Twin Suns of Arterra

21

"You can't stay here, Camille!" I'd intended it to sound concerned, but it came out as a shout.

I paced the small room Valyn had taken us to so that we would have some time to visit and... talk.

Camille faced me, eyes furious, but she showed more restraint than I did when she spoke.

"I have to, Bana. I know that you don't understand, that Mom and Dad don't understand, but I can explain it to you. To all of you."

My heart clenched.

Oh, God.

How could I have forgotten? How could I have failed to realize? Of course she wouldn't know. It was possible that some news got through with the raiding parties, but something like this wouldn't be displayed on a feed or talked about on the streets. It was just an accident. Tragic, worthy of a few somber words for the lost councilor, but not worth coverage. The dissent over my taking the chair had received more attention than their death.

She saw the devastation in my face, but misread it.

"It's not that I don't still love you all," she rushed to me, wrapping her skinny arms around my chest. "I do. I promise." She pulled back and looked into my face. "It's just that they need me. Zacc needs me. I could never just leave him."

"He's not your responsibility. He's not your family!" And just like that, I'd slipped past the opportunity to tell her, my anger pushing my words out before I could stop them.

I had to explain it to her, tell her what had happened, but not like this. Not while we were angry. She deserved better than that.

"He is my responsibility, Bana. They all are! It's our fault they're sick. They were left out there to die! What happened to them could have been avoided, but it wasn't." She flapped her arms helplessly, reminding me so much of myself that a lump formed in my throat. "And why? All for some stupid, political agendas. Children are dying, Bana, and I can help them!"

I felt my brows furrow.

"How? How can you help them?"

Something softened in her face. "I'm a prism."

"What does that have to do with it?"

She sat down on the couch and pulled me down beside her, eyes glowing with intensity. "When the atmosphere was damaged, it was the UV and X rays from the sun that made the people sick. It caused their DNA to degenerate. People started going blind, getting old even though they were young. It was horrible, Bana."

Her voice had taken on a faraway quality, as if she'd been there with them, seeing the devastation. Feeling it. Her gaze had moved to some point in the corner of the room, but she was looking into the past.

"It was the rays that did this to them, and it's the rays that can be altered to undo it."

I wasn't sure I followed. "How?"

Her eyes slid back to mine. "I can harness the UV rays. I can bend them." Her feathery brows pulled down, telling me that she was not completely clear on this either. "Instead of degenerating the DNA, I can use it to realign the strands. Put them back into the right order. The right shapes."

I was stunned.

It was true a prism could bend light, it was why we called them prisms, but this went far beyond what I had ever understood or even considered.

I shook my head. "How do you know what the right shapes are?"

Her frown deepened. She looked down at her hands. "I don't, always." Her face came back up, earnest, but her forehead was creased. "But I'm learning. Every day I figure out something new. Something better." She smiled. "Look at Zacc! He's doing so well. He was on the brink of phase three when I got here, and now you wouldn't even know he was in phase one!"