Beside the sculpture, they’ve already placed into the ground an engraved plaque written in both Karensan and Maran.

THE WATERFALL

ORIGINALLY FROM THE INNER CITY OF NEWAGE, MARA

A STRUCTURE FROM THE EARLY ONES,
THIS ANCIENT PIECE WAS COMMONLY USED

BY MARANS AS A PLACE OF MEDITATION AND SERENITY

A feeling of rage spikes at the sight, and I feel a lump well in my throat. I look away to see workers bring a large pulley system to hoist the Strikers’ lintel into place atop its pillars.

How strange it is to see the stone here, its eyes staring across the Federation’s capital instead of over the hills of Newage’s Inner City, watching me every morning as I entered the arena to train to protect my country. How surreal it is to read the words engraved on it, words that I used to linger on every time I stepped into the Striker arena.

The lintel’s placard says this:

THE STONE OF THE STRIKER ARENA

ORIGINALLY FROM THE INNER CITY OF NEWAGE, MARA

THIS EARLY ONES PIECE ONCE ADORNED THE ENTRANCE TO THE STRIKER ARENA,

WHERE MARA’S FAMED STRIKERS TRAINED

ITS ENGRAVED WORDS TRANSLATE TO:

MAY THERE BE FUTURE DAWNS,

THE STRIKER MANTRA

Before the lintel is lifted into place, one of the Premier’s advisors steps forward holding a shallow plate filled with crimson paint. She brings it before Constantine. The crowd’s silence hangs in the air as the Premier dips two fingers into the paint, then steps forward to the Waterfall. There, he touches his fingers to one of the sculpture’s steel bones and marks a vertical line against it. He does the same to the lintel, painting a scarlet line straight down the stone face I know so well.

Finally, he steps back so that the stone can be hoisted onto its pillars. We watch as it slides into place with a neat click.

At this point, Constantine finally smiles and spreads his arms wide. “We welcome Mara into the Karensa Federation!” he calls out.

The people burst into wild cheers. In the midst of their thunderous applause, I find myself recalling the creed of the Early Ones, the phrase that Karensa had adopted as their own.

We sow the seeds of Infinite Destiny for our children, so that they may rule from this earth to the stars.

The words play repeatedly in my mind as the ceremony continues. I keep my head bowed so I don’t have to see the lintel displayed above me. It isn’t until the Premier has stepped away from the new sculptures and headed back into the carriage that I realize I’m shivering. From the exertion of standing calmly by. From the strain of watching them display shreds of Mara.

From the realization that I am complicit in this nightmare.

11

RED

The path we once took out of Mara and into the Federation’s borders is now impossible. As I glide laboriously up to the top of the tree canopy to look out over the valley between Mara’s old warfront and the territory beyond, I see that part of the wild forest where we’d previously passed through is now cut down and sprinkled with soldier camps and equipment. Here and there are cavernous dig sites, the earth churned and ruined, metal pulleys and cables extending into the pits.