I can hardly bear to sign back. “Talin is alive,” I tell him.

Even in the distant shadow, I can see Jeran’s face brighten at my words. “She’s here? Can we get to her? Is she one of the prisoners being loaded—”

But I shake my head before he can even finish. “No,” I respond.

“Why?”

I turn my eyes back to the girl I used to know. “Because,” I sign, “she is a Skyhunter.”

5

TALIN

Red. I’d sensed him.

I’d felt his presence while I soared over Newage. I’d felt the lilt of his emotions seeping through our link as I toured the grounds outside the city walls with the Premier.

I’d tried over and over again to call to him, but he must be too far away for me to speak to him. Still, I’d watched the grounds with my emotions pulled tight, my gaze sweeping for any sign of him even as I monitored the train tracks. Even as we returned to the National Hall that night, Red’s familiar pull lingered in the back of my mind, haunting me.

He is here. He is here.

If Constantine can tell that something has shaken my feelings tonight, he doesn’t say it. Instead, he walks beside me at a slower pace than earlier in the day. Even though he’d looked every inch the Premier at the arena, he finally falters as we head back into the city late in the night. I feel his weight lean slightly against me, then his voice coming through our link.

Talin.

Sir.

Hold out your arm to me.

I sense the slight fog of his emotions, the numbness of his mind as his aches plague him tonight. Even though everything in me wants to kill him, plunge one of my weapons into his chest and end his life, I instead hold out my arm and let him take it, feel his hand tremble against my armguard as he uses my strength to keep himself steady.

I hate the way he turns his weakness into a weapon against me, forcing me to help him in his moments of need, as if he isn’t the tyrant of the Federation. A person who has the power to destroy every life around him. But I swallow my anger and assist him. As I do, I repeat to myself the silent promise I always make.

Someday, his illness will kill him. If it doesn’t, I vow that I will.

For now, the Premier has turned our former Speaker’s chambers in the National Hall into his personal rooms. It’s a vast space surrounded by windows layered several panels thick, engineered to stop bullets from shattering them all the way through. There used to be Maran banners hanging on either side of the door, so I heard, but they’ve been replaced with maps of the entire Karensa territory.

Tonight, as I wait for Constantine to settle into bed, I stare at the maps. The Federation’s land runs red on the paper, the color bleeding across an entire continent from ocean to ocean. Once, a long time ago, it covered only the northeastern part of this land. Then it leaked into Tanapeg and Hover, Kente and Larc. Basea. My eyes travel from the coast of the eastern sea across the continent to the west, across former nation after bloodied former nation, sweeping north until I finally reach Mara, newly scarlet.