Secondborn

The building absorbs the noise of our boots and voices. The tapered atrium rises above our heads for hundreds of floors. Concrete pillars hold up a labyrinth of glass walkways, concrete ramps, and spiral staircases.

I straighten my neck and gaze at the walls. Enormous portraits of firstborn admirals surround the ground floor. I recognize most of them. I’ve even met a few. They’re leaders from the best families in Swords.

In the center of the gallery is Mother’s likeness. Beside her is a portrait of Gabriel, her heir apparent, and on the other side is one of Father. A golden plaque beneath his frame reads “Kennet Abjorn – The Fated Sword.” He hates the figurehead name for the spouse of The Sword.

Father kept his last name rather than taking Mother’s because his is slightly more prestigious than hers. She didn’t take his name because she’s The Sword—there have always been St. Sismodes—and she would not let the name end with her. Her father stipulated in my parents’ marriage contract that her children would inherit her name. It was a contentious point, one of many they still hurl at each other when they’re forced to interact.

Father is in line to inherit the title of Clarity of Virtues, which he enjoys telling people. He leaves out the fact that there are four heirs in front of him who would all have to die before he could assume the title. However, he loves to rub it in Mother’s face that he’d be the Clarity of Virtues before her. Her family is fifth in line. That had been the idea behind their match. Together, they’re even more powerful.

I study his portrait. His hands are crossed on his lap and his Virtue-Fated hologram shines a golden halo for all to see. His dark good looks and sultry, roguish smile used to make many of the secondborn Stone-Fated servants at the Sword Palace swoon. I haven’t seen him in a few years. I wonder how he’s doing—if he’s heard of my trouble at Transition—if he cares.

A sharp rattle of laughter from a small seating area nearby serrates the air. Firstborn officers of the highest military rank—Exos who more than likely live in this building—watch me with amused curiosity. All around us they drink golden alcohol, chatting in low voices. Their dress uniforms, adorned with immaculate black capes, starkly contrast with my detainee garb and the secondborn soldiers’ black combat gear, silver Tree emblems etched on breastplates, and lethal rifles. Each Exo has a fusionblade with an intricate family crest embossed on the hilt. My own fusionblade is probably somewhere in the bowels of Census. Broken as it is, I still long to have it back.

Emmitt sidles up to me. “Feeling left out?” he asks, nodding at the portraits.

I adopt Father’s smile as a defense mechanism. “I’d rather not be in a club that doesn’t want me, Emmitt.”

The quiet soldier who has been with us since the Census cell has his neck craned all the way back, gazing up at the levels above us. His armor tag reads “Edgerton.” “It’s different from our woods,” he says, speaking for the first time.

“How is it different?” I ask.

He scratches his blond scruff of a beard, and I notice that he’s missing a front tooth. “We ain’t got windows in ours—all this here’s concrete.” He waves his arm at the glass shell of the building. His solemn brown eyes meet mine.

“Which one do you like more?” I ask.

He stares at me for a moment, surprised by my question—or maybe it’s more than that. Maybe he’s surprised that I spoke to him? He looks up again and points to a window way above my head where the light of the moon shines through. “It’d be nice to see the night sky once in a while when we ain’t on point.”

“It would,” I agree. He smiles. A fountain in the center dances with water that’s in sync with a lovely concerto playing all around us from some hidden source. I’m familiar with the song and hum along softly.

“Do you know this music?” Edgerton asks.

“I do. Do you?”

He shakes his head and shrugs. “Naw, what’d I know about music? I’ve been Transitioned since I were ten, same as Hawthorne. We come up together.” He shuffles his feet on the marble floor’s inlaid mosaic leaves of orange, crimson, and gold. It’s as if the Tree itself had shed them.

“It’s by Sovenagh—her ninetieth symphony. It’s called The Rape of Reason.”

We enter an elevator car. None of us speak as we rise to somewhere in the center of the trunk. When the doors open, Clara Diamond, Mother’s personal public relations assistant, greets us. “You found her!” Clara bleats to Emmitt with visible relief. “The Sword is threatening to have me killed if I don’t report back to her soon.” She’s not joking. The terror shows on her white-lipped face. Mother’s temper is legendary.

As we exit the lift, Clara reaches for my arm. I allow her to take it because I need her support as much as she needs to assure herself that she won’t be dying today. “We have to get you to the debriefing. We can clean you up later.”