The Sun Dwellers

My stomach churns as I remember the grotesque and scarred face of Rivet, the president’s killing machine, who I killed after he murdered Cole in cold blood. The thought of him hunting down Tristan’s mother makes me ill. Based on the gree

And the microchips? Could it be? Could Tristan’s mom and her microchips be the link Tristan and I have been missing this whole time?

“I know what you’re thinking: how could you? Rivet is crazy—he’d kill her! I gave him strict orders not to harm her, just to bring her back. Well, as it turns out, he couldn’t find her and she returned a few days later on her own. It seems she wasn’t willing to leave her children even to save herself. She told me she needed a holiday, apologized for leaving without telling me, and said she wouldn’t do it again. Can you believe her nerve? Lying to my face like that?

“That’s when I made a mistake. I let my anger get the better of me. I killed her on the spot, that filthy, no-good, whore of a wife. I crushed her windpipe like a piece of plastic.”

Something snaps in Tristan and he charges the steps, but a guard appears and closes the large metal gate with an ominous clang. Backing up a few steps, Tristan runs at the high wall beneath our seats, springs off his toes, grabs for the ledge at the top, his fingers falling short as he slides down the wall with a dismal groan.

I can’t see him anymore, but I can hear him, his anguished, ragged screams of, “I’ll kill you!—how could you?—I hate you!” I feel broken inside, seeing him like this, hearing him like this, knowing what he’s gone through. Despite being a sun dweller, the son of the President, having everything handed to him since he was born, his life has been every bit as grief-filled as my own, as anyone’s in the Lower Realms.

I feel closer to him than I’ve ever felt.

I want to go to him, but right as I consider how I might be able to break free and jump below, I shiver as the cold steel is once more at my throat. “Silence!” President Nailin bellows. “Or she dies!”

Tristan, still out of sight, stops his yelling, and Roc rushes to him, speaks in soft tones. I can’t hear what he says, but a minute later he and Tristan walk back into view. Tristan’s longish hair is in his face, disheveled by sorrow-filled fingers. His face isn’t moist as I expected it might be; rather, it’s cracked, full of lines that I’ve never seen before, as if each of his father’s words were blades, tearing long, bloodless streaks across his forehead, cheeks, and chin. His single dimple is still there, but it’s a hole, filled with despair, not a sign of joviality.

The knife slides away from my skin.

“Why’d you kill her? What did she do that was so bad?” he demands.

“Welcome back,” the President says. “I was about to tell you when you lost control of yourself. Besides lying to my scientist, she lied to me after I confronted her. She kept on with her lie about taking a vacation. She wouldn’t tell me where she really went. I should have tortured her, pushed her farther, threatened you and Killen’s lives, forced her to admit the truth, but she wouldn’t. I guess we’re cut from the same mold Tristan—like you just did, I snapped, I lost control. I killed her.”

“We’re nothing alike,” Tristan says. He’s back in control of his emotions now. Still angry, yes, but in control. Thinking, trying to gain facts, come up with a plan. “When did you find out the truth?” he asks.

“Oh, now you want to talk? Luckily, I’m in a chatty mood. It wasn’t until recently and was quite by accident. When you left, I was furious, wanted to find out where you might be headed, what you might be pla

“There’s nothing in my room.” There’s no concern in Tristan’s voice, like he believes there was nothing to find.

“There was,” his father insists. “You just didn’t know it. Before your mother left on her little road trip, she hid something in your room, something she hoped you’d find eventually. But you never found it, never even thought to look for it.” He grins. “But I found it, tucked inside your mattress. A brief recounting of her thoughts after seeing the New City, but before leaving the Sun Realm with the microchips. Want to see it?”

Tristan nods slowly.

“Fine. I have no further use for it.” He pulls out a thin book, and with a flick of his wrist, flings it over the balcony. Soft-bound, it flutters slightly, its pages flapping, before dropping to the ground beside him. He retrieves it, his hands shaking slightly as he runs them along the cover.

“The pages are numbered—there are only twelve of them. Read page six.” His father sits back, his arms folded across his barrel-like chest, as smug as I’ve ever seen him.

Tristan’s folds back the cover, his eyes glancing at the writing on the first page, which is probably tempting him to read from the begi

“Tristan, I’m so sorry for doing this without your knowledge, but it was the only way I could keep you safe until the time came when you were old enough to stand up to your father. You might be twenty or much older, and I might be gone or dead”—he pauses on the word—“if your father has learned of my actions; but know that I’m with you every step of the way. What I’m about to tell you will be hard to believe, but know that I did it with a pure heart and good intent. It is the truth. Tristan, I implanted a microchip in your back; you have a small scar now.”

He looks up at me, his eyes brimming with understanding. “The crescent,” I whisper, earning a shift in the President’s gaze to me.

Tristan looks down again, finding his place with a finger. “I will now attempt to find the leaders of the Resistance, convince them to implant one of their children with an identical microchip, one that will draw you together eventually, creating a bond that will hopefully save us all. For it is not until you escape the Sun Realm that you will truly understand what the world is like outside of our bubble, how bad it is. It is not enough for you to fight on your own. You must fight alongside the Resistance, even lead them if they will have you.”

My heart skips a beat. I can feel the President’s eyes on me, but I can only stare at Tristan, who’s still reading. I don’t hear his words, just feel the intensity as the truth comes out. The confirmation that our bond, our co

Tristan is still reading, and I manage to fight away my thoughts to listen.

“For I know that the fight against your father’s evil will last long after my life, long after the Resistance leaders’ lives, and therefore, we need someone to keep the fight alive, to combine what you know with the spirit inside those that seek change in this world. I hope you can understand why I did what I did, and forgive me for it.”

Tristan stops, closes the book while continuing to stare at it, tucks it in a hidden compartment in his tunic, finally looks up, but not at me.

“You found a way to turn off the microchips?” he asks his father.

“You noticed, did you? What did it feel like, son? Like all the feelings you had for this moon dweller—”

“Her name is Adele.”

“Her name doesn’t matter! Didn’t you realize that she was nothing more than a stupid girl? That your co