“Like us?”
“Laws are for common people with common minds. We create the laws for them.”
“You should’ve let me die,” I say again dully. Now, I’m not only a Daysider, but a genetically modified perversion, too.
“Edmon—”
“No!” I cut him off. “This isn’t what I thought it was going to be. I thought it was to be you and me together. You said we were companions. Then you just left me with the others. They hate me. The teachers, too. They tried to kill me. Even my own father wants me dead!”
“Edmon . . . ,” he starts.
“Get out!” I sob. It only makes me feel worse.
What did I do to deserve this?
Phaestion straightens. “You won’t get pity from me. You’re better than that.”
His words sting.
“I’m different, too,” he says.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
His eyes dart around, checking to see if someone is watching or listening.
“You and me, we’re alike now.”
“You’ve been . . . enhanced?” I ask.
“Something like that,” he says with a small smile.
Most houses of the Pantheon practice genetic selection through arranged marriages. I’ve learned from my studies that gene-splicing was thought desirable until the animals of Tao were given human genes under the reign of Empress Boudika Wusong. The hybrids wrought havoc upon the planet’s ecosystem, and genetic manipulation was outlawed. Boudika was forced to abdicate. Houses caught gene-splicing are immediately expelled from the Pantheon.
The way Phaestion looks, the way he moves . . . his admission means complications for both of us if anyone should find out.
“You won’t tell anyone, Edmon?” He stares at me intensely.
“We’re illegal.”
“No,” he says vehemently. “We’re better. This is our world.”
At this moment, I hate him. “I understand,” I whisper through the pain of my throat.
He breaks into a cheerful grin. “That’s why I’m not always around,” he says. “My schooling’s specific. I learn things more quickly than others so it wouldn’t be a challenge for me to be in your grade. I still need you, though, Edmon. Just as I need the others. When we grow up, I want us to stay together.”
“Why?” My eyes narrow.
Phaestion cocks his head in that quizzically innocent expression. “The houses have fought for generations, each trying to be supreme. What if we worked as one?”
“Why me?” I ask again. “Sigurd’s strong. Hanschen’s smart. Perdiccus is, well, he’s something, too.”
“Crazy?” Phaestion smiles.
“They’re Nightsiders belonging to the four most powerful families of the Pantheon. I’m none of those things.”
“You’re right.” He nods. “It should be your brother, Edgaard. He’s young now, but he’ll join us soon. He already competes at a very high level in the youth Combats. Almost as high as me at that age.”
I glare at him, not wanting to hear about my perfect little brother.
“You’re different,” he says, changing tactics. “You like things like music. You’re a common person. And the commoners love you. We may need that as well.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ever since your meeting with Old Wusong, people all over Tao think you’re one of them. They will follow you.”
I still don’t understand why that makes me valuable.
“You know, they broadcast your fight with Sigurd, Perdiccus, and Hanschen over the nets. A Daysider, with no hope of winning, and they cheered for you. A Daysider? That never happens,” he says.
But I didn’t win. And winning is all that matters to these people, to my father . . .
Phaestion shrugs. “It’s because you never gave up.”
We sit in silence for a moment. Maybe it isn’t always about winning, I think.
“So you’ll stay?” he asks.
“Do I have a choice?”
“You can go if you want, but I think you’ll stay,” he says, so sure of himself.
I think of the torment I’ve been through and what more will come if I stay.
“I arranged for you to have your own room. You’ll still take classes with everyone and train with them, but you’ll have your own quarters.”
I say nothing.
“You’d leave even if I got you a new teacher?” he asks. He walks to the door. An old man enters at his beckon. He wears spectacles, and his skin is a shade I haven’t seen before. He’s not from Tao, either.
The man nods to me. “Master Leontes, Master Julii tells me that you’re somewhat of a musical prodigy?”
I look at Phaestion then back to the old man.
“I am Maestro Luciano de Coranzo Bertinelli of the Sophia School of Music on Prospera, Lyria. I’ve trained some of the greatest singers and musicians of a generation there. It would be my honor to continue your musical education. It will be your honor to learn from me.”
My jaw drops.
“You’ll start catching flies if you keep your mouth open, snail guppy,” Phaestion teases.
“Don’t call me that. That’s their word,” I respond harshly, but I close my mouth.
“Then you’ll stay?” Phaestion asks.
A music master from Lyria!
“Good,” says The Maestro. “My only requirement is that you become the greatest musical talent of this planet.”
The Maestro speaks as if he doesn’t think that will be difficult. Of course, he’s never heard Gorham play.
“I will,” I say eagerly. “I promise.”
“Told you you’d earn your keep.” Phaestion waves casually as he swaggers out of the chamber.
“Very good.” Maestro Bertinelli nods. “Shall we begin?”
CHAPTER 8
MOLTO ALLEGRO
I am bedridden for over a month, but Phaestion comes a few hours every day. It reminds me of our days on Bone when we’d laugh and talk. There are no demands on either of us, nothing between us but our words and dreams. Then my body aches with torturous pain, my bones feel on fire, and he leaves to let me sleep in peace, sometimes for days.
The Maestro also begins his lessons. I lie in bed as he teaches me to breathe and perform simple vocal exercises.
“Do re mi fa so—”
“No, no, no!” The Maestro taps his baton against the edge of a music stand. “Cultivate a round, full sound. Air must come from the belly.”
I try again.
“No, no, no . . .”
“But, Maestro, I’m lying down!” I argue.
“That means you have even less excuse. Air from the diaphragm. Not the chest. Like so.”
He puts his hands over his stomach and demonstrates.
I try again. For days, then weeks. Occasionally, we stop when the pain in my bones is too great, and I fall into another fitful slumber, the sound of his baton like a metronome in my dreams.
Phaestion is there when I wake. “Fighting any sea monsters in those dreams of yours?” he asks.
I don’t tell him about my nightmares anymore, but I do ask him something else that has been on my mind. “When can I speak with my mother, Phaestion?”
He grows quiet. “That won’t be possible.”
“Why?” I ask. “I need to tell her I’m all right.”