Beyond the Red (6 page)

A blast of cold air whisks through the room and I suppress a shiver. Maybe the frigid cooling system isn’t an accident. They want us to feel cold, naked, vulnerable.

They want us to know we’re at their mercy.

When the last of the women have abandoned their clothes, Jarek nods and points at the four seats. “Four at a time,” he says. “Sit.”

I go ahead and move first, and a couple nervous women follow suit. The chair is metal and a shock of ice stabs my skin as I sit down. I shudder and fold my arms over my chest, then rub my palms on my thighs. Nothing helps—my skin is a field of bumps and frozen hairs.

A soldier steps behind me, grabs a fistful of my hair, and pulls my head back. Heat and pain sears my neck and slice down my spine as my heart jerks against my ribcage—they’re going to kill us? But then a low humming noise starts up behind me and something warm buzzes over my skull. A clump of dark hair falls to the tile.

Oh.

I close my eyes. Try to ignore the gazes burning my skin. The hair sliding off my shoulders. The endless buzzing and hum of the hot razor-thing against my scalp. The sniffling of a woman beside me, the chill of the never-ending frozen air, the stubborn pain prickling my neck.

Everyone’s going to see my ears now. It’ll be even more impossible to hide what I am.

Not that they didn’t already know.

The humming stops and the soldier shoves me forward. I stumble and resist the impulse to run my hand over my skull. I don’t want to feel it. I don’t want to notice how my head feels light, how the chilly air blows directly on my scalp, how I have nothing to protect my neck, nothing to hide my ears.

One by one, the women sit in the chairs. One by one their hair falls around their feet, swept up into bins. One by one we stand against the wall.

We already look more like the servants standing outside the room. We’re already becoming them.

When the last woman is shaved, Jarek opens the door on the west wall and gestures inside. I don’t need to translate this time—they move inside with their eyes low.

This next room is identical to the last—tile floors and white walls, bathed in light—except this room is four times as large and has row upon row of long metal tub-looking things. Beside each tub is a pale, bald, gray-eyed servant.

“One per bath,” Jarek says, but no one really needs the instruction. We line up beside the tubs, which I can now see are filled with what looks like purple water pumped with miniature bubbles. The servant at my station doesn’t react to my gender or ears or light markings. She barely looks at me at all as Jarek instructs us to climb in.

I step inside and gasp—the water is ice-cold and fizzes around my skin. I submerge myself before I can change my mind—and regret it. Whatever this is isn’t water and it sets my neck on fire. I surface, gasping, spitting the salty liquid, pressing down on the wound in my neck, but the pain doesn’t stop and the agony reaches up into the side of my face and down into my shoulder. The servant takes my hand and pulls it away from my neck. I almost protest, but then she takes a wet cloth and starts to clean the gash. It hurts worse than the fizzy water, but I grit my teeth and stare at the bright white ceiling and bear it. As much as it hurts, I need this. At least I won’t die of infection.

When she finishes wiping around my neck, she pushes my head under again. The bubbles gather around the wound and it stings, but not as badly as the first time. My skin burns from the frigid water as I resurface and my teeth chatter loudly, but she works fast, cleaning the blood off my face, chest, neck, and hands. Soon she nods and I can climb out. She passes me a towel and I dry myself as quickly as I can manage. I do my head last, and even though I’m expecting it, the fabric on my scalp sends a cold shock blossoming through my gut.

We enter another room. This one is just as large as the last one, except instead of tubs there are chairs, and before the chairs is a long row of glass floor-to-ceiling tubes with an opening in the front and back. Jarek instructs us to step into the tubes, then proceed to one of the chairs, and the women look at me to lead as example.

So I step into a tube. The openings in front and behind me close, and bright blue light shines over me. My skin tingles like there’s an invisible energy in the air prickling my skin, then the light disappears and cold water dumps over me followed by a jet of frigid air. I’m shivering when the tube opens up again and I step onto the tile. I rub my arms and oh—I know what the tube did—the hair on my arms is gone. I’m entirely hairless.

Frowning, I try not to imagine what I must look like—stars know completely hairless isn’t exactly attractive—as I step toward a chair. There are two Sepharon men at each station. They’re not dressed like soldiers, but they wear a similar white and red high-collar shirt and long pant uniform that seems so popular here. I sit and bite my lip as the cool metal warms under my naked, half-frozen ass and back.

The men move without a word. The guy to my left slides a dark metal cuff over my upper arm and holds it there. The inner ring glows bright red, then my breath catches as the skin beneath the cuff burns. Before I can ask what the cuff is, the man to my right turns my head and pushes my cheek against the chair, then plunges a needle into my neck, just below the gash. I shout, then clamp down on my tongue. I’ve felt worse pain today, but the bite of the needle is deep and my neck is already badly bruised. He releases me and his partner slides the cuff off my arm, and I understand what the cuff was for.

I’m marked.

I don’t need to read the tattoo to know what it says—I’m forever branded a servant of Elja. A slave.

I slide off the chair and wait on the far end of the room as women make their way over after being tattooed. Their eyes are numb and they don’t look at me.

Even now, after all we’ve been through, I’m still something to be avoided. I’ll always be a dirty half-blood.

The next room has tubs again, this time filled with a liquid similar to milk or thick candle wax. This is actually the most pleasant procedure, because the liquid is warm. I hold my breath and stay under until my lungs begin to burn. Climbing out again is even more uncomfortable, though, because as warm as the baths are, the room itself is still freezing. I cross my arms and that’s when I get a glimpse of my skin—my hands, arms, legs, and chest are a pasty, sickly white. I rub my fingers together. My skin is ridiculously soft, and as best I can tell the liquid dries into some kinduv white powder that sticks. The weird milk baths will probably be a regular thing if they intend to keep us ghosts.

At least it covers the light trails on my skin. Mostly, anyway.

Finally, the soldiers bring us clothes. Everyone dresses quickly, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved to be covered up again. Although I wish it didn’t involve wearing a skirt. I guess it’s better than nothing.

When everyone is dressed, I dare a glance around the room. Our eyes aren’t the same color—at least, not yet—but my stomach churns as I look over the crowd. Thirty minutes ago, I knew these faces. Now, with their identical pasty skin tone, identical clothes, and identical baldness, I can barely tell them apart.

I still stand out, being a guy and at least a foot taller than most of them. But I probably don’t look out of place among them, either.

I resist the urge to scrape my skin clean as the soldiers separate us. No one protests anymore. They split the crowd into six smaller groups with ease, then Jarek steps next to me and takes my arm.

“You have a separate assignment,” he says, pulling me away from the crowd.

And though I have a vague feeling I’m not going to like this separate assignment, I’m too drained to fight him.

Anja has just finished maneuvering my silky black hair into a swirling, braided bun when my door slams open. In most circumstances, my guards would be on the intruder in an instant—no one bursts into my room without permission, or with permission, for that matter.

But my guards are partial to my brother, Dima, and they let him in without a word.

“Good morning,” I say pleasantly, watching him approach in the mirror. “What upsets you today? Are the suns too bright for your liking? I can make a special request to
Kala
, if it pleases you.”

Dima scowls at the wall to his left and crosses his thick golden brown arms over his chest.
Kala
’s mark entwines around his arms and chest in stiff straight lines and cornered angles, so unlike the smooth curves I inherited from our mother. The light markings on his arms are filled in entirely with text—everything from his many decorated statuses, to “a life without greatness is a life unlived” (our family creed), to excerpts from the ancient texts about strength and honor. “
Orenjo
” is shaved into the side of his cropped black hair and I resist the urge to roll my eyes. My brother doesn’t know a thing about honor.

“You know very well what upsets me, dear sister,” Dima says through his teeth.

Anja holds up a mirror behind my head to show me the bun. I nod my approval and spin around to face my childish brother. We may be the same age with nearly the same coloring—though his skin is a touch lighter than mine and his sharp jaw and severe glare make him appear older than me—but the fact that he still comes in here throwing his petty rages proves just how little he has matured over the cycles. “I’m not a mind reader, Dima. I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re going to wail about.”

There are many things he would like to say to me in this moment, I’m sure, but sister or not, I’m still his superior—a fact he knows all too well. His lips form a thin line and he drops his arms to his sides and faces me. “There is a half-blood in my training room, Kora. And Jarek tells me he has been ordered to keep him alive—by none other than
ken
Avra
herself.”

There’s an accusation in there, somewhere, but I refuse to be upset by it. Instead I stand and step toward the window at my bedside, looking out into the sandy gardens. Curved, beautiful rows of the most precious desert flowers trimmed into elongated crescents. Blue-leafed moonflowers that open and glow under the light of the moons. Tiny temperleaf blossoms that change colors when you stroke their white petals, supposedly predicting your mood. Striped bright pink kazipetals, shimmering silver morningbushes, and of course, the luscious deep purple angled petals of the bloodflower. They were Mamae’s favorite.

My fingers long to reach out and stroke the soft fuzzy blue buds of the closed moonflowers just outside my window, but something warm and soft rubs against my side—Iro, the family
kazim
. Though really, Iro is mine—he’s always been most attached to me, ever since Mamae presented him to us as a tiny cub. I run my fingers through the thick sand-colored fur between his ears. “If I’m not mistaken, you did mention to me not five sunsets back how you needed more servants in the training rooms to attend to your men.”

Although I don’t look at him, I hear the scowl in his words. “Servants,
sha
. Not trash.”

I face him again. “If you prefer, I can move him elsewhere. I wasn’t aware he was such an eyesore.”

“He doesn’t need to be moved—he needs to be executed. He shouldn’t be alive, Kora, you know that. Half-bloods are terminated at birth for a reason—you let a couple live and you risk others following suit and weakening our
species
. Do you want to be responsible for that?”

He’s right, of course. It’s incredible that the half-blood has lived this long—how he escaped execution is beyond me—but now that he’s here, I won’t throw away his potential.

I keep my face expressionless. “He’s one half-blood, and he’s not exactly attempting a genetic overhaul. Unless you’re suggesting he’s contagious and will somehow contaminate your men.”

Dima steps toward me. His height intimidates most, but it’s difficult to intimidate someone who’s seen you run around the palace naked with a scarf wrapped around your head as a child. “You find this amusing,” he says.

“I wouldn’t be giving you the credit you deserve if I didn’t admit you entertain me.”

He shakes his head. “I don’t understand. Why do you keep him alive? And on palace grounds, no less.”

“I have my reasons.” I sit on my desk and lean back on my arms as Iro curls up at the floor beneath my feet, his tail swishing slowly over the stone. Dima scowls at the animal and I keep my voice firm. “You will respect my decision.”

His pale-to-dark eyes flash for just a moment, but then he drops to one knee, his arm pulled across his chest. “As you wish,
el Avra
.”

I roll my eyes. “
Kala
, Dima. I’m asking you as your sister, not your ruler.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” he says stiffly. “Not if you wish him to live.”

I frown, hop off the desk, and put my hand on his broad shoulder. “You need to trust me. I have good reasons for keeping him here. He will prove useful, you’ll see.”

“You ask me to trust you, and yet you do not extend me the same courtesy.” He looks up at me. “Or will you tell me why you insist on keeping him alive?”