Twin Suns of Arterra

23

It wasn't their age that startled me – although for a people that had lost their oldest and youngest to disease I had been prepared to find all of them barely older than myself – it was the looks on their faces. I had expected them to be defiant. To look at us as outsiders who were judging them, and to meet us with defensiveness, if not outright aggression. Instead, their eyes were troubled. Their faces were drawn and tense. They looked as if they were as distraught over their choices as I was.

Valyn followed us into the small room, closing the door behind her before joining the group of three already seated at the far end of the table and sitting down. The man next to her, by far the youngest of the group and by my guess only a few years older than me, gave a tight smile that didn't quite reach to his dark eyes. He lifted a hand in Valyn's direction.

"Valyn is the head of our recon team," he explained. "As such, she is one of the people whose voice is heard on any decisions that are made."

Recon? Is that what they were calling it?

"And I should let you know that hers was the voice most opposed to our ultimate decision to bring the prisms here."

I found that hard to believe.

The muscles of her jaw clenched and unclenched. She was either bothered by the statement, or hiding something. I would not rule either possibility out.

Blade sat at the edge of her chair on my left. She tilted her head to the side as she considered these two statements.

"So you're what? An aristocracy?"

His dark brows lifted. "I would hardly call it that." He motioned to the two that sat on his right side.

"Kaelinda is in charge of all of our medical treatment and planning. She was one of the few who chose to stay when the call went out for her team to evac to dome eight." His tone implied we should be awed by this fact.

Kaelinda was not the oldest of the group of four, but she was close. The gray threaded through her thick, dark blonde hair and the lines around her mouth made it likely she was over forty cycles. She met our questioning stares head on, but offered no explanation for her decision to forsake her own chance at protection and stay behind when the domes went up.

"Norris and I were both chosen to represent the voice of the people."

Norris, with hair the color of sand and eyes such a watered down shade of blue that they were nearly colorless, turned his pursed lips in our direction. Here was the obvious patriarch of their group.

"Corwin represents the voice of the people," he corrected. "I represent those without a voice."

His face was so seamed and seasoned from the sun that he resembled a piece of hide. Still, I saw something in those watery blue eyes of his that made me think that he was not the sour dissenter he would have us think he was.

Corwin nodded at the other man's response, his face sober and not in the least offended. He let the silence draw out for a beat before he held out a hand.

"So you see? We are truly no aristocracy. We are barely even a democracy. We're mostly just the ones who know enough about what's going on to be more expendable than those doing the actual work."

If he expected me to feel sorry for him, he was going to be disappointed. Whatever they called it, these were the four who had chosen to steal my sister and countless others.

"Why did you bring us here?" Blade's blunt question cut through my thoughts.

"Because we need you," Valyn's immediate answer was just as direct.