The elevator enters the golden circlet of the Halo Palace, and the view cuts off. When the doors open, we enter a magnificent foyer. A grand staircase climbs to a golden balustrade lined mezzanine. More than ten military-grade death drones hover about this lavish room. Several Iono guards in crisp gray uniforms stand like statues at equal intervals in the foyer. “That staircase leads to Fabian and Adora’s private residence,” Dune says, referring to The Virtue and his wife. I peer up. Exo guards in black uniforms stand at intervals along the mezzanine’s curved walls. All of them have fusion rifles. Dune must have cleared my moniker for the visit, because our presence goes unchallenged.
Golden columns support gilded architraves on both levels. Between the pillars, on the mezzanine’s landing wall beyond, hang portraits of The Virtue and his sublime spouse. Adora’s green eyes, wondrous and cold, cast a gaze of emerald ice upon Dune and me. Her long blond hair gently moves on the portrait’s visual screen, held in place by her halo crown—a circlet of pure gold. The difference between the two royal figures is such to make them worlds apart. Where Fabian is dark, Adora is light. His mouth is ruthless. Hers is supple. His face is hard angles. Hers is rounded softness.
Dune and I don’t climb the exquisite staircase. Instead, we turn and head for an adjacent corridor, our shadows stretching beneath the ever-watchful gazes of our sovereigns until we’re out of the foyer.
Dune’s gait is gentle, the pace of a panther whose tail caresses the confines of his cage. He leads me to his private apartments. I’m impressed by the beauty of his drawing room, everything masculine and high tech. I approach an arching glass wall with godlike views of the city beyond the expansive grounds. The world almost makes sense from this altitude.
“Privacy mode,” Dune says.
I huff in disappointment as shutters of thick steel close over the wall, severing my connection with the outside world. Doors close and latch. A pinging high-intensity frequency bursts to life and ascends in pitch until I can no longer hear it.
Dune stands near a luxurious tungsten and black-velvet sofa. Large chairs of the same shiny metal and matte fabric face it. He gestures toward one. I settle into it and feel small by comparison. He lifts a silver orb from a glass bowl on the low table between us, holding it in his palm. It levitates and hovers in the air. Light erupts from the device, shining out in spidery legs that expand into an iridescent bubble around us.
The orb slowly descends into the bowl. It settles among the other spheres, still emitting the light. “We are secure,” Dune says. “You can speak freely. Not even our monikers’ transmitters can penetrate the whisper orb.”
“Thank you for seeing me, Commander Kodaline,” I murmur.
“No need to thank me, or to call me ‘Commander.’ I’m not your mentor anymore. We both know I’m neither firstborn nor secondborn.”
“What shall I call you?”
“Dune.”
“Is that your real name?” I’m surprised to hear the hurt in my own voice.
“Yes.”
I once thought I knew everything there was to know about this man, but I know very little. “Your last name isn’t Kodaline. It’s Leon.”
“You met my brother Daltrey.”
“Does one really meet Daltrey Leon, or is he more like something that happens to you? Like an airship crash. I brought him the monikers that Flannigan and I stole from Census. He accepted them and then left me little choice but to infiltrate the Sword industrial systems for the Gates of Dawn.”
“He does have a way about him. He sees your potential.”
“Daltrey is your real firstborn brother, is he not?” I ask. Dune resembles the leader of the Gates of Dawn.
“He is. I had an older sister, Kendall, but she was murdered not long after her Transition by a firstborn from the city where she worked.”
“I’m sorry.”
“As am I.”
“Where was her post?”
“In the Fate of Virtues. She had a brilliant mind. She was training to be an energy engineer.”
“What happened?”
“She was raped by a man whose father controlled the energy contracts for the region. She became pregnant with his firstborn. He didn’t want anyone to know, so he strangled her.”
I should be shocked, but I’m not. “Was he punished?” I ask. Usually only secondborns suffer the consequences of any crime perpetrated against them by firstborns, especially the crime of rape.
“Not by Census. He paid a fine to the Fate of Stars, and they let him go.”
I shiver, seeing the intensity in Dune’s eyes. He has made pain his companion. I’ve always felt it, but I didn’t know why. “You avenged her.” It’s not a question. He’s patient and precise—dark and powerful.
“I tortured my sister’s murderer, and then I tied his rotting corpse to the trunk of a tree in front of his parent’s estate in Lenity.” Pain isn’t just Dune’s companion, it’s his lover.
“He was Virtue-Fated?” Lenity is a wealthy district not far from here.
“He was Star-Fated but living in Virtues.”
“Was it enough?” As a soldier, I know once the inertia of passivity is broken, crossing the line of violence has its own momentum. Revenge doesn’t have a master. It is a master.
“His death will never be enough. This Republic that allows firstborns to commit atrocities with little or no repercussions—that enslaves us—will end.” The caged-animal look is back, darkening his features. It’s unnerving. Dune’s usually so careful, so controlled. He has never spoken to me like this before, as if I’m his peer.
“It’s not your fault—what happened to her,” I say quietly.
“Isn’t it?” His tone is harsh. “You saved your secondborn friend from a similar atrocity.”
“It wasn’t the same thing. I was lucky.”
“Was it luck or was it you being brave, daring to act despite the consequences?”
“I don’t know.”
“Nor do I.” He paces behind the long sofa, within the whisper orb’s confines.
I clutch the arm of the chair to keep myself from going to him. He wouldn’t want that. I clear my throat. “Daltrey is the oldest in your family, then Kendall, and then Walther? That makes you technically fourthborn—thirdborn now that your sister is gone.”
“Walther is older than me, but only by minutes. We’re fraternal twins.”
Twins are rare. If a second pregnancy results in twins, one fetus is terminated and delicately removed or left to be absorbed by the other. With a first pregnancy, the parents can choose to keep both twins, but one must be secondborn, and eventually given to the government on its Transition Day. “How did Walther become a secondborn Sword?”
“Walther and I have been a secret since our birth. Census would’ve executed us both, and our mother for hiding the pregnancy, but my parents were wealthy and made sacrifices to keep us alive.” His parents were more than wealthy. The Leons are the Second Family in the Fate of Stars. They would inherit the title of “The Star” if the current First Family’s heirs in Stars, the Vukes, were unable to claim the title. In other words, if they were dead. If Aksel Vuke and his two children were to die, Daltrey rules his Fate as The Star.
“What sort of sacrifices?” I ask.