Traitor Born (Secondborn #2)(19)

The scene cuts from the secondborn candidates registering for The Trials. Reykin eases his back against the charcoal suede of the tufted couch. His hands absently rub the tops of his thighs.

I enter the den. “What are you watching?” I ask, sitting beside him on the couch.

“Pre-trials.”

“Why? You can’t possibly like them.”

“I don’t.” He gestures to the moving images in front of us. “Ransom has skills. He’s brilliant and he’s not half-bad with a fusionblade.”

“You expect to see your brother register as a competitor?”

His worried gaze shifts back to the screen. “Like I said, Ransom’s brilliant. He knows the odds of winning this travesty are slim, and he knows that, even if he were to survive it, he wouldn’t come out with his soul intact.”

“You’re assuming he got to keep his soul after his Transition.”

Reykin winces. “You kept yours.”

“Did I? I don’t know if that’s true.” I’m different now. I’m not sure I’d make all the same choices I once did.

“You know you did. You saved me on the battlefield when you could’ve killed me.” He picks up my hand, rubbing his thumb tenderly over my scar.

“Fat lot of good it did me,” I tease him. “You’re worried he’s like you. You’d risk everything not to be their slave.”

“I’m hoping he’s not like me—or maybe I’m hoping he’s exactly like me. I don’t know,” Reykin growls. He lets go of my hand and rubs his face where the shadow of a beard is forming. “I just want to see him again.”

“I hope you do.” I rest my back against the soft cushions and pull my feet up next to me, leaning near him. He smells like lemongrass and a soft hint of cologne, the scent I remember from his bed in Stars. The piece of chet relaxes me—not to the point of sleep but enough that my head feels heavy.

“How long has it been going on?” He pretends interest in statistics about would-be competitors on the screen.

“What?” I feign ignorance.

“Your panic attacks.”

I shrug. “I’m fine now.”

“How long?”

I sigh. “On and off for a while. Never as bad as what you just witnessed. I’ve always kept it from blowing up. The chet I took yesterday—the one that almost got me killed—was my first. I didn’t know I shouldn’t take that much.”

“How have you avoided a full-blown panic until today? Done anything dangerous to trigger adrenaline and combat the panic?”

I stare at his profile. “How did you know?”

He turns to me with eyes that could pull me out to sea. “Adrenaline doesn’t always work. You think I was carrying those chets around for you?”

“Oh.” Something about his admission makes me feel better. We’re more alike than either of us wants to acknowledge. I know where I stand with him. He doesn’t lie to me. He tells me exactly what he’ll do if I don’t go along with the Gates of Dawn’s plans. No guessing. We’re friendly for now, but that ends if I ever decide that his cause isn’t for me. Reykin, Daltrey, and Dune make more and more sense the longer I’m around them. What if I were in a position of power? Could I make the kind of changes that would save secondborns? If so, isn’t that worth the fight? Or is that the chet talking?

The price of power is my brother’s life, at the very least. Many more people would have to die for Dune and Reykin to attain the influential positions they would need to topple the Fates Republic. The most likely outcome of the plot to destroy the Fates Republic is that we’ll all be tortured and killed for treason. I don’t care about any of it now, though, and I know that’s the chet talking.

“Are you hungry?” I ask.

“Very,” he admits.

“Me, too. Did you know that I can order anything I want here and they’ll send it to me? Anything. I don’t even need merits. I can have as many crellas as I want.”

“Do you like crellas?”

“I love them,” I admit, and then whisper, “I don’t even know most of the food items on the food dispensary’s menu.”

He smiles. It might be the first time I’ve ever seen him smile. I feel like I ate an entire chet. “What don’t you know?” His dark eyebrow raises in a cunning arch.

“What’s ‘foie gras’?”

He stifles a chuckle. “It’s duck liver or goose liver.”

I wrinkle my nose. “It sounds gross. Do you like it?”

“No. It has a peculiar aftertaste.”

“If I’m stuck with you until tonight,” I say, “I’m going to make you my official translator.” I rise and walk toward the kitchen. Over my shoulder, I ask, “Coming?”

He catches up, his hand brushing past mine, though he doesn’t seem to notice. “First, let’s put Phoenix back together. He can be our official taste tester.”

The theoretical joy of a food fest just lost some of its appeal, but I try to shrug off the sense of dread at the thought of being intentionally poisoned.

Phoenix is still lying inoperable on the table. Reykin opens the case he carries in his pocket. He extracts a star-shaped programmer and inserts it into one of Phoenix’s ports. The star whirls until it resembles a sun. When it winds down, I ask, “What was that?”