Rowan looked at the photograph. She tilted her head to the side, her eyes growing wide while he watched her take a closer look.
“Silas,” she began, but just as she did, his tablet came to life.
Silas turned quickly, recognizing the alert. The colonies used a special system to alert one another of imminent news. What they did not know was that some of the settlements, including this one, had perfected the technology to intercept such broadcasts themselves.
“What is it?” Rowan asked, coming to read over his shoulder.
Silas read the alert. “Unrest.”
“What?”
He read more of the message. Small rebellions had been growing in size for the last year now but this was different, this one got farther than any had before.
“I don’t understand. Silas, what’s going on?”
“We have informants within each colony. They report critical information back to us.” Silas got up and found a shirt to put on. “There’s been unrest in some of the settlements that’s now bled into the colonies as well. I need to go meet with the elders. Stay here, I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
This was good, it was what they had been waiting for. As much as Silas wanted peace, he also knew that in order to have it, all people would need to be freed of the iron fist with which the colony ruled. The citizens within the walls were poor, their living conditions only slightly better than those of the settlements. It was only a matter of time that something would have to give. He just wasn’t sure he wanted it to give before he could get his son out. Once that happened, he’d join the rebels and fight. At this point, the thought of snapping Commander Norrin’s neck caused his fists to clench. But first, he’d need to rescue his son.
“Wait!” she called after him.
“Stay here, Rowan,” he ordered without looking back.
* * *
Rowan watched the door close behind him. “Damn it!” she cursed, picking up the glass that still had some of the liquid inside it. Holding her nose, she drank it down. The warmth after the initial burn felt good but she couldn’t understand how he sipped it as if enjoying the flavor.
She had questions for him, questions about his son. She had a nagging feeling but it couldn’t be. What she was thinking had to be a coincidence.
Some months earlier while she was living at the breeder facility, she remembered having woken from a noise coming from outside. She and Lis were sharing a room with two other breeders and her bed was closest to the window. Lis had also woken and when the sounds didn’t quiet, they both went to the window to investigate. What they’d seen they had not understood, not then and not ever. There below them under the cover of dark, two guards led a boy into the building. He carried a small toy; Rowan remembered the bear in the child’s hands clearly. They had opened the window to listen through the bars, wondering what could be happening. The only children at this facility were females and then only the breeders.
The boy had been coughing hard and a fit had him double over. He had dropped the bear and when the guard had pushed him along, he had cried and made a fuss over it. The guard had become angry and moved to strike the child and Rowan remembered Lis’ gasp. The other guard caught the man’s arm and stayed it. His words were so strange and she hadn’t been sure she had heard correctly. He had said: “Too valuable, if we damage a male of their kind, you know what will happen.”
Their kind.
Rowan had looked over at Lis and the girl’s eyes had gone wide.
“What is it?” Rowan had asked and followed her gaze below. The boy must have heard them up in the window because he was staring up at it, at them, and even in the dark of night, Rowan had seen it or at least imagined the deformity that marked him. “It’s not possible,” she had said.
Guards had come to do their rounds then and the two had slipped into bed and pretended to sleep.
Was there a chance that this was Silas’ son? Was this why she had been given to him to breed? To create more of the male children with the slanted pupils? If so, if he were truly what she thought she had seen that night, then she knew for a fact that Commander Norrin would not return the boy to Silas. Silas would never get his son back. He would be too valuable to ever be allowed out of the colony.
* * *
The following morning, Rowan woke to knocking at her door. She climbed out of bed and slid her dress over her head before opening the door to find Kara standing outside, her face expectant, a bouquet of flowers in her hand similar to the ones Rowan had brought a few weeks earlier.
“Forgive me?” she asked.
Rowan smiled and pulled the younger girl into a hug. “I’m the one who should be apologizing. What I did,” she began, pulling back and thinking about the last weeks, about how determined she had been. “What I did was selfish. I didn’t think of anyone or anything but myself.”