Shards and Ashes

me.

I meet his wide, dark-brown eyes. He can’t be more than a few days old. He stares intently at me, as if there is meaning behind his gaze, but there’s not. He’s just a baby. Already entwined in Eldest’s dark plots.

He will be raised just like I was. Passed from family to family until Eldest decides to start training him. Thrust into his role too young, far too young. Eldest will expect him to know everything from the moment he begins training. He’ll be punished for silly things, like asking too many questions or walking too fast or stomping too loudly in the Keeper Level. He’ll live for the rare moments when Eldest smiles or—even better—lets a compliment fall from his lips. He will spend his whole life questioning whether he’s good enough, fearing that he’s not. He’ll listen to every single word Eldest says, try to uncover meaning in every intonation, and seek with his entire self the hidden secrets he’ll need to know to be a good leader after Eldest.

And maybe one day, he’ll start to think about the things Eldest doesn’t say.

Those big brown eyes blink, and it’s only then that I realize I’ve actually stepped out, past the shadows and into the entryway. If Eldest turned now, he would see me. I suck in a gasp and throw myself back into the dark.

“I wanted to ask you something,” Eldest says, his voice snaking across the hall to me.

“Yes?” Mag doesn’t let any fear creep into her voice.

“Has anyone been frequenting the Recorder Hall in the past month?”

“No.” After a moment, Mag adds, “Sir.”

“You’ve been alone here.”

“Yes.”

Eldest says something too low for me to hear. Then: “I let you take your grandfather’s place, even though neither of you asked permission. I don’t want you to get the impression that I didn’t know, or that it isn’t only because I allowed it that you are in this role.”

“Yes, sir.” There is fear in her voice now, but still a hint of defiance.

“Someone’s been looking at some highly . . . interesting documents on the floppy network. If no one’s been in the Hall but you . . .” Eldest lets the accusation hang in the air.

Before Mag can think of an answer, the baby starts to cry. Not the fussy whimpers of before, but an earsplitting wail. Eldest shifts the baby again, but to no avail. The more the baby cries, the angrier Eldest gets; the angrier Eldest gets, the more insistent the cries. In moments, Eldest storms from the Hall.

Mag waits several minutes after the big doors close and the baby’s cries fade before she whispers, “Orion?”

I step out of the shadows.

“He knows I’ve been researching.”

“What have you been researching?” I ask. I didn’t know she’d taken her studies past the books.

“Methods of rebellion. Weapons. Strategy.”

“Mag!” Well, of course Eldest would have noticed that sort of thing.

She shrugs. “I’m just glad the baby started crying. It’ll give me a chance to think of an excuse.”

“That baby . . .”

“He’s your replacement.” Mag’s voice is blunt, harsh.

“Still, he’s kind of cute. You can’t help but like the little guy.”

“Yes,” she says, very seriously, “you can.”

That night, Mag stays in the book rooms so late that I fall asleep without her. I wake up, though, to the sensation of her lips pressed against mine.

I jerk back, surprised, sitting up.

A slow, twisty smile spreads across her face.

“What—?” I ask.

She tucks a strand of my hair—it’s getting so long now—behind my left ear. Her fingers linger on the bumpy scar there. Her touch is gentle but unrelinquishing. She pulls me closer.

Her lips touch mine, shy now, but an almost inaudible gasp slips from her mouth into mine, and I’m undone. I grab her and pull her closer, and the kiss deepens, turning swiftly into something else, something more, and we’re both lost to each other.

She’s gone before I wake up the next morning. I get out of bed slowly, hoping that, perhaps, she’ll come back, but no—she’s really gone. After I shower and dress, I search the Recorder Hall, but there’s no sign of Mag anywhere.

Everything’s changed now. How could it not?

I try to think of what the future may hold. I won’t hide forever. It’s not that I can’t—but that I won’t.

I think of the baby Eldest will raise as his, to take the place I would have had as leader. That baby holds more possibilities than I can imagine. If I’m patient . . . if I wait . . .

I couldn’t start a rebellion on my own. There’s no way. Between the controlling power of Phydus and the unremitting strategy of Eldest, any effort to reform the ship now would result in bloodshed . . . a lot of it. There are vids of the one rebellion Godspeed suffered, and the ship very nearly died out as a result. I may not agree with Eldest’s methods, but I do know that I can’t risk the lives of everyone just to take control of the ship for myself.

But maybe with Mag . . .

We could plan. Take it slow. Find a way to filter out the Phydus, bring people to our side one at a time. There is in the history books something called the Glorious Revolution. A bloodless revolt that shifted the power smoothly from one king to another.

It might take a lifetime to engineer, but if we could do it, if we plan just right—

I try to talk myself out of these thoughts, but then I force myself to stop. No. I don’t want to talk myself out of these thoughts. I want to have my own Glorious Revolution. I want to prove to Eldest that I can rule without the drug, that we can tell the people of Godspeed the real truth—and then we can all vote, decide in a fair way what to do next. . . .

I go straight to my hidden place, the place where I cowered for so long before daring to go to the Recorder Hall. No one knows where it is, no one but me. Even Eldest, who thinks he knows all, has forgotten about the secrets Godspeed still keeps.

In my haste, I don’t even think about how I should cover my face outside, how I should make sure no one’s following me. I just go, my single thought to begin the plans that will change the ship forever.

When I get to the place, I pause in surprise. While I lived here, it seemed as if the area was small, but almost . . . homey? Now it’s claustrophobic.

“This is where you hid before?”

I whirl around—standing in the door, light from the Feeder Level spilling around her, is Mag.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. I should have been more careful. What if it hadn’t been Mag who found me?

She steps into the narrow space, closing the door behind her. I flip on the lights.

“It’s so cramped here,” she says.

But it doesn’t feel that way anymore, not with her here, too.

With the both of us here, where I hid alone for so long, I feel the urge to reveal everything to her: the secrets I learned that drove Eldest to get rid of me, the plans I have, the Glorious Revolution I want to stage. I start, though, with Phydus, and how Eldest distributes the drug through the water to ensure that what I want—change— never happens.

Mag drinks it all in, her eyes growing rounder with every new revelation. Even Mag, with her rebellious heart, has not dreamed that Godspeed holds this many secrets.

“That’s why he uses Phydus,” she says softly. “The only way to keep this much secret is by drugging people up so much that they don’t care anymore.” She turns to me then, eyes wide. “We have to make them care again.”

“I’ve been thinking,” I tell her, “about how we can change things. Together.”