Secondborn

Chapter 5

Mine Now

I enter the drab interior of the aircraft. Rows of black seats line its walls and belly. The airship is empty, except for the pilots in the front and Hawthorne beside me. I select a seat by the ramp. Hawthorne reaches up and pulls down the harness. He locks it in place around me and takes a seat across from me.

Through the open doorway, I see Dune amid a unit of firstborn officers who have come to escort him to the capital in Virtues, their snow-white uniform capes turning gray with dust. They don’t know that Commander Kodaline is really Dune Petes, thirdborn Sword—an imposter. He has to be thirdborn if his older brother, Walther, is a secondborn Sword soldier. Panic careens through my veins. If any one of those officers discovers Dune’s secret—that the golden sword-shaped moniker that usually shines on his left hand is somehow a fake—they’d be tempted to execute him where he stands. By every law of the Fates of the Republic, he shouldn’t exist.

Thirdborn laws allow few exceptions. It’s considered greedy to deplete resources on a third child. Clarities, who are required to have two children, are usually the only ones who can produce more than the allotted offspring, but there have to be special circumstances. Gabriel or I would have to die before my mother could give birth to another child. She would need special permission acquired through a petition and legal channels. It has happened, but it’s not common. A whole division of the government called Census is devoted to the detection and elimination of violators of the thirdborn rules, and its authority is almost absolute. I shiver, knowing that I can never tell anyone what Dune just told me. If I do, he will be hunted down and slaughtered.

If Walther is secondborn, then who is their firstborn brother?

“Are you okay?” Hawthorne asks. I stare at him blankly. “You look as if you might faint.”

“How long until we get to the Golden Circle?” My voice doesn’t sound like me. It’s gravelly and raw—dry from the dust coating everything and the emotions choking my throat.

He shrugs, settling back in his seat and pulling down on the harness above his head to lock it in place. “Less than twenty.”

I nod and look away from him. The ramp rises and obscures my view of Dune. It thumps hard against the side, sealing us in. The sound of it reverberates. Dim lights illuminate the interior as the aircraft lifts straight up. I get an aerial view of the destruction through the transparent aisle beneath my feet. Several buildings have toppled over. Fires rage over entire city blocks. Broken airships lie like skeletons across the scorched ground.

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.”

“What’s it normally like?” I ask.

“Usually there are thousands of children lined up waiting to be processed. Some are crying, too young to be separated from the only home they’ve ever known. But some are ready—maybe they hope to fit in here like they never did with their families.”

“Were you the former or the latter?” I ask softly.

“The latter.” We cross the landing pad to a wide paved path that leads to an ebony wall that surrounds the gigantic forest. I have to crane my neck back to see the top. Set in the center of the wall is a gate comprised of three golden metal broadswords at least as large as five-story buildings. The center sword is ancient in design, from an era before fusion was reality. It’s taller than the two that flank it by a story. Mystical gates to an enchanted forest, I think.

Hawthorne pauses by one of the armed soldiers stationed along the walkway. “Chet?” He offers the soldier a small white stamp wrapped in cellophane from his pocket.

The soldier looks around as if to check whether anyone is watching. “Thanks.” He casually takes the offered stamp and shoves it inside a compartment on his gun belt. Scanning the grounds, Hawthorne asks him, “Where are all the Transition candidates?”

“Gone. We turned them away. No one gets inside the walls today except the secondborn Sword—orders from The Sword.”

“Why just her?” Hawthorne frowns at me.

“They’re worried about vetting. Monikers were coming up mysteriously inoperable. It’s making everyone nervous. We can’t vet candidates, so we can’t take them. Anyone could show up at our gate saying he was a Sword. No one can verify it if the identifier isn’t working. It’s a Census problem now.”

Hawthorne nods his head, looking on edge himself. “Thanks.” He resumes walking.

“What’s a chet?” I ask, following him.

“It’s for when you need to relax and you can’t. You put it in your mouth, let it melt on your tongue, and everything is okay.”

“You mean it’s a drug?” I frown at him.

“No, it’s a chet—it’s not addictive like a drug, and don’t look so condescending. There may come a day when you need one. If you don’t, then you can count yourself lucky and just use them for getting other things you want.”

“Like information?”

“Yeah, like that.”

The closer we get to the wall, the more defensive features I recognize. An iridescent shield ripples over the surface of the dark wall that surrounds the Base. The shield is more than likely fusion-powered. I cringe. This defense is useless against an FSP. “Are all our fortifications fusion-powered?” I ask.

Hawthorne pauses, turning to look at me. “Why do you ask?”

“Are they?”

“Most.”

“Can they be converted to another energy source? Say—hydrogen cells?”

“Why would we do that? Hydrogen has less than a tenth of the capacity and life that fusion has.”

Suddenly a drawbridge opens ahead of us. It drops from the center of the tallest sword before the Golden Circle inlaid on the ground. Sword soldiers on the other side of the threshold draw their fusion-powered rifles on us.

We enter the beautiful Golden Circle in front of the doors. In the center, an ancient broadsword rises from the ground. Hawthorne removes his black glove, exposing his moniker. He holds it to the golden light of the sword’s hilt. It scans his silver sword-shaped moniker. A holographic image of Hawthorne projects from atop the hilt of the golden sword, detailing his unit, rank, and other information in flashing readouts. “Handsome devil, isn’t he?” Hawthorne whispers.

“I wouldn’t waste merits on him,” I whisper back.

His eyebrow arches, and he’s about to whisper something else when one of the soldiers at the gate focuses his attention on me. His voice surrounds us. “Scan your moniker for processing.”

I hold up the back of my hand. There’s no obvious glow, just the rose-colored crown-shaped birthmark upon my skin. “It was damaged in the attack this morning. It seems to have shorted out.”

“Scan your moniker for processing or you will be tranquilized.”

I follow his orders. No image of me projects from the podium when my hand is scanned. The soldier who spoke points to another who holds a tranquilizer gun at the ready. My heart accelerates. Hawthorne’s brow furrows. “This is Roselle St. Sismode,” he calls out. “You only need to look at her to know that.”

“She could be—or she could be a surgically enhanced spy made to look like Secondborn St. Sismode.” The soldier spits on the ground.

Hawthorne gestures toward me. “You’ve probably seen her at least a thousand times! Just process her and give her a new moniker!”

“I’ve seen her more times than I’ve taken a shit, but so have our enemies. She can’t be processed without scanning her moniker. If she needs a new moniker, she can’t get it from us. She’s Census’s problem now.”

The very mention of Census sends raging fear through my blood. Hawthorne moves from the podium to block me from the soldier’s view. I’m not one to hide, so I move around him to stand next to him. He frowns and faces the gate. “Can’t we just handle this internally without Census? This is a secondborn.”

An impeccably dressed man emerges from behind the soldiers. His attire would make him the envy of even the best-dressed firstborn in Gabriel’s circle. A long black leather coat—tailored to show off his impressive physique—touches the calves of his high-polished black leather boots. His white dress shirt has the sheen of silk, and his black trousers have the same well-tailored lines as his coat.

But it’s the tattoos near his eyes that give me pause. Thin, black lines are permanently etched from the outside edges of his eyes, curving to his temples. They make him look catlike and lethal. I know what the razor-thin lines mean. Each line denotes a hunt and kill. This Census agent has successfully tracked and executed at least fifty people—probably thirdborns and their abettors.

“Whom do we have at our gates?” the agent asks, his hands behind his back. He strolls through the golden archway, chuckling. “Can it be the legendary Roselle St. Sismode? Why, my dear girl, what brings you to our lair? Why have they banished you to this hellish existence? Surely they could’ve given you a much more suitable position, considering your bloodline.” He stops in front of me and grins like a deranged harlequin.

He’s genuinely handsome, like some ancient king. In his midtwenties, he’s as tall and graceful as a Diamond ad model. His high brows and sharp jaw are appealing, but it’s his smile where things start to go wrong. His four top front teeth have been replaced with steel. So have most of his bottom teeth. I’m having a hard time not reacting to the utterly creepy look he’s giving me.

I knew Census had field agents among the Swords—among all the fatedoms. I just never thought I’d meet one. It hadn’t occurred to me that my moniker would ever fail—that my identity would ever be in question.

The agent’s mood shifts from baiting to thoughtful. “Unless”—he keeps one hand behind his back, the other smoothing back his slick blond hair—“you’re not Roselle St. Sismode. Are you the secondborn Sword—the biggest loser in all of the Fate of Swords?”

I just stare at him, absorbing his insult. He wants me to rush into some explanation—fall over myself in desperation to identify myself. I smile, even though panic is just beneath the surface, but I say nothing.

Hawthorne clears his throat. “This is Rose—”

“Quiet, you!” The agent doesn’t look away from me as he growls, “You have no idea who or what this is. You picked her up on the battlefield, did you not?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Let’s not assume anything, shall we?” the agent barks. “Now, let’s take this slow.” The agent bends forward at his waist so that I can feel his breath on my cheek as he stares into my eyes. “Who. Are. You?”

“Roselle—”

The Census agent shoots me. I choke on pain as the steel dart cracks through my breastplate and spews venom into me. The cartridge sticks out from my chest just above my heart. He fired point-blank. I didn’t even see the gun he drew from behind his back until it was too late.

The agent grins at the sounds I make as I writhe in agony. I can see my reflection in his steel teeth. His hand goes to my shoulder to steady me. He touches my hair. “Don’t talk. Just panic.” He breathes the words near my ear as he embraces me.

My hands reach out for his waist. He thinks I’m holding myself up, but I unfasten his leather belt and slip it from his pants. In one swift motion, I have the strap wrapped around his neck and ratcheted in a noose. The leather cuts into his throat. I use all my strength to pull on it. His eyes bulge and widen. The strength of my grip slackens and I falter. Dizziness upturns me. I drop to my knees, still holding the strap. The agent drops to his knees as well, coughing and wheezing as he loosens the noose.

Soldiers yell and run toward us. The next thing I know I’m on the ground, staring up at the overcast sky. The agent waves away Hawthorne and the other soldiers. They retreat, restraining Hawthorne. On his knees beside me, the agent smiles again. A tear slips over the inky lines near one sapphire-colored eye. “You’re mine now,” he whispers in my ear, scooping me up. The steel dart is still embedded over my heart. My head bobs, and I view the world from upside down as he carries me across the golden threshold into the forest of nightmares.