Page 58 of Cage of Starlight
“Yeah, I thought so.”
The light shines red through his eyelids, but Vantaras pipes up again before Tory can sink too deeply into rest. “Have you seen the plaque on this tree’s trunk?”
Tory rolls his head until he has Vantaras in sight: he sits on the half-circle of stone benches around the other side of the tree.
“There is no plaque.”
It’s only because he’s looking that he catches Sena’s dry smile, there then gone. “Exactly. They drove it into the tree so long ago the trunk grew around it and swallowed it up. Remind you of anything?”
Tory thinks of the Core spreading poison roots inside him, a mark of their ownership and power.
“They say Westrice’s founders, Anton Chimre and Ramus Vantaras, followed the capital’s Golden River to the southeast corner of the country while they were seeking to expand their territories. The land at the time was heavily wooded, so thick with blooming kuhlu vine that they could see nothing. This tree stood taller than all the rest, so Ramus made use of it, climbing its trunk and standing on its branches to look out over the land. He saw trees blood-bright with kuhlu blooms bowing over the Golden River and light glinting in every color off a vein of stellite by the water, and he fell in love, made it his goal to bring prosperity to this place.” He gestures to the strings of flowers in all shades of blue and violet, only a few of them gray-maroon. “Kuhlu vines bloomonly in proximity to stellite—the richer the vein, the closer to red. This place was once the richest mine in the country. It’s dry, now, like all the other border mines. Within a few years, these vines will bloom bright blue. A few years after, they’ll stop blooming entirely.”
The vines in Hulven bloom purplish for miles outside the town and maroon close to the mine. Maybe it, too, is on its way to emptiness. “That’s depressing.”
“Yes. So when my father chose to mine his territory forSeeds, he had STAR-7 established here. They have a joke about the tree: it’s us, penned in by the Compound, marked with their name. We’re the thing they stand on to get to the top, the strength that supports their ambitions. They discarded all the old stories about how Seeds came about. Seeds, they decided, exist only to bring glory to Westrice.”
Tory’s mouth twists into a grimace. “Why did you think I’d want to hear that?”
Sena laughs. Actually laughs, for the first time since Tory has met him. “Where do you think the founders are now?”
Maybe he’s supposed to have some profound answer, likethey’re within every citizen of Westrice. “Probably rotting in the ground.”
A quiet chuckle. “And this tree?”
Tory can’t help laughing when he realizes what Sena’s driving at. The tree just keeps growing, alive and spreading, roots running up against the high walls of the prison they built for it and pushing through cracks in solid stone. It may well outlive the Compound.
“Yeah,” he says at last. “I guess that’s not so bad.”
A smile flickers over Sena’s face, lazy and satisfied, and Tory finds himself sharing it.
“You could work on your storytelling skills, though.” He leans against the trunk again and closes his eyes.
*
The first hit takes him by surprise.
It shouldn’t, after Gavin’s stunt during maneuvers and his eerie warning when Tory received his deployment orders.
After maneuvers the following day, Tory takes his usual shortcut between a couple of storage sheds while everyone’s waiting to be seen by the Healers. The moment he steps into the narrow walkway, hands grab him from behind and fling him into the wall of the shed. Gavin, his cardplayers, and a couple others Tory doesn’t recognize glare at him as he rights himself.
The first hit lands on his jaw, snapping his mouth shut on his tongue. They waste no time with words.
If he wasn’t swallowing blood, he might respect that.
He spits onto the ground. “What’s this about?” He pushes forward, and the group tightens around him.
“It’s about you going around like you’re better than everyone,” Gavin says.
Someone hooks a foot around his ankle and yanks, and Tory crashes against the wall of the shed. Another punch—despite his attempt to block—batters his solar plexus. Breath rushes from him, and Tory tips, a laughable attempt to right himself foiled by a push from his left. His right ankle wrenches as he falls.
Tory realizes, as hot pain stabs up his leg, that he can kill them.
He wouldn’t even need to do much. Bodies are so easily broken. The force from a punch dropped into their skull or spine would do it.He could rupture a spleen with just a little effort if he could remember where spleens are.
He’s thinking about that when someone grabs him and pulls him back up. Assholes. They worked so hard to get him on the ground. It’s not like hewantsto be on his feet.
“You know what?” He sways and swallows more blood. “I’m done with this.”
