This is the first strike my fatedom has suffered in this war. Usually, we’re pounding cities in the Fate of Stars, the Fate of Atoms, and the Fate of Suns, cities suspected of harboring Gates of Dawn soldiers or sympathizers. Mother is probably beside herself, the first Sword in several centuries to fail to protect her people—her firstborns. She doesn’t care about anyone else.
I glance up through my tears. Hawthorne studies me, and I realize I’m trembling, my body reacting to trauma. Unlocking his harness, Hawthorne shifts to the seat next to mine. From a compartment on the side of his thigh armor, he extracts a square packet. He cracks it with both hands and shakes it. “Here.” He places it in my hand. Heat radiates from it. He nudges my hands together, letting the packet warm them both. Unwrapping a gauze bandage from his medical supplies, he uses a water spritzer to wet the material. Setting the water aside, Hawthorne extends the cloth to my face.
I lean away from him, avoiding his hand. “What are you doing?”
“Cleaning you up. You’re a mess.”
“Who cares what I look like?” I ask, bumping his arm away.
Reaching for a chrome lid to a power source generator, he pulls it off the unit and holds it up so that I’m confronted by my reflection. I resemble a weeping ghost. Gray dust covers my skin. Streaks of tears create desolate lines through it.
“I’m not crying. I have dust in my eyes,” I lie.
“I know,” he lies, too. He replaces the chrome lid. The wet cloth nears my face once more. This time I don’t pull away as Hawthorne gently presses it to my cheek and wipes off the soot.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur. “About your nose.”
He shrugs. “I’ve had worse. It’s been broken a few times.”
“You can’t tell.” I bite my bottom lip anxiously. He winks at me. My heart flutters, and my face flushes hotly.
“I get it fixed whenever it’s broken. Gilad teases me about it. He says it’s a waste of merits because it’ll just end up broken again. Probably by him.”
“What are merits?”
“Special privilege units. You earn them by doing things better or faster than everyone else. Or by doing things others can’t do.”
“Are there any other ways to earn them?”
“Sometimes you can earn them for being a turner—reporting other secondborns for infractions of the rules. I wouldn’t advise it, though. Turners have a way of not lasting very long in most units.”
“You mean they’re killed?”
“I mean they have an accident that they never recover from.”
“What else can you use merits for?”
He stops cleaning my face and sits back. “All kinds of things—extra rations, novel files, magazine files, soap, hair products, sweets, entertainment—”
“What kind of entertainment?”
He wads up the dirty cloth and throws it at a bin. “Well, there’s films and music . . . date night.” He gives me an appraising look and smiles. My heart thumps harder in my chest. “You get to go on a date—each person pays merits to meet each other. They match you with someone you’d be compatible with, and then they allow you to meet and . . .” He waves his hand in a gesture that indicates a next step. “And whatever.” He raises both of his eyebrows.
I just stare at him.
He frowns. “Please tell me you know what I’m talking about.”
I shake my head.
“Sex, Roselle. I’m talking about sex.” I straighten in my seat and look away from him, embarrassed by the turn our conversation has taken. “You know what sex is, then?” He laughs.
“I know what it is. I don’t know why anyone would waste merits on it. It’s not like you’re allowed to have a child. We’re secondborns. We’re forbidden to procreate. What would be the point of date night?”
He looks up at the ceiling. “What would be the point?” He turns to me with an incredulous look. “Pleasure, Roselle. Pleasure is the point. We both take a pill before the date starts so there’s no chance of offspring.”
“So you pay for the privilege of having a . . .”
“The word you’re looking for is girlfriend, and no, no one gets a girlfriend. We aren’t allowed to have an ongoing relationship. The next time I have a date, it will be with someone new.”
I want desperately to change the subject. “Have they located any of the Gates of Dawn soldiers? There was one soldier with a night-sky visor. It had a swirling black hole on it”—I drag my hand in front of my face from my forehead to my chin—“here. He confronted my hover.” My cheeks are on fire, and I want to slap the arrogant grin off Hawthorne’s face.
“I don’t know. No one is speaking to me at the moment.” He taps the ear of his headset.
“How do we find out?” I try to wipe dust off my sleeve, anything not to have to meet his eyes.
“I’ll probably be briefed on the status of the investigation later. You, more than likely, will be questioned for what you know about the attack. What do you know?”
“I saw the first soldier not too far from the Heritage Building.”
“But the attack happened farther from there. Why didn’t you alert someone to their presence sooner?” His cocky smile has evaporated.
“I wasn’t sure what I saw.”
His eyes dart around to see if we’re being observed. He covers the microphone of his headset. “Don’t tell anyone what you just told me,” he whispers.
“Why? He had a golden sun mask—”
He hushes me, looking over his shoulder before turning back to me. “You didn’t report the soldier immediately. It could be seen as aiding the enemy.”
My voice drops several octaves. “I was confused. I’d just left my home—it was traumatic—I wasn’t thinking.”
He reaches out and touches my wrist. “I know what that moment is like—when you realize you’ll never see home again.” He stares into my eyes, and I see my pain reflected back at me. “But you can’t tell them anything about that soldier. Just start at the point you were attacked. Trust me. I’m trying to protect you. Do you understand?” I nod. “Good.” He drops his hand from the microphone.
Hawthorne continues to watch me with worry in his eyes. Our troopship descends in a rush of speed that makes my stomach flip. It touches down in the middle of an airship pad on the outskirts of a military Base. The door of our aircraft opens, exposing us to an overcast sky. Tall, gray pillars rise up from the ground in front of us like tree trunks in a stone forest, tapering the higher they go into the clouds. Each must be a few city blocks in diameter. Docked to each structure’s tree branches are kidney-shaped airships, each large enough to harbor a few thousand troops. They’re mobile barracks designed with sleeping quarters, mess hall, and training facilities that can also airlift troops to war zones and other military Bases. Assessing the stone forest of ships, I see there must be hundreds of thousands of soldiers at this Base alone.
Hawthorne rises from his seat. He takes the warming pack from my hands and disposes of it in a bin. “C’mon.” He waits for me to stand. “I’ll get you where you need to be.” Holding his rifle close to his body with the muzzle pointed at the ground, he gazes around at the Base outside before exiting the aircraft. I follow him.
“Why didn’t we just dock in there?” I ask. “It looks as if the grounds surrounding the Base have been cleared.”
“You’re not allowed in there until you’re processed. They try to make it appear as if you’re being indoctrinated into a secret society of knights.”
“And you don’t believe that?” I study his profile as I walk beside him.
Hawthorne scowls. “I know what’s on the other side of the wall now, Roselle.” When he was brought here and processed at the age of ten, he probably believed he was here for a noble cause.
“Do you think I’ll still have to give my speech?”
Hawthorne looks up and frowns. The air is filled with troopships launching from their docks on the stone Trees. They resemble falling half-moon leaves being torn by the wind into the sky. “I think your press conference is canceled. There are no drone cameras here, and I’ve never seen so many air-barracks mobilize at once. They must be mounting a retaliatory strike. I’ve never seen the grounds empty like this before either—especially not on Transition Day. It’s as if we’re the only ones out here.”