“What of them?” He looks around. “Do you want me to fetch them? We need family when we are wounded. It is important. Tell me where they are, and I shall bring them to you.”
“They’re gone,” I manage in a small voice, not having any other words to describe what happened. Their absence does not feel real. But it creeps on me, a dark loneliness.
“Oh.” Kavax knows what I mean. His shoulders sag. “Oh, child.” I let him take my hand between his own. He leans close enough so I can smell the smoke in his beard and the oil he uses to shape it to a fine point. “I am sorry.”
“She said she would protect us…” I whisper.
“Who?”
“The Sovereign…”
He’s silent for a long moment. “I know it may be impossible to believe now, when everything is dark and broken, but you will survive this pain, little one. Pain is a memory. You will live and you will struggle and you will find joy. And you will remember your family from this breath to your dying days, because love does not fade. Love is the stars, and its light carries on long after death.”
I can think of nothing to say, so the Gold, called away by an assistant, leaves me there in the bed under the crinkled sheets in the small tent in the middle of a place that never felt like my home. Leaves me there as if his words were a gift. But what the hell use are words? How will they protect us? Feed us? Give us a future?
I will go where the Republic tells me to go. Likely another camp. But without my family this one will be empty of its soul. I don’t want that life. I hate this planet. There’s nothing holding me here. I suffer enormous guilt for thinking of it like that, but I can’t stay here. I’d rather die.
I need more. For Liam. For me.
“Liam, stay here,” I say, lunging up out of my bed.
“Where are you going?” he asks in fear. His hands reach for me.
“Just stay. I’ll be back.”
“Lyria, no…”
“Liam!” I snap. He reels back from me. I sigh out the anger and kneel, taking his face in my hands. “I promise I will never abandon you. You’re my heart. Be brave, and I’ll be back.”
I pull my pants from the plastic bag and jump into them. My shirt is bloody and in ruins, so I leave the medical smock on. I can’t find my shoes, but there’s no time. The nurses are moving toward me. I duck out the mosquito netting before they can block my way. The mud is warm between my toes as I race from the tent without shoes. I sprint fast as I can past soldiers and medics and mourning Reds till I reach the muddy landing strip where traffic controllers wave orange batons at landing shuttles. They look at me like I’m stark mad. I clip past.
No one stops me till I reach the Telemanus shuttle. A brooding black vessel shiny as the belly of a pitviper, with a dancing red fox on its upright wings. It’s as tall as any six trees stacked end over end. At the top of a ramp, Kavax speaks with another Gold and a Yellow. Two Gray soldiers with the same strange canines on their chestplates block my way to the ship. Each a head taller than me. One grabs my wrist, easily pulling me against his chest.
“Lord Kavax!” I shout. “Lord Kavax.”
He cannot hear me. My voice is too small. The roar of the engines too loud. The soldiers are pulling me away without effort. I call out till my throat is hoarse. But it’s not Lord Telemanus who hears me; it’s the animal that sits at his side. It looks like a dog with glossy red fur, but it’s nearly as large as Liam and has pointed ears and a narrow snout streaked with white. At the sound of my futile shouts, the animal quirks its head, turns to look my way, and then lopes back down the ramp toward me. Only then does Lord Telemanus turn. He follows his pet down the ramp, confused knights and attendants trailing in his wake. Finally he sees me.
“Off,” he barks to the soldiers. “Hands off the girl.”
They release me, and I push off the one who bruised my arm to stumble in front of Kavax. He towers above me, his eyes quizzical beneath tangled eyebrows. I pant for breath and pull my medical scrubs back into place.
At full height, I barely reach Kavax’s belly. In the tent, he seemed kind and human. Here, before hundreds of eyes, he’s untouchable. He pitied me earlier. That is why he stood by my bedside. But what am I to him? They say all Colors are equal now, but we all know that’s a load of snakeshit.
“Take me…” I stammer.
“Up,” he thunders. “Speak up. Hard to hear you up here, little one.” He chuckles to himself as his pet threads through his legs. There’s a watchfulness to the creature. A brain examining me.
“Take me with you,” I say in an angry voice.
He doesn’t understand. “With us?”
“Yes. With you.”
“Child, we’re not staying on Mars. We’re bound for Luna.”
“Lovely. Then you can get me off this rock.”
“But…this is your home.”
“Home? It’s a grave.”
Kavax frowns, not knowing what to do. A tall, plain-faced Gold in her early forties, who wears a beautiful cloak the color of a storm cloud, drifts to the man’s side. Beneath the cloak, she wears cloth instead of metal. Her eyes are not as kind as Kavax’s, but dreamy and distant. She carries a large datapad with her medical equipment. “What is it, Father?” she asks.
“The girl wants to come with, Xana. This is the one who saved me.”
“Oh, heart.” Xana looks pityingly at me. “Father, you know she cannot.”
“Please…” I beg.
“It’s against the immigration regulations,” Xana says. “We can’t ignore them.”
“If…if you can’t take me…at least take Liam. Take my nephew. He deserves to have a chance at life.”
Again, Xana shakes her head before her father can respond. “We’re bound for Luna. If we take you, everyone will want to come. And the moon is already backlogged for years with refugees.”
“?‘Everyone’ didn’t save your da.”
“Sorry.” She looks past me to the refugees at the tents who stand and watch. “It’s an impossible precedent to set. There is a system in place that the Senate designed. We can’t simply go against it because we want to. You will be taken care of. You will be protected. It’s to your benefit….”
“Protected? Like last time?” I snarl. I know I should rein in my temper. But my face is numb with anger. Tears leak out of my eyes. “You pulled us up out of the mine. You stuck us in this camp. You said it would be for six months, but two years later we’re still slagged in the mud. Two years. You abandoned us, Gold.” I jab a finger up at them. “The Sovereign abandoned us. And now my family is dead. My father, my sister, my brother, my niece, my nephews, because you lied.”
“I’m sorry, child,” the woman says. “But it’s a bit more complicated than that.”
“It actually is that fucking simple: the Rising took everything; now it owes me.”
“The answer is no.” She sets a hand on her father’s shoulder. “Come, Father. There’s been news from Luna.”
“What news?”
Xana looks back at me. “It isn’t meant for all ears.”