Traitor Born

My wrist communicator lights up. Wiping tears and snot, I take a few seconds to answer it.

“Do you have him? Is he okay?” Balmora’s voice trembles.

I take a deep breath and exhale. “I have him. He’s not okay. He’s sick and frail.”

“Just get him here,” she says with a shaky voice.

Soon the hovervan comes to a stop. I wipe my face on my sleeve again and train the fusionmag on the door. It slides open. “Let’s get this over with,” Double Chin says. “I’m late for my rounds.” He ignores my weapon and waves me out. “Move. We have a delivery barge ready to take you to Balmora at the Sea Fortress.”

Two more men with silver sun monikers flank him. One of the men has scars on his face from burns that went untreated. Lowering the fusionmag, I allow the three bakers to help me with Gabriel. They hoist him up and carry him out. I take my jacket and hop down. We’re on the waterfront. Tall white lights push back the darkness along the length of the pier. Sea air pushes at my hair. The bakers unload tall steel containers from the back of the hovertruck. Two are empty. “Get in,” the one with the burn scars grunts. The other two bakers are already loading Gabriel inside a separate case.

Harrowing fear blows through me. I’ll be at their mercy if I get inside.

The burned one reads my dubious expression. “You think we want you dead?” he asks. He’s missing a few teeth and smells like bread. I shrug. “We don’t want Grisholm to be The Virtue. We want one of us—a secondborn. We got nothin’ against you. You’re secondborn . . . and anyway, Balmora says you’re not to be harmed.” My options are limited, so I swallow my fear and step inside the hovering steel case. “You’re going to have to give me your weapons and wrist communicator. The security scanners near the Halo Palace might pick ’em up.” Reluctantly, I hand over my communicator and all the arms I’ve collected.

“Now lift your shirt,” he says.

I stiffen. “Why?”

“I have to put this on you.” He holds up a clear plastic swatch with silver wires running through it.

“What is that?”

“It mutes your heart so no one can tell that anything inside the box is alive. The case will hide your body heat.” I lift my shirt, and he attaches the adhesive swatch over my heart. “Paddy, you got some of ’em calico crellas?”

The one with the oblong face and a beatdown expression nods and walks to the cab of the truck. He returns and hands a small satchel to his partner. The baker offers it to me. Inside, a couple of pastries sit wrapped in wax paper. “For the brave one,” he says, and then shuts the door, locking me inside. Darkness and a delicious fresh-baked crella scent assault me. The case floats forward amid muffled shouts. Unwrapping a crella, I bite into it, and I’m overtaken by the taste of cinnamon-flavored sunlight. I should’ve been born into the Fate of Suns. If this is a last meal, it’s a good one, maybe the best one.

When the case finally opens, maybe an hour later, I inhale large gasps of fresh air and squint against the lamplight. I’m in a room that resembles the exposed belly of an ancient sea vessel. An enormous chandelier made of coral and sea glass hangs from wooden rafters. Its lights resemble white tapers, but they’re actually fusion energy.

Quincy holds the door for me. I brace my arm against the side of the case. My knees ache, but I rise and step down out of the crate. I stand inside a palatial bedroom with an archway to a stone terrace.

Balmora’s melodic voice says, “You’re in the Fate of Seas’ tower.”

Gabriel is sprawled on the floor with his head cradled in her lap. She strokes his damp hair. My brother has been sick. Bile clings to his lips, which are a frightening shade of blue.

“We need to get him to a bed.” Balmora’s pleading eyes stare up at me.

I kneel on one knee and hitch Gabriel’s arm around my shoulders. Balmora does the same on his other side. We lift him up and drag him. His black boots skim across the carpet, kicking up dust motes.

The bed isn’t as musty. Its ornate frame is carved from real wood, which hasn’t been done much for centuries. It’s a pirate’s bed, or, at least, that’s what it seems like. Its four massive posts are carved dragonheads resembling mastheads from sea ships that no longer exist. Someone has recently changed the bedding, and dustcloths have been removed from the furniture and left in a heap in the corner. We hoist Gabriel onto the mattress and rest his head against the plump pillows.

“Where are your drones?” I ask Balmora.

“Outside my bedroom in The Virtue’s tower.” She fusses over Gabriel, pulling his boots off, removing his shirt.

“Why aren’t they with you?”

“I had a Star-Fated secondborn infiltrate them. A coded voice command from me will trick the drones into thinking I’m in my bedroom. Another will make them believe I’m in the gallery, and another that I’m in the media room. The Exos who monitor me have grown bored and often just rely on the drones to keep track of me. And my attendants are afraid of me, so when I tell them I want to be alone, they’re happy to leave me to myself.”

“How do you go anywhere in this place without being seen?”

She looks at me with an appraising stare. “My father’s brother, Edward, the last secondborn commander, taught me the secrets of the Sea Fortress before he died. We lived here together for years, my uncle and me. He introduced me to the network of spies who helped you tonight.”

“I thought you had developed it on your own.”

Balmora’s laughter contains little humor. “This network has existed for hundreds of years—passed on from secondborn to secondborn. You wouldn’t know about it, of course. We always lack Swords, because secondborn Swords within a family are rarely able to communicate with one another. Take your uncle, Bazzle, your mother’s brother. He was killed at eighteen, only a few weeks after his Transition. He could hardly pass any information to you. You weren’t even born. And the secondborn workers in the Sword Palace are terrified of your mother. They’re not a good resource for our network. The risk of discovery is too great. It’s not like that with other Fates. We live much longer than secondborn Swords. We work together, sometimes live together.”

“Census doesn’t know about it?” I ask.

“Census infiltrates our network from time to time. We recently had a whole branch of our operatives sheared away in the Fate of Moons. Some were murdered. Some destroyed themselves to protect others. We’re nearly blind there. Same within the Fates of Stars and Atoms. They’ve sided with the Gates of Dawn and cut us off, but we continue to groom operatives—individual Star- and Atom-Fated secondborns who reside outside their fatedoms will sometimes work with us. In Virtues, I have hundreds of secondborns of all Fates who have sworn loyalty to me.”

“What we need right now is a physician for Gabriel,” I urge.

“He’ll have one. An Atom will be here soon.”

Quincy brings a bowl of water from the bathroom. Setting it on the table next to the bed, she wrings out a small cloth and hands it to Balmora, who uses it to bathe Gabriel.

My brother opens his eyes when she washes his face. “Where am I?” he whispers.

“Safe with me,” Balmora assures him.

He lifts his shaking hand, touching hers. “Told you not to come . . . too late . . . should’ve . . . let me die.” His voice is raspy and slurred.