hangs in dripping black strings against my face, but I don’t bother brushing them aside, as if perhaps I should appear as miserable as I feel. Corian, resembling the sun as he did, had always hated the first heavy rain of winter. It is a cruel irony to deliver his uniform to his family on this day.
The Barra family estate is located at the top of a hill. From the bottom, you can’t even see it—built over the bones of a crumbling temple by the Early Ones, the mansion is fully hedged in by cypress so that onlookers can only catch glimpses of the white stone of its walls through thickets of green.
From this vantage point, I can see the gentle slope of the rest of Newage, the sprawl of estates and apartments and pillared halls protected inside two enormous circles of steel walls. Beyond that radiates the miles of dense shantytowns of the capital’s Outer City, where my mother and all other refugees live. Along the horizon rise the shapes of the Early Ones’ ruins, silhouetted against the stormy sky.
There are twenty large ruins scattered throughout Mara, and most of the other small cities that dot this country are erected upon or around them. Each of them has a name. There is Houndsfang, the ruin of a jagged steel needle jutting up toward the sky at the edge of our cliffs, upon which is set a small city of the same name. There is Morningman, a city built around a conelike structure of metal and concrete covered in rose vines. And so on.
Newage, the capital of Mara, was constructed right on top of the remains of an entire city from the Early Ones. It’s why our streets look cobbled together from two different eras—shards of ancient black steel form the backbone for apartments made of white stone and wood, while cylinders of strange metal act as the buttresses supporting National Hall. The ground of Newage’s Inner City is made of a mysterious dark stone that exists only in other Early ruins. It absorbs heat in the winter, keeping the city warmer than it otherwise would be. And as for the huge steel walls encircling the city … they existed long before Mara did. On top of the walls’ front gates is a mantra engraved by the Early Ones:
We sow the seeds of Infinite Destiny for our children
so that they may rule from this earth to the stars.
Infinite Destiny. It is a phrase that the Karensa Federation believes the Early Ones had meant for them, that they are the children who are destined to inherit their ancient empire. I just stare out at the city and wonder why the Early Ones left it all behind. They must have built the walls thousands of years ago to protect their city from something—but whatever that was, the walls must not have worked.
I don’t know why we think they will save us from the Federation’s Ghosts, just like how I don’t know why I thought I could protect my Shield. I don’t even know if I can protect my mother now. My position as a Striker pays me enough to bring her money in the Outer City every couple of weeks. What now, without Corian to stand up for me? Will the Firstblade even allow a Basean like me to stay?
The Barra family knows the instant I arrive at the estate’s front gate why I’m here—they had received the Firstblade’s handwritten letter of condolence days ago. The two guards standing at the entrance don’t even bother to ask my name or purpose. I just stand there, silent and soaked, swaying on grief-exhausted legs, Corian’s folded uniform tucked under my arm, until the guards disappear behind the side doors and open the gate for me.
The storm mutes all the sounds in the Barra courtyard. My mother’s entire neighborhood in the Outer City could fit in this space alone. I listen to the faint squelch of wet stone under my boots as the guards lead me toward the glowing windows of the estate’s front hall. The dripping trees, the fog of my breath in the damp air, the front gate carved with the Early phrase DEO OPTIMO MAXIMO … all of it feels like a dream.
I’ve been here only once, the summer when Corian first chose me as his Shield. He and I had shaken hands solemnly, then lazed under the green canopy of these same trees, stripped down to our short sleeves, our mouths