They’ve trained you not to wince at the sight of metal anymore, but it is so close that you can feel it burning through the thin leather of your gloves, glinting like the poison it is to your Scar skin. You wave your blade at the oncoming surge of rioters to head off the prickle of fear that starts to seep through your veins.
“Edict VIII: Scars shall do well to remember: SERVICE OR STEEL,” a Spark soldier’s voice crackles over the din, enhanced by his magic.
Odd, you think, that I’m more afraid of a scrap of metal than I am of an enraged mob.
No one in the swarm knows that you are nothing more than one of them behind your stiff mask, a Scar who may as well be dead without magic or metal to breathe power into you. In front of you are the naïve ones who don’t have the wit to see that the Queen’s Army is the only way, and inside you is a clever one who does. But everyone is grinding their throats into the fall afternoon now, and it turns out that idiocy and intelligence all sound the same in the form of frenzied shouts. You thought a few moments ago that you could make out what they were saying, ‘free the Scars’ or some such nonsense, but the only thing still clear is the bodies around you tangling with and crushing one another.
“S,” your partner says, “let’s round them up now.” L-902, your companion-in-arms for three years now.
“Right, then,” you reply. Behind you, Delyth and Nia, Spark overseers, bark commands at the rest of the Scar force. The two women’s eyes slice through everyone’s hearts with contempt for a race that is never male, never female, but unavoidably other. Gray tongues of fire weave in and out of their fingers. Their shared Spark is an ancient and dangerous one.
“S-113, you blockhead! Do you hear me?” L is raising eir metal whip, a weapon difficult to master, an undulating serpent. “Back!” ey yells at the flood. The whistle of the whip through the air strikes a gleaming madness into the other Scars’ eyes as you mimic L’s sweeping motions.
Your sword slices something, and, shocked, you tense.
A boy, not a Scar eirie but a boy with that unmistakable tanned Spark skin, covers a bleeding arm with one hand. He can’t be any older than fourteen. You melt back into action, your joints liquefying with feline grace, binding his wrists with thick rope. You’re about to begin reciting the Edicts of the Scars but stumble over the words in your mind––what edicts, what threat, do you give to a Spark who can do nothing but what is right?
The boy’s gaze is like a lash. Magic writhes inside him, making him strong, burning him up. Nia approaches him and shoots you a warning glare. Say something, S. He needs to fear you, you tell yourself. He needs to think you are a Spark with spells in your hands and even a proper name. Never mind what he’s doing in a Scar protest, helping lesser beings. Nia is watching you. The overseer.
You manage something brief and pretentious, hoping your approximation of the Spark accent is at least plausible: “You have incurred the displeasure of the Spark Crown with your transgression and you will be transferred to a corrective stronghold outside the boundaries of Spark Fastness with all intentions toward recovery.” Straining not to break your stare, you grip the boy’s restraints so that he won’t try anything foolish.
“I know you’re lying!” the boy says. “I know where you send people like me.”
The overseers advance on him, and he shudders at the touch of their shadowy, piercing auras, pulsing with an invisible flame. A vine, weak and frightened, sprouts from a crack in the street as his eyes flash bright green. A Verdant Spark, standing up to Umbras, you think. Interesting.
Nia tilts her head in an almost imperceptible nod, not showing the least hint of surprise at finding a Spark in the middle of this fray. “S-113, you and L-902 will return to your quarters now,” she hisses, drawing nearer to you. You learned long ago that her words are never mere questions or statements. Even her greetings are orders. “Delyth will take the prisoners into the holding cells.”
“You torture and kill innocent Scars,” the Spark captive goes on. “We can’t have that in Spark Fastness, don’t you see? Perhaps in Steel Fastness they still do it, but not here. Not here.” His face is a little broken now because every Spark child grows up in love with their land; you’ve seen that love shattered before. The strangest feeling––as if he can see your eirie face through the mask––washes over you.
“That kind of talk is treason,” you whisper at him. “Keep quiet if you know what’s good for you.”
“My words are against the law?” he starts angrily, but he softens. “Don’t you have Scar servants in your house? Are they any worse than you?”
I am the servant, you want to say, but instead you bite your lip as if your life depends on it before responding hesitantly. “I’m not supposed to speak to you.”
“I know,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “I have a Scar servant, see. A-456.”
“What?” No, that can’t be right––A-456––you recognize the number. You have it stamped into your mind, next to a name you are afraid to think about.
“Aeron,” you both say simultaneously.
No. Wide-eyed, he looks up at you, and a realization striking him. You’re a Scar, his expression says.
“Ey spoke about eir child. S-113. Ey still misses S so much.” His eyes are suffocating you. “They have Aeron there with them. The Umbras have em. Ey was captured a minute or so before I was.”
“You don’t know em, you can’t know Aeron -”
“Yes, I do. Ey’s compassionate and fierce and sings lullabies in Scartongue when ey thinks no one is listening. I know Aeron is an eirie, not a woman, but ey was a better mother to me than anyone when I was younger. Face it straight on like the soldier you are. I’m right, Saire.”
Envy and confusion well up inside you before you can push them down––you can’t help but think it’s unfair that a Spark boy is more of a child to Aeron than you ever were, that ey told him your name. Even you scarcely remember it after you left it behind when the Spark Queen came to collect from Steel Fastness fifteen years ago. It’s a secret, not something for a stranger to be using to lash out at you. Saire. Saire. The overwhelming need to say it aloud, to make sure it’s real, itches on your tongue. S-a-i-r-e.
“No,” you say levelly. You want to hit him, but all you do is keep your black mask on and walk away. Suddenly you know nothing but three facts: Aeron has been captured. This boy faces execution. Your name is S-113.
No, you decide, my name is Saire.
***
“What were they rioting about, L?” you ask while you eat a cold soldiers’ breakfast the next morning. “The Scars yesterday, I mean.”
“Hmm? Oh, apparently it was something about the whipping sentence last month. The one where C-992 died.” L’s voice is emotionless, and you don’t want to judge against eir apathy. “There was no trial.” This is how you and your fellow Scar forces fool yourselves into thinking Spark Fastness is your country and not a pitiless burial ground.
“Who was C-992 again?”
“Little eirie, approximately five years old,” ey says. “Caught screaming about a Scar Fastness and criticizing the Spark Queen because, according to em, eir parent eiries were being detained by soldiers in a holding cell for ‘no apparent reason’. Sentenced to be whipped at the city post. Ey couldn’t stand the pain anymore––is what I’m told, anyhow.”
You chew thoughtfully without a word for the rest of the meal, grieving for C-992, the small dead eirie who could have been you.
***
When you strap on your knives for morning training, you turn to L again. “Do you remember your name?”
Ey snaps eir head towards you in warning. “My name is L-902, and I serve the Spark Crown proudly.” Eir eyes narrow, but ey relents when ey sees your frown. “That’s what’s best for all of us.” L tightens the cords of eir knives and glances outside the window only to draw back.
“L! S!” a harried-looking woman shouts at you, motioning wildly towards the door. “Get out. I’m receiving guests today and I don’t need you two in here while we prepare.”
“Yes, Elaine,” you mutter. Neither you or L like being stationed in Elaine’s servants’ quarters any more than she enjoys having to maneuver around you every day. The Scars in her household are subservient and frail, so there is no need to really monitor them. Soldiers garrisoned in homes should inspire a certain measure of dread, the overseers have told you, but Elaine and her servants, inured to your presence, only look on you with vague irritation.
Any ‘measure of dread’ is out of your reach. It always will be.
“If you met someone who knew your name, what would you do?” you say when Elaine leaves, persistent, not ready to give up your point, whatever it really is. “A Spark who knew your name?”
L ignores you. “We’re late for training, S. We could get lashes if you don’t hurry.”
“L.” Your voice is emphatic this time, almost desperate.
A deep sigh, as if L is carving out years and years of memories. Ey glances sidelong at you. “I would free them,” ey says, so quietly that you’re not sure if you heard right. “I would free them from whatever nightmarish place they must be trapped in to know something as terrible as my name.”
***
The air of Spark Fastness has always been laden with old curses and new burdens, but it has never been so heavy in your throat. This close to the heart of the city, the Steel and Spark Fastnesses begin to meld. Machines steam and growl as magical energy rises in the form of shimmering, dancing heat, and the incantations weaving their way around Spark workers’ lips are dreamlike in the dimness of evening. You have to take shallow breaths to keep yourself alert.
There are four guards on either side of each door of the prison. They’re not Verdant Sparks––Verdants are too weak in combat for guard duty. But they can’t spare Umbras here, since they are too strong and too rare, you note. The guards are bulky, built like... like Masons.
Despite the grim odds of fighting eight Sparks at once, they’re better when those Sparks are Masons, who have slower reflexes than most. With your small frame, you have the best chances of slipping past them in a fight, and the monstrous spears of rock they raise from the ground won’t be enough to snag you. This could even be too easy.
When did you become one to look at defeating eight highly trained Spark soldiers as something easy?
From your hiding place behind a security wall, you grin, the first true smile that has graced you in years. You take three or so steps back to return to Elaine’s home before anyone notices your absence when an agonized wail turns you to stone. That voice, though it’s been scratched raw by screams, sounds familiar.
A blurred face, telling you a fairy tale as you fall asleep. The story of the cunning rat who got revenge on the raven lord is your favorite.
Aeron.
Aeron. They must be using diluted amounts of steel on em, never enough to grant a quick death. The Spark interrogators perfected the necessary levels years ago.
Rage, white-hot and smoky, fills your chest, tries to choke you. Not tonight, you remind yourself as you trudge off. Tonight is too early, just a scouting trip, even if the strength to rip all those cell bars apart is screeching in your blood.
***
It dawns on you that you shouldn’t have come alone.
Now that you’re nearer to the prison, an Umbra comes into view. An Umbra. You barely keep yourself from cursing. Anticipating a light skirmish and getaway soon after, you brought every one of your knives but hardly any of your armor other than the ever-present gloves to block the steel––and besides, all the knives in the world won’t do anything against an Umbra’s black power. Your only chance is to cause as much confusion as you can and slip through the net of guards.
The sun is setting over the buildings in unnaturally bright golds and reds brought on by all the Spark force floating steadily higher in the sky. Now is the best time to try and break inside. Even Sparks get tired, you think. Or so you hope.
A breath for your strength, a breath for your resolve, a breath for the Scar that you have always been.
You fling one of your smaller weapons into the stoic mass of Masons, cringing when you hear the thud of a body falling. He was not the one at fault for the torture of Scars––but yes, he was, you realize. He was helping them do it, standing there, defending murderers. Your heart hardens.
Instantly the other guards are tense, but you don’t let them do much else as you sprint towards them. The next several moments are a blur. The clang of blades reverberates across the small workers’ courtyard and you strike more fatally than you have in the rest of your life combined. You are far away, already traveling to the inner cluster of holding cells in your mind.
The fight seems like a bothersome wait until you stagger into the prison, winded but surprisingly unhurt. Casting away caution, you let your footsteps echo when you break into a run, pausing only to peer into each cramped cell as you pass.
“Saire.”
Again, the scream-scratched, familiar voice.
Without even having to confirm its source, you follow it back to a room even smaller than the others. Neither you or Aeron speak while you pick the rusted lock with one of Elaine’s hairpins, and neither of you speak when you both pick up a running pace towards the exit.
As you push open one of the back doors, ey finally asks: “What about the others?”
“You first.”
Something in eir face seems to die when you say it.
You feel a prick of guilt––maybe you should go back for them - cut off by a cold knife searing your neck. Scar skin recognizes diluted steel, like a memory of fire, but all the same, you crumple, clawing at the place where it touched you. Nia and Delyth’s disdainful faces glower down at you from their standing position. Shakily, you get up.
“The Spark Queen is merciful,” Delyth snaps. “She will grant you one more opportunity to confess to your crimes, swear fealty to her, and largely escape punishment.”
You feel Aeron’s hand slide into yours. Child, it seems to say, you know you won’t.
What were you thinking? You haven’t seen Aeron in over ten years, and the Crown has provided for you. Most Scars can only wish for what you have. Aeron is a stranger to you. A stranger.
No, fight it. That’s the Umbras’ Spark making you doubt.
“Confess,” the overseers say together.
You feel yourself sinking to one knee, feel your right fist close over your chest.
Only a hollow soldier made of lead. Heavy hearts, heavy limbs, all so numb.
“I confess.”
***
You thought the highest execution chamber of Spark Fastness, reserved for only the most grievous offenses, would reek of death, but it seems to have no smell at all. That would petrify you even more if your heart hadn’t already turned to stone.
When Nia throws a paralyzing charm over you, filmy and cold, you do not miss the irony of the Spark Queen’s seal glowing softly on your left arm.
“Some prisoners struggle,” Delyth observes placidly, “but we know you will not. This is simply a precaution.” Her overt politeness is almost enough to make you crack a smile. Their ruse was well-played, if hackneyed––capture for a Scar is death. Service or steel. There was never going to be any mercy.
All that disappears when Nia and Delyth begin assembling the mantle. There are no secondhand impurities, no petty dilutions here - you’ve seen them pouring the magic-forged metal into the molds and heard the whispers, whispers saying that if a mantle touches your skin it will take your very soul. Just now you felt your heartbeat, hammering you in half, but even as you focus on it, even as you search for it, the terrified thud-thud-thud falters. It’s stolen my soul already, you think erratically. They’ve taken Aeron, too, and somewhere behind another door, other Sparks are doing the same thing to em. You’re not sure whether to hope ey will hear you when the collar settles over your shoulders.
It rises over your head. The entire chamber seems to take a breath, as if waiting for you to say something. It is willing to hear your last words.
Spitefully, you keep your mouth shut to the end. It comes for you slower than sand, but it is steady nonetheless. Steadier than any part of the Spark regime has ever been. Service or steel, you think, but as you slip farther away from the ringing agony in your ears, they seem to blur, become one and the same.
Christina Im
Grade: 8
Stoller Middle School
Portland, OR 97229
Educator(s): Colleen Medlock
Awards: Science Fiction/Fantasy
Gold Medal, 2014
Listen to Christina discuss this work.