Secondborn

Sword soldiers stumble past, retreating. I close my visor and move around the man I’ve chosen to sticketh with, pushing corpses to shelter him. Crawling to his side, I make myself as small as possible. The robotic arm sutures singed edges of his skin. It dresses the wounds when it’s finished. My resolve to stay begins to wear thin.

The medical drone hoists the Gates of Dawn soldier, loading him onto an inflating stretcher. It secures him to it and flies away. The stretcher lifts to hover, but I destroy the homing mechanism on its side with my sword. It rapidly deflates. With the toe of my boot, I kick the soldier’s fusionblade next to his hand, then extract my penlight and prop it against his left thigh, turning it on and facing it toward the sky, hoping it will help his people find him. Then I run.

The roaring thunder of an explosion sends burning flack streaming down on me. I’m knocked sideways. Falling, I’m stunned for a few breaths. I rise to my feet and keep running. Fear makes my stomach heave, but I swallow the bile down. I glance behind me. The flash of fusion fire singes the side of my visor, just skimming over its surface. I turn my head back and keep going.

Ahead, troopships are firing up. The closest one shuts its door and lifts off, leaving me behind. I force myself to push on. My thighs burn with exertion. More fusion fire flies past my shoulder. I get closer to the next troopship, but the door of it closes before I can make it there. It lifts off right in front of me.

I cry this time. “Stop!” I scream. “Please! Stop!” Panicking, I sob as the ship ascends and grows smaller in the sky.

All around me, broken boy soldiers lie discarded. I trip over one, almost falling, but I right myself again and keep going. The pull of changing wind sucks me forward as a small airship descends in front of me. The door is already open, lined with Sword soldiers. Fusion-rifle fire hums by, the airship soldiers shooting into the gathering storm of the enemy behind me. A few of them jump from the belly of the airship and surge out near me. One tall Sword soldier grabs my arm and drags me back toward the aircraft. No ramp extends when we reach its open door. The tall soldier picks me up and throws me inside, where I hit the floor hard and tumble. The other Sword soldiers jump inside one after another.

The tall one makes a circular gesture with his finger, and we ascend amid exploding mortar shells. The airship shakes and I’m tossed around. The tall soldier falls on top of me, holding me to the floor. The other soldiers hold on to grips on the walls.

I wheeze and try to catch my breath. We stabilize, and the bucking of the airship eases. The tall soldier slides off me. He presses the external button that retracts my visor, and the sword-shaded screen ticks back. Reaching out, I push the button on the side of his helmet. His visor falls away, and the most beautiful storm-cloud eyes gaze back at me. Hawthorne.

Chapter 15

A Beautiful Crime

Back at the hangar, I lean against the airship wall, feeling the warmth of Hawthorne’s hand next to mine. All the other soldiers have left the aircraft. It’s just Hawthorne and me who remain. Our fingers touch. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to.

“How did you find me?”

“Commander Aslanbek gave me clearance to track your moniker.” He probably thought I was dead. My moniker didn’t move for a long time out there. But Hawthorne fought to find me anyway.

“Thank you,” I murmur.

His hand moves to cover mine. I wince and cradle it in my lap.

“You’re hurt.” Hawthorne tries to look, but I won’t let him touch it.

“I’ll get it looked at later,” I reply. The crest etched into the hilt left its mark, and it will be like a death warrant for the Gates of Dawn soldier and his family if my regiment discovers it. It was monumentally stupid of him to use his family fusionblade in combat, or else extremely arrogant. If I ever see him again, I’ll sticketh my boot up his ass.

Hawthorne’s voice is soft. “Do you know what went through my mind when I found out that they took you in the middle of the night and dropped you off somewhere on the battlefield, Roselle?” I shake my head. His expression turns bleak. “I thought, ‘Well, that’s it, then. She’s gone. She won’t survive that. They’ve figured out a way to kill her as some kind of sick revenge against her mother, and now my life will go back to normal.’” He scowls. “Then I started imagining you on the battlefield—abandoned. Alone.” His teeth clench. “I had this pain—this unbelievable ache in my chest. I didn’t know why at first, but I do now. I used to worry about active duty because I might be killed. Now I’m terrified that it’ll be you who dies out there, and I’ll have to go back to a life without you in it.”

“You hardly know me, Hawthorne.”

“I’ve been in love with you since I was ten, Roselle . . . maybe even before that.”

I shake my head slowly. “I don’t understand.”