3

TALIN

After the worst is done, the prisoners are dragged back into their cells to finish their transformations into Ghosts. As they’re led out of the arena, Constantine turns to me with those steely eyes and nods up at the sky.

“Go scout the tracks, Talin,” he says, “and report back to me at the National Hall. I want to make sure they are clear for the train.”

Of course, I know this isn’t the only reason for him to send me on this mission. Whenever I soar around the city walls, everyone looks up at my silhouette, fear naked on their faces. The people of Mara need to see the power of the Federation overhead, be reminded of why fighting back against Karensa is futile. I am Constantine’s champion—and his spectacle.

Though, mercifully, I was not the one to deliver Constantine’s punishment today, I remain exhausted. All I did was stand and watch. Still, the muscles of my mind tremble from the effort of holding back. Of having no choice but to obey.

Every time Constantine gives me an order, a jolt of anguish shoots through me. Will this be the time when he’s displeased with me? Will this time be when he kills my mother?

So I step forward without hesitation. My fears stay held firmly in my heart, behind the barriers I’ve erected to keep my emotions in check. Black steel unfolds from my back, clicking as metal feathers slide against one another, until my wings have opened to their full span. I bow my head to Constantine, then lift my eyes to the sky. I launch myself up with a surge.

As I soar through the air, it’s hard to resist the only part of being a Skyhunter that brings me any hint of joy. The world rushes away below me, and suddenly Constantine looks small, his slender figure disappearing from sight as I clear the height of Newage’s walls, until I’m high above the city and the people below me turn into dots. In this small moment, even as my link tethers me to the Premier, I get the illusion of freedom.

Immediately, the guilt overwhelms me. During my transformation, when I lay trembling in a recovery ward on my stomach so that my back—which had been carved and opened up in preparation for steel wings—could heal, the Chief Architect told me that I would relish the feeling of my new power. That I would become addicted to the strength of being a Skyhunter, that there will be nothing more intoxicating than the realization that I can do anything I want.

I can fly. I can destroy. I can kill at will.

I told her then that I would hate it with every fiber of my being. I’d signed it through a sheen of sweat over my entire body, my vision blurring from fresh tears. She’d understood me too—she’d seen enough of my Maran sign language over the months of my captivity to parse some of what I say.