would of kept on standing there at the table, blocking Haijon’s way to it. She give my hand a squeeze, for solace, no doubt seeing my sadness on my face. And it did solace me, her being one of the onliest things outside my silly dreams that was real to me right then (though in truth I built other, sillier dreams on her).
Haijon was speaking his piece. His mother was asking him to choose.
He choosed the cutter, slipping his right hand into it even though when he played the stone game he throwed with his left.
“Acknowledge,” he told it.
The bar of metal that sit over his clenched fingers went from dull grey to shiny silver. The cutter made a sweet chiming noise, like a bell.
“Haijon Rampart,” Catrin said, “wait no more.”
Spinner was the first to cheer, but she was only a second or so ahead of the rest of the people in the room. A new Rampart was good news for everyone. The best news, because the tech was only ours as long as there was someone it would wake for, and without the tech we would not thrive.
I cheered too, for the same reason and for one more on top of that. Haijon was my friend and I was truly happy for him, even while I was still grieving on my own account.
That happiness wouldn’t last though. And nor would our friendship. I hold myself to blame for both those things, though not for the worse things that come after.
9
Everything changed for me after my testing, but not on that day. That day was celebration and holiday.
After all the cheering died down, Catrin hugged her son to her and said something to him that nobody else in the room could hear. She was smiling, holding to the back of his head like a mother would hold onto a newborn baby, and the smiling and the holding told me it was his mother spoke to him then, not Rampart Fire. And what she said was not for us.
So then we went from the Count and Seal into the recepting room, where beer and food was laid out for all that had come and where everyone could welcome us – Spinner and me no less than Haijon – into the life that we would own from then on. Into being fully growed, and being counted as one instead of just a little less than one.
Jil Reedwright had brung her pipes, and Mordy Holdfast his stringer, so there was music and also dancing. What I remember most about that day – or at least, after the moment when my name got spoke – is that I danced with Spinner three times, the piping fast and wild, my hand on her waist as she galloped and swung. I had liked dancing well enough before then, but this dancing seemed to come out of my heart in all directions into my body and into the world. I forgot my sorrow at not being found to be Rampart and just enjoyed being me.
At the end of the third dance, when Spinner kissed me tender on the cheek, I had no sense of it coming. “I love you, Koli,” she whispered in my ear. “You’re my best of friends.”
I kissed her back. She was taller than me, so I had to lean in and stretch up to do it, which made her laugh. “Should I lift you up?” she asked, teasing me. I would of been happy if she did, but I made pretend I was bigger than I was, pulling myself up onto the tips of my toes and pushing out my chest. “I’ll lift you, Spinner,” I said. “In one hand. And spin you over my head.”
“And when your back is broke, I’ll have nobody to dance with,” she said, laughing that much harder.
“You’ll have me,” Haijon said. He come up between us and put his hand on her shoulder. “I’d only be doing it for Koli, mind. So he didn’t feel so bad about letting you down.”
“Such a good man,” Spinner said, clasping her hands to her chest like she was marvelling at him. “Ramparts is just the best of us, and that’s all there is to it.”
She was teasing him like she teased me, but Haijon nodded, all serious. “Of course we are,” he said. “I’ll show you.”
He danced her away.
He didn’t dance her back again.
10
So Summer went on and I was stepping into my growed-up life. I had got to put