Upstairs, we shed layers of clothing on our way to the bed, our breath the only sound in the quiet. His scarred hands are surprisingly gentle on my skin.

Please, I think, as my lips crash against his. Please let me feel something that doesn’t hurt. Please let me forget myself, just for a little while.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Sirens

Corvus

My body is already half out of bed by the time my mind wakes up. One hand reaches under my pillow for my knife while the other searches for the rest of my gear. When I find only empty space beneath the bed, I pause, remembering. I’m not in the war anymore. The dark shapes stirring in the dim room around me are my siblings, not my team. We’re in Drev Dravaask, not a war zone.

I let my shoulders slump, breathing hard, and look down at the knife in my hand. No longer in the war zone, but something did wake me up. For one dizzying moment I wonder if the sound was merely a product of my imagination, just another nightmare chasing me into the real world.

But Pol rolls out of the other side of our bed and stumbles over to the window, one hand scrubbing at his eyes. He yanks up the metal shutter and peers down at the street below. The sound spills into the room then: a high-pitched wail, ringing on-off, on-off, on-off in increasingly louder segments before starting over again.

As I shake off the last remnants of sleep, fear forms a pit in my stomach. I’ve heard this siren before, in other cities and forts, but never here. I don’t know that the evacuation sirens have ever been sounded in Drev Dravaask, the underground fortress, the heart of Interplanetist territory. Why would it, when we’re so far from the front? And why would it ever be safer outside the city than within?

Drom, feet hanging off the couch and a pillow over her head, lets out a muffled groan.

“Shut the damn window,” she mutters, still half-asleep, and throws her pillow at Pol without opening her eyes. It thumps against his chest and falls to the ground, but he doesn’t even look at it, instead staring at me and the knife resting in my hand. Light from the window illuminates his silhouette.

“What’s happening?” he asks.

“The city’s evacuating.” My stomach rolls. Evacuation sirens in Drev Dravaask. A city that’s a fortress, and at least a hundred miles away from where the fighting should be.

The morning after Momma handed Altair a weapon she promised would end the war.

“We need to go,” I say, getting out of bed.

“I’ll get Momma.” Pol heads into the hall. I suspect he won’t find her there, but I need to get my other siblings up before I deal with that. Outside, other patrons are already evacuating.