I stared outside as the suburban ruins ended and civilization began. The bumpy asphalt
eased into smooth, well-maintained roads, and a row of tidy townhouses lined the street.
Ahead of us, the skyline was an uneven ridge of high-rises flanked by twin mountain ranges,
the city spilling out to fill the basin between them. In the fading day, lights began to blink to
life all over the valley.
The jeep turned left, away from downtown and toward the ardent district closer to the
eastern mountains.
Seth let out a sharp, impatient snort and slammed the brakes. My body shot forward,
seatbelt biting my shoulder. I winced and looked up to see a field of red brake lights. Dozens
of people marched through the streets waving picket signs, obstructing traffic.
"Damn it," I groaned. "Again?"
"Nutjobs," Jace grumbled, lounging like he might return to his nap.
Seth grabbed the gearshift and looked over his shoulder, but his frown deepened at the cars
already queuing behind us.
We were stuck until the protest ended or was broken up.
A blonde woman dressed in black yoga pants and a bright pink jacket walked the dotted
lines between the now-parked cars as more people filtered through the standstill traffic after
her. She held a bullhorn to her mouth and thrust her other fist high above her head. The
muffled chanting of the growing throng seeped through the jeep's windows.
"Keep the rifts open!" Her amplified voice cut through the city noise.
"Open rifts, free raden!" her fellow protestors chanted back, growing louder as they came
closer.
"She wouldn't say that if she'd ever been inside one," I muttered.
Seth shifted the car into park. "So you can see her recklessness but not your own?"
"You know, I think I'll walk home," I said, mimicking my brother's flat tones.
I opened the car door and winced as the muffled shouts became a thunderous roar. I waded
into the crowd, going against the flow of foot traffic.
"Open rifts, free raden!"
I bent my head and focused on my feet as I wove through the protestors, their chants
blending, snippets leaping out at me.
"…cancer rates are down seventy percent…""…but our government hoards power, just like the others…"
"The raden makes us stronger!" a protester shouted as he bumped into me. Turning, he
pressed a paper against my chest, his wide eyes meeting mine with a pleading intensity.
"We're healthier for it, and it's our right to access as much of it as we can!"
"Then get lost in there!" I tossed away the crumpled flier. "Though we both know you're not
about to do that."
The protester flushed, lips working like a fish. He had no real rebuttal.
The governments of the world couldn't yet predict the long-term ramifications of prolonged
exposure to the rifts' radiation. A lot of that research had been classified above my
clearance, but from what I saw at the rifts, it was pretty clear they were working around the
clock to prevent a worst-case scenario.
There was a reason every major city had prioritized building nuclear bunkers, even if none of
them wanted to admit it to the public, but nuance or risk didn't matter to these protesters.
They saw what they wanted to see, just like everyone else.
"Hey, Torrin, wait up," Jace's voice called. I turned to see him easily cut through the crowd,
reforming the flow of traffic like a dam.
I shoved my hands in my pockets, the denim now stiff with dried parabeast blood, and
walked on, but of course, he caught up with me.
"Seth send you to babysit me?"
"No."
"Just thought you'd stretch your legs after a full workday on your feet?"
Rather than volley a joke, he caught my elbow and fixed me with a brotherly smile. "You
really think Seth sees you as a helpless kid, huh?"
I scoffed. "Of course, he does."
"He doesn't. I'm serious."
"So am I." I slipped out of his casual grip. "He doesn't think I can do anything. He phrases it
like he's protecting me, and sure, that's genuinely how he views it, but he's not that much
different from anyone else who calls me a Red. Not really."
"You're wrong," said Jace, so low I almost didn't catch it over the nonsense chanting.
I sighed, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. Mediator or not, when it came down to it, Jace
was almost always on Seth's side. I did not want to have this conversation, so I sped up,
hoping that with all the noise and the jostling of the crowd, he'd give up trying to talk to meIn the distance, rising above even the tallest of the surrounding skyscrapers, the Lightbridge
Towers glowed with the last burnt orange light of the setting sun. The rift hovering between
the two roofs wavered like a mirage, the constant spinning of its unique containment ring just
a blur from this distance. I stared up at the majestic buildings where I'd learned to boneforge.
My first contribution there had been discovering the processing method for the muscle sinew
now used as under armor. I hadn't even cared that I wasn't given credit. The excitement in
the ardents' faces as the prototype withstood a blow from a reinforced sword had solidified
my dream career path.
Bubbling frustration made me snap at Jace. "If I'm wrong about Seth, then why won't he just
let me take this promotion in peace? He knows what I want to do with my life. I've told him I
need first-hand experience, to learn what you guys need in the heat of battle."
To succeed without raden, I needed to know what ardents had access to in there, how fast
different parabeast corpses decayed, and the most ideal point for harvesting. Cleaning up
after the raids had been my foot in the door. Now, after applying for months, I would have the
opportunity to experience the raids as they happened.
Jace was quiet as we waited for the light to turn at the last crosswalk before we entered the
ardent district. The cars had started moving again, the protestors scattering with the dying
daylight. Once on familiar streets, my feet moved on autopilot. The steady buzz of
conversation blended with the occasional chime and ding of the dozens of stalls in the
sector's night market, but I barely looked up. Just like the city, the night market never
changed.
"Do you remember when you'd try and hide on lake days?" Jace asked suddenly, over the
sizzling of frying food.
I hunched my shoulders. "Yeah. So? I was like seven."
We'd been at the orphanage for a few years then. Long enough for the world to find a new
rhythm after the chaos of the first rift appearances. The people who ran the place had
decided to cart us to a nearby lake every Saturday in the summers and let us run wild. I
usually sat on the bus or in the field far from the bank. To me, the water was a dark hole. I
didn't like dark places, didn't like not being able to see what might be lurking under there. It
had been almost four years since our parents died, but I'd still conjured fanged mouths and
yellow eyes in every shadowy recess.
"Remember what got you over it?" The upward slant of Jace's crooked grin said he knew I
did.
"Fishing."
Actually, it was more about making better and better poles, then making elaborate, life-like
lures. To test out my creations, I had to start getting in the rowboat, and then eventually,when I'd caught enough perfectly normal fish in the lake, I'd decided going for a swim might
not be so bad.
"And who got you into fishing?" coaxed Jace, making an exasperated "spit it out" gesture
with his hand.
"Seth," I admitted. "What's your point?"
Jace's grin turned sly. "How'd he get you into fishing?"
I stretched my mind back to that sweltering bus seat, picking at a loose thread on my already
threadbare swim trunks. Seth had marched inside with two poles. Bet you can't catch a fish.
"He told me I couldn't do it," I said around a smirk.
"Exactly."
I narrowed my eyes at Jace, his point clicking into place. "That's not what he's doing now.
He's not challenging me; he really doesn't want me in the rifts. At all. He wants me to take a
desk job."
"True. Going into live rifts is a hell of a lot more dangerous than a lake. He's worried. But my
point is that he's never coddled you. You're convinced he thinks you're incompetent or
something, but that's not true."
I huffed, trying to loosen the knot in my chest. "So, great, he doesn't think I'm a bungling
idiot, but ever since we started working for the Conglomerate, he's been hung up on my
limitations, and he never acknowledges my strengths."
"He's always known you're capable. That's why he pushes."
I bit the inside of my lip, wanting to believe it. But the Seth who'd challenged me into the lake
hadn't been hung up on my lack of raden. That Seth had actually smiled every now and
then, praised me every once in a while. "Maybe he used to," I said, avoiding Jace's eye.
"But, that was the old Seth. He hasn't been that guy in years."
Jace sighed. "Seth is who the world made him become. But he's still Seth."
I barely contained an eye roll. "Jesus, maybe you should have made your move and married
Seth before Hanna came along."
Laughter echoed from a pub to our left, drowning Jace's snort. Through the open door, I
could just see the burly men drinking at the bar, their joyful outburst crinkling their eyes.
Even outside the ardent sector, I'd have known their occupations by the enormous muscles
straining against their shirts, still stained with dried blood.
The pub's mounted TVs showed various reporters all standing in front of roughly the same
shimmering, silvery skyline I'd seen broadcast countless times over the past few months.
The UN's new flying city was finally taking off.
I stopped in my tracks, making Jace look around, and watched. The city, which would house
the headquarters of the UN's new branch, the Global Defense Division, expanded beyond
the edges of the screen even though it lay miles behind the line of reporter vans. With every
passing second, more of its soaring skyscrapers disappeared as the city began to rise.
Raden crackled like streaks of lightning around its perimeter as the resin that powered it fed
off each other and the raden thrumming through the atmosphere. Beneath the untouched
streets and the massive foundation, a maze of silver piping fueled the maiden flight, golden
raden humming through them. If all went to plan, the city would never touch down again.
"Holy shit, they really pulled it off," I said, but Jace wasn't looking at me. He was holding up a
hand to one of the ardents who'd swiveled around on her stool and was eyeing him while
toying with the cocktail straw in her mouth.
I watched Jace slowly remember I was with him. He looked at me over his shoulder. "Hey—"
"Go ahead. I'm fine."
"You're sure? It's still a long walk from here."
Tell me about it. It was at least an hour. But I had wanted to be alone. "Yeah. I'll take the train
the rest of the way."
I wouldn't, though. I didn't want to get home just yet.
With a final goodbye, I trudged onward.
Hundreds of people moved past me, all in more of a hurry than me—a stream of humanity
flowing beneath the multi-colored lights of the many screens and neon signs hanging from
the high-rises on either side of the walkway.
I mulled over Jace's words, tried to let them make me feel better, but I kept sticking on the
last thing he'd said about Seth. Seth is who the world made him become.
That sat wrong in my gut. It twisted. Yet, I couldn't deny the truth of it, the ugly reality. We
lived in an era where the world wasn't entirely our own anymore, and we barely understood
the invaders. People had to adapt and do it quickly. Maybe to survive, I also had to become
who the world wanted.
My gaze fell back down to my dirty and bloodied hands. They clenched into fists. My eyes,
heavy and stinging, closed. I couldn't help but wonder if Seth had a point. If, just maybe, I
was being reckless and stubborn.
Despite the relentless hours and immense creative energy I'd poured into boneforging—and
being taken seriously as one—maybe I didn't belong in the rifts after all. Maybe this off-handpromotion was, in fact, proof that Seth was right. President Valera didn't care that this
haphazard promotion could get me killed.
I opened my eyes and started walking again. Maybe I should just keep my head down and
know my place…
"Our place…"
The words drifted back through the years unexpectedly, dropping me down into that ring of
uncomfortable chairs. "Our place is right where we are. This is how civilization began! With a
group of… of ordinary people."
The way the man leading the support group had stumbled over his own words stuck with me
more than the words themselves. If I'd learned anything from being around other Reds, it
was that none of them believed that "we're just as good in our own way" bullshit.
Know my place…
The thought made me angry. Rather than wallow, I preferred to burn my anger like fuel for all
the late nights and early mornings I put in. I had to. Without raden, I needed tenacity,
creativity, a burning sense of purpose. I would make something that was going to change
this world. Something brilliant. Something unrivaled and unquestionably needed.
Between one breath and the next, fatigue swallowed my anger. The dried veilgator blood
was peeling up from my skin, leaving it raw and red, and my ruined clothes were starting to
chafe.
After the first ten minutes or so, my solo walk didn't feel so liberating anymore, but I powered
on until I reached the revolving doors of the high-rise apartment building I called home.
Craning my neck, I stared up at the lightning rod at the very top: a single red light briefly
flashed in the night sky.
Steeling myself, I walked through the rotating doors and across the lobby, past the dozens of
mailboxes on the right wall, toward the row of elevators at the back. I ignored the receptionist
behind the main desk, who scrunched her nose in disgust at my state, and punched a
button.
I was all too aware of how much worse I smelled after hours of walking.
Thankfully it was late, and the opening elevator stood vacant. As the doors closed and the
machinery began to whir, I leaned against the rear wall and shut my eyes. My chest
tightened with nerves, and there was a stiff knot in my neck that wouldn't release.
Too soon, the elevator slowed to a stop. I stalked toward the third door on the left.
Damn. I'd left my pack, and the keys inside, in Seth's jeep.
Before I could knock, the apartment door flung open. Hanna, Seth's wife, stood in the
entryway of our shared apartment, her brows pinched with worry. She cradled her heavily
pregnant belly with one hand and held the doorknob with the other as she studied my face.
"You know, five more minutes and you'd have been responsible for making a pregnant lady
waddle through the streets at night to look for you." She got a whiff and pulled a face. "I
guess I could have sniffed you out pretty quick, at least."
"Sorry." My shoulders relaxed, and I offered her a weak smile. "You shouldn't have waited up
for me, though."
"Apology accepted," she said with a sagely nod as she stepped aside.
A fat ginger cat trotted down the hallway as I entered and slipped between my legs, rubbing
against my ankles as he sniffed at the bloodstains on my pants. I scooped him into my arms,
and he purred as he licked the dried remnants on my sleeve.
"Stop eating my shirt, Milo. That's gross."
"I made you some dinner." Hanna shut the door behind me. "It's cold, but it's something. I
know you probably haven't eaten all day."
She shuffled down the hallway, one hand on the small of her back, and I followed her to the
kitchen. Blue light flickered across the dark floor as we passed the living room, and I caught
the tail end of a muted news broadcast about the monolith being built around the rift Seth
and I had left earlier that evening. I paused, hands in my pockets as I watched the recorded
clip of the scaffolding going up in the daylight, but it quickly switched to a commercial.
As I joined Hanna in the kitchen, a tea kettle whistled. She grabbed a potholder off the
counter and lifted the kettle off the gas range, pouring the boiling water into a simple teacup
with a cherry blossom painted along the side. The scent of jasmine wafted up with the
steam.
Milo jumped out of my hands and landed deftly on the floor before trotting over to his food
bowl against the kitchen wall.
"Hanna, please sit down. You shouldn't be on your feet."
She pursed her lips and waved away my concern. "I can lift a teapot, Torrin. If you're so
concerned, you can grab your plate from the fridge and heat it."
"I'm not hungry," I lied.
She raised an eyebrow. "And you're not just saying that because you want to go to bed and
avoid a confrontation with Seth over what happened today?"
I felt my ears turn red. "You already heard?
Yes, I did, although I'm not sure if I'm supposed to congratulate you or console you."
"Or you could just scold my ass like Seth did."
"Language," Hanna chided gently.
"Sorry, little bean," I told the baby. "I meant to say tushy."
"And here I was wondering why you've never brought a girl back home…" Hanna rolled her
eyes.
"They're all too intimidated by my pursuit of excellence," I quipped before giving her a tired
smile. "But really, I think I'm just going to turn in early. Thank you, though."
Hanna sighed and returned the kettle to the stove. She lifted the teacup to her face and
watched me over the brim.
I looked away. I didn't want to risk seeing the pity on her face.
"Don't stay mad at Seth," she said quietly. "You know that what he says is out of love."
Though I was in the process of turning to leave, I paused to hear her out.
"And even if he comes off as callous and blunt, he really does care." She winced as she
shifted her weight and set her free hand on her belly. "He just doesn't know how to tell you.
He never knows what to say. You know how he is with emotion."
She smiled, and her eyes lost focus. "I mean, for goodness sake, he proposed to me with all
the romance of putting on a pair of socks." Huffing, she gave a little shake of her head. "He's
never been one for words or feelings, Torrin. You know that."
I wanted to ask her why everyone was so ready to tell me what my brother felt except Seth
himself, but I couldn't bring myself to argue with her. Instead, I answered simply, "Yeah."
"Well, if you won't eat, at least go shower." She grimaced. "I don't even know how you can
smell that bad."
"Through hard work and dedication," I said dryly, pumping my fist. "Good night, Hanna."
"Good night," she said into her teacup.
Milo's low purr rumbled through the kitchen as I headed for my room. I set my hand on the
doorknob, hesitating as I glanced at Seth and Hanna's closed bedroom door at the far end of
the hall.
You shouldn't have put yourself in that situation, Seth's voice rang in my head.
My grip on the doorknob tightened.
This is the perfect opportunity to test your resolve, Colter's voice countered. Look death in
the eye. Prove to everyone—especially yourself—that you can keep a cool head even in the
thick of it.
Colter understood. Better than Seth did, anyway. And he was right.
I shoved my way into my room and shut the door behind me. Before heading into my
bathroom to clean up, I sat down in front of my tiny writing desk and flipped open my
notebook.
It was filled with notes and scribbles: my formulas for cleaning solvents, designs for armor
and weapon improvements, drawings of parabeasts, and a hundred other ideas I hadn't
tested yet.
Instead of accomplishment, I only saw how people would react when they found out that the
developer behind these ideas wasn't even capable of harnessing the raden necessary to use
them.
But I refused to be defined by my lack of raden. It didn't matter that I didn't glow with
radiation or that I'd never grow enough to look them dead in the eye. When I was done,
they'd see me.