WARTORN EBURINE IS ON THE CUSP OF THE TECHNOLOGICAL REVOLUTION.
FREYA EDEMNAR stows away on her overachieving sister's ship to arrive at the grand New Stegend.
Successfully infiltrating Eburine's ruling class will help any junior resistance member...
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"WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE GOOD?"
I was six when I saw my first lynching.
"To appease you fools?" Father continued.
Whenever it happened before, he would pull us aside—take Halle and I behind the laboratories, cover our eyes, and rush us back to our wooden box of a home.
"To speak falsehood?" he shouted.
My sister would strain at our grasps, pushing towards the crowded street. When they lynched one of the streetguards who'd viciously slain a begging citizen for disturbance, Halle would scream for the guard to be dragged to the hulks and offed—a phrase Father had let loose, once.
When it was the kindly baker across the street who was being hauled through the dirt—for some conspiracy Halle just knew he would never commit, because she knew him—her screams would turn to sobs, and she would plead his case through a mouthful of tears and dust.
That was Halle. Quiet mind, loud heart, only to be silenced by those she let do so.
"To tell you all what you want to hear?" Father raised his blood-speckled hand, and a vial of shimmering azoth glittered in the sunlight. "To tell you that this—this poison, will be used to power cities?"
But, eight years later, when we left the laboratory gardens to see Father being jostled towards the makeshift gallows, no one covered our eyes and pulled us aside.
"Poison?" One of the manufacturers stumbled forward. "Do you know what a shithole this place would be without this poison?" His hand flew across Father's face, leaving a bright red mark. They sank beneath the crowd, disappearing amidst the cloud of dust.
"Chaos. Halle." My lips moved, but I could barely process what I was saying. "Chaos, Halle, Halle, Halle—"
For once, Halle was still. Her eyes shone like glossy stones, her arms tense by her side, as if she were a vibrantly painted wooden doll.
The crowd closed in towards the middle of the plaza. The occasional white-suited laboratory worker disappeared back into the building, all too eager to abandon their own. One of Father's partners—some middle-aged man with thinning blonde hair and wirey glasses—froze, blinked, and slammed the metal door. The laboratory's decade of employing my father as a top scientist seemed to amount to nothing. They all hid, scurrying into their little building like the lab rats they tested on. Strings of small, coloured flags fluttered down from the market stalls as people trampled the streets in a passionate rage. The wooden beam in a vendor's tent cracked beside me, landing in the dirt along with a slew of glass vials.
This time, I moved.
Ignoring Halle's cries, I dove into the middle of the crowd and—
