“Yes.”
I once thought I knew everything there was to know about this man, but I know very little. “Your last name isn’t Kodaline. It’s Leon.”
“You met my brother Daltrey.”
“Does one really meet Daltrey Leon, or is he more like something that happens to you? Like an airship crash. I brought him the monikers that Flannigan and I stole from Census. He accepted them and then left me little choice but to infiltrate the Sword industrial systems for the Gates of Dawn.”
“He does have a way about him. He sees your potential.”
“Daltrey is your real firstborn brother, is he not?” I ask. Dune resembles the leader of the Gates of Dawn.
“He is. I had an older sister, Kendall, but she was murdered not long after her Transition by a firstborn from the city where she worked.”
“I’m sorry.”
“As am I.”
“Where was her post?”
“In the Fate of Virtues. She had a brilliant mind. She was training to be an energy engineer.”
“What happened?”
“She was raped by a man whose father controlled the energy contracts for the region. She became pregnant with his firstborn. He didn’t want anyone to know, so he strangled her.”
I should be shocked, but I’m not. “Was he punished?” I ask. Usually only secondborns suffer the consequences of any crime perpetrated against them by firstborns, especially the crime of rape.
“Not by Census. He paid a fine to the Fate of Stars, and they let him go.”
I shiver, seeing the intensity in Dune’s eyes. He has made pain his companion. I’ve always felt it, but I didn’t know why. “You avenged her.” It’s not a question. He’s patient and precise—dark and powerful.
“I tortured my sister’s murderer, and then I tied his rotting corpse to the trunk of a tree in front of his parent’s estate in Lenity.” Pain isn’t just Dune’s companion, it’s his lover.
“He was Virtue-Fated?” Lenity is a wealthy district not far from here.
“He was Star-Fated but living in Virtues.”
“Was it enough?” As a soldier, I know once the inertia of passivity is broken, crossing the line of violence has its own momentum. Revenge doesn’t have a master. It is a master.
“His death will never be enough. This Republic that allows firstborns to commit atrocities with little or no repercussions—that enslaves us—will end.” The caged-animal look is back, darkening his features. It’s unnerving. Dune’s usually so careful, so controlled. He has never spoken to me like this before, as if I’m his peer.
“It’s not your fault—what happened to her,” I say quietly.
“Isn’t it?” His tone is harsh. “You saved your secondborn friend from a similar atrocity.”
“It wasn’t the same thing. I was lucky.”
“Was it luck or was it you being brave, daring to act despite the consequences?”
“I don’t know.”
“Nor do I.” He paces behind the long sofa, within the whisper orb’s confines.
I clutch the arm of the chair to keep myself from going to him. He wouldn’t want that. I clear my throat. “Daltrey is the oldest in your family, then Kendall, and then Walther? That makes you technically fourthborn—thirdborn now that your sister is gone.”
“Walther is older than me, but only by minutes. We’re fraternal twins.”
Twins are rare. If a second pregnancy results in twins, one fetus is terminated and delicately removed or left to be absorbed by the other. With a first pregnancy, the parents can choose to keep both twins, but one must be secondborn, and eventually given to the government on its Transition Day. “How did Walther become a secondborn Sword?”
“Walther and I have been a secret since our birth. Census would’ve executed us both, and our mother for hiding the pregnancy, but my parents were wealthy and made sacrifices to keep us alive.” His parents were more than wealthy. The Leons are the Second Family in the Fate of Stars. They would inherit the title of “The Star” if the current First Family’s heirs in Stars, the Vukes, were unable to claim the title. In other words, if they were dead. If Aksel Vuke and his two children were to die, Daltrey rules his Fate as The Star.
“What sort of sacrifices?” I ask.
“Some firstborns in the Fate of Swords find the secondborn laws particularly brutal. Secondborn Swords aren’t just ripped away from their families, they’re often slaughtered by war or they die due to the extreme hardship of being raised as soldiers. Some firstborn Swords are unwilling to sacrifice their own child to that kind of brutality.”
“But . . . they have no choice. The law requires them to have a second child to fulfill their duty to the Fates. If they don’t, they lose everything.”
“In Walther’s case,” Dune explains, “his adoptive Sword mother pretended to be pregnant. When my mother gave birth to us, my family paid a physician to assert live Sword-Fated births. The physician forged all the DNA screenings necessary to provide sword monikers for me and Walther. Walther’s adoptive family claimed him as their secondborn son so that they wouldn’t have to have another child of their own and give it up. In exchange, they receive Walther’s earnings as a secondborn Sword soldier and keep their positions in the Sword hierarchy. There’s no love there. Walther is a means to an end.”
“How did your Star-Fated family manage to keep all this a secret?”
“Walther’s adoptive family took him into their home as an infant and gave him to a mentor to raise. He lived with them in their house. He was brought to a few of their Sword family gatherings when he was a very young child, but when he became old enough to train in the art of war, he was sent back to Stars, to my real family, per their agreement. We were five years old when I was reunited with my twin brother and began training with my father and Daltrey. We come from a long line of warriors, spanning from a time when there were no Fates or laws to decide who or what a person should be. Our mistake was not training Kendall as well.”
“I’ve always believed you to be firstborn.”
“I was more fortunate than Walther. My adoptive family couldn’t have children. They tried for years and failed. The Kodalines are Sword aristocracy. They would’ve lost their titles and their wealth if they couldn’t produce a firstborn. They were desperate for a child. My adoptive mother, Corrine, and my adoptive father, Quinton, were eager for the illegal adoption, even knowing they’d be executed if it were ever discovered. They love me as if I’m their own child. They missed me when I was at my Star family home. They demanded visitations. I spent time in both Fates. Then they adopted another child in the same way—a secondborn girl named Surrey. My younger sister came from a Star family as well. She was the Star’s thirdborn child and would’ve been killed otherwise. The Gates of Dawn began as a secret movement to save thirdborns from Census. It grew from there into the network it is today.”
“What happened to your Sword sister?”
“Surrey was killed just after she Transitioned at an outpost in Darkshire. Friendly fire, they said. Our adoptive mother cried for days.”
“Were you close to Surrey?”
“Surrey felt more like a sister to me than Kendall. We spent more time together. She had no business being a soldier. It wasn’t in her nature.” Another note of regret. Maybe another reason why my training was always so brutally rigid? Every lesson, Dune stressed that mastery meant life or death.
“How did you come to know The Virtue?” I ask.
“When I was eighteen, I was sent to Virtues to be an Iono guard at the Halo Palace. It was an honor for my Sword-Fated family. I was one of the Halo Palace’s most proficient fighters. The Virtue noticed. Not long after, Clarity Bowie sent me to the Sword Palace to be your mentor.”
“You’re a firstborn aristocrat. Why did you take the job? You don’t have to work.”
“Before he died, my real Star-Fated father was an aristocratic advisor to The Virtue. He used his influence to plant the seed that I be sent to you to protect the future of the sovereignty of the Fate of Virtues.”