guilt, having forsaken those voices outside who had called for a medic.
Kochin moved past the Daltan soldiers—dead. Their eyes were like glass, and in death, their expressions looked like those of an automaton awaiting a command roll. Despite himself, he had sympathy for them—he had to believe the dead deserved some remorse, no matter their crimes. It might’ve been the only way he’d ever find forgiveness.
Once he found the research ward, he began his exploration. Some of these rooms were cells, others large spaces with empty beds, and he recognized a couple as operating rooms, now decommissioned. With rising disappointment, he wondered if he had wandered into the wrong part of the base or, worse, if any remaining records had all been archived off-island. Room after room, abandoned and desolate, stained with oxidized blood and salt water. His chest squeezed tight with swelling defeat before he swallowed it back down, because he refused to accept this end. He had not made himself a bloodcarver over concrete dust and the whispered memories of tortured Yarongese.
… Had he?
“Kochin,” Nhika’s voice came, delicate and small. He glanced up at her, and maybe the sadness showed through his eyes, because she gave him a wan smile. “It’s okay.”
“I know. I haven’t given up.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
He swallowed. “What did you mean?”
“Are you really doing this for me?”
“I…” A dozen responses came to him—that he was doing this for their future, one with her in it; that she’d sacrificed herself so that he could walk home, so he would pay it back in kind—but none of those excuses felt apt. “What else would I be doing it for?”
“I don’t know. Guilt. Grief. Loneliness?”
The suggestion burned in his throat. Kochin sucked in a breath through his teeth, collecting the words. There was grief and loneliness sown into his love. Memories of her tormented him because he lived while she did not. He had replayed those encounters over and over, pinpointing every error that had led to her deathbed. First it was the heartsoothing books, the lure that had enticed her into his world, the first thread to tether them together. Then it was the pistol aimed at her head; he should not have asked her to come with him. He should’ve scared her away with the threat of the bullet, convinced her to flee to the Dog Borough and wipe her hands clean of the Congmis. Finally, it was the truth. He had shown her all of his cracks—she was a heartsooth; he should’ve known she would try to heal them. But he had asked her to give when he knew he could not reciprocate.
The guilt was the worst of all. It had taken him time and all his mother’s reassurances to come to terms with the incompleteness of his gift. He was so sure it came from his Theuman half; his mother had told him the rest would come in time. And it had only taken one night in the Theumas Medical Center to remind him that, whatever his excuses, it hadn’t been enough. Not to save himself and not to save Nhika.
Sometimes, he wondered—could he have stopped her from healing him? Could he have given back all that he had taken from her?
“It doesn’t matter why I do it. It only matters that I bring you back,” he said, stepping past the ghost of her. No one else would do it; no one else had the power to.
A few rooms remained. The Daltans had gone. Kochin was alone down in this research ward, with only Nhika’s memory to keep him company. So, he got to work, rifling through room after room, hope dwindling as he did but the determination unshakable. If not in this building, then the next. If not on Yarong, then in Daltanny. If not there, then—Mother damn it all, he’d figure it out himself if he had to.
It was with the final room, one whose counters were assorted with a variety of rusted instruments and whose chairs had been strewn with some level of disarray, that he found it. A metal cabinet nestled into the corner with file drawers he only hoped weren’t empty. Kochin fell to the floor beside them, his legs giving out from either excitement or relief, and tried the handle. Locked, of course, but at this point, no lock could deter him.
Kochin yanked on the handle, feeling the give of the lock. Anchoring himself, he pulled harder, until metal popped and the cabinet pulled free, its drawer sliding open. And there were files, papers, folders—the cabinet opened into a trove of answers. Kochin pulled them out feverishly, skimming their contents. All in Daltan, but he looked for anything that might help, photos and scrawled notes. Anything in Yarongese, he kept; anything about vivisection, he threw aside. The answer he searched for was not in a heartsooth’s anatomy, but in their technique.
The room shook violently, metal rattling atop countertops and within the cabinet. Kochin glanced upward, hearing the moan of the ceiling and watching as cracks webbed out from the corners.
“Kochin, get out of there,” Nhika called from the entrance of the room.
“One moment,” he pressed, furiously shuffling through papers. He drew them out at random now, whatever caught his eye, anything with potential. The papers cut his fingers in his haste; the crack expanded overhead. Then he found it, a paper headlined: BLUDCARVER REINCARNE OS CADAVE? For a moment, his mind returned to Dr. Santo’s study, to papers that asked the same question.
“Kochin!” Her cry came as a shrill warning, and he glanced up just before the ceiling loosed. Kochin scrambled backward, papers in hand, barely escaping the weight of the caving stone. He stuffed the papers underneath his jacket, racing the expanding crack as it tore its way through the ceiling.
Rubble crushed close on his heels as he ran, each billow of dust stealing the breath from his lungs just as much as his fatigue did. The way he’d come from had collapsed, so he rounded the corner, toward where the Daltan soldiers had headed earlier. With each bound, the collapsing building threatened to swallow him in its closing maw. He shed his pack as he sprinted, no longer a soldier but just a boy outrunning a viper’s throat. But at last he saw deliverance, the stairway at the end of the hall. Closer and closer he drew, light dawning in his vision, until—
A blast erupted at his side, sweeping him off his feet. Everything fell to blackness before he even hit the ground.