Chapter 3
Theren is late.
It’s not his fault. He had to cross all of Cedre Station to get here from the university library where he works as a custodian, and there was some problem on the train tracks, a busted signal, that took ten minutes to resolve.
As soon as the shuttle doors open, he breaks into a run, dodging people in line for the food carts—-the woman selling dumplings is particularly popular—-and children playing marbles right in the middle of the walkway, for some reason, and the grassy edges of the birch grove before he skids to a stop right outside the temple.
He’s a little sweaty and a little disheveled, but he smooths down his hair and strolls in like this chaotic arrival was all part of the plan.
The priestess standing in the temple antechamber looks startled.
She’s dressed in green ceremonial robes, with a glowing headdress that looks like the halos from ancient religious art.
The gilded, embroidered, and embellished robes are so elaborate that he doesn’t recognize her at first.
Not until she says, “Theren?”
He chokes a little as he replies, “Zuza?” But that’s a stupid question—-he knew Zuza worked in the temple. He just didn’t know she would be working today, the day of his brother’s Imbuing.
“Not that I’m not glad to see you,” she says quietly, looking left and right like she expects to be discovered, “but I thought we agreed ‘no defiling of sacred spaces’?”
Theren laughs. “I thought this wasn’t a religious thing. Besides, I’m not here to . . . defile anything.”
Zuza rolls her eyes. “Semantics.”
“No, no.” He shakes his head. “My brother is about to be Imbued. Isre Din?”
Understanding dawns on Zuza’s face. “Oh.” She adjusts her headdress, which is dipping a little on the left side. “Well, in my defense, I would have known that if you’d ever told me your last name.”
“I still haven’t.” Theren’s grin widens. “He’s my stepbrother. Different name.”
He and Zuza met in the university library, when Theren was supposed to be reorganizing a bookshelf but was actually taking an illicit reading break.
The book was a volume of Talusar poetry that Zuza needed for her thesis.
She mistook him for a fellow grad student—-and he nearly convinced her that he was, given how fluent he was in Talusar—-and ten minutes later they were pressed up against the shelf, hands all over each other.
They’ve been chasing stolen moments ever since then, but they hardly know anything about each other.
Or rather, she hardly knows anything about him, which is by design. It’s become a kind of joke between them.
“I’ll just have to get better at sleuthing,” Zuza says. “Later? After the ceremony?”
“Yes,” he says.
She smiles. She has the kind of smile that always looks a little bit mischievous. “Your brother’s already in the vestibule. You should just go into the hall.”
“Right.” Theren looks at the door behind her, which is sealed with light. “I can’t actually open that.”
She raises her eyebrows. Theren is twenty years old, which means that if he was normal, he would have elixir running through his veins like every other person over the age of sixteen on Cedre Station.
And elixir is all that’s required to open doors to rooms where children aren’t allowed .
. . like the one that leads to the temple sanctuary.
But he’s not normal. So he can’t open it.
Zuza doesn’t ask, though he can see how badly she wants to. She turns away from him, and sweeps her fingers over the panel on the heavy metal door. It lights up at her touch, and the door opens. His face warm, he walks past her and into the sanctuary.
He was right, before—-this place isn’t a religious space, though it’s still sacred to the Cedrae, and it looks the part.
The ceiling is so high it’s shrouded in darkness, and the walls are as elaborately decorated as Zuza’s ceremonial robes.
They’re a mosaic of gleaming metal and green glass, sparkling like the scales of a fish caught in sunlight.
There are friezes above them depicting the ritual Isre is about to perform: a figure walking into the pool, diving beneath its water, swallowing one of the gems at the bottom, surfacing with elixir suffusing their body.
At the center of the room is the pool itself, deep and green and crystalline. Theren takes a position at the edge of the water, careful to keep his feet dry.
It’s his mother’s fault that he hasn’t been Imbued, that he can’t use most Cedrae technology.
After quite a few arguments, he agreed to delay the ritual, in accordance with her religious beliefs, until after he took his oath.
It’s a cold sort of comfort to know that in a year, when he becomes a Knight and loses most of his freedom, he’ll at least be able to send messages and walk into adults--only spaces unaccompanied.
He’s only been standing there for a few seconds when the vestibule door opens across from Theren, and Isre walks in.
He’s dressed in simple garments, the same deep green as Zuza’s robes, and his feet are bare.
His riotously curly hair is already springing away from his head, despite whatever he did to tame it.
He sees Theren and grins, but when his eyes search the room for their mother, his face falls a little.
Theren isn’t sure why—-she’s made her position on this ritual very clear, ever since they were young.
Maybe Isre thought his stepmother would bend for him eventually.
But Theren could have told him that Kesia Forint bends for no one, even when it arouses the suspicions of the Cedre government.
Still, Isre looks happy enough. He goes to the steps at the far end of the pool so he can descend, and Zuza takes her position across from him.
Most of the time, a person’s entire family comes to their Imbuing.
But Isre’s father—-Theren’s stepfather—-died years ago, and his aunts, uncles, and cousins live planetside, thousands of miles below them, on the Cedrae continent of Austra. So Theren is all he has.
“Welcome, Isre Din,” Zuza says, in a deep, serious voice Theren has never heard from her before.
“Here on Cedre Station, we know better than most Cedrae just how much we have inherited from our ancestors. After all, we live in a place we didn’t build, using technology we didn’t develop.
Our very existence is a testament to our predecessors’ care for us. ”
Zuza gestures wide, to encompass the room around them, the station that holds two million people suspended over the planet like a thunderhead.
“The Imbuing Pool is another gift we receive with open hands, aware of the great benefits it offers us,” Zuza says.
“But with those benefits comes the responsibility to leave this world better than we found it, and to care for those who come after us. This is the work that, regardless of religious tradition, every Cedrae holds to be sacred. Do you accept that responsibility, Isre?”
“I do.” Isre flashes a smile at Theren. He’s bouncing on his toes a little. Isre never was any good at staying still.
“Then please.” Zuza gestures to the pool. “Go ahead.”
Isre steps into the pool, wetting his feet first, and then stepping down so the water covers his calves, his thighs, his stomach.
When he’s in as far as his chest, he sinks beneath the surface.
Theren studies the ripples he leaves behind, wishing he could see what it looked like at the bottom of the pool.
He only knows from what he’s read: the bottom of the pool is covered in stones no bigger than a fingernail.
Isre will choose one—-the one that calls to him, if he’s superstitious, or any random stone, if he’s not—-and then swallow it while he’s still underwater.
He’ll surface, breathless, with elixir in his veins.
It only takes a few seconds for Isre’s face to break through the surface of the water.
He stands, soaked, and waits. Theren waits, too.
And then a line of light climbs up from beneath the collar of Isre’s shirt and sprawls across his throat like a glowing white vein.
It spreads quickly down both of his arms and up into his face, creeping over his scalp.
Suddenly Theren’s brother is a shining, brilliant thing, like a fallen star. Bright with elixir.
The light spots Theren’s eyes, but he doesn’t look away. He feels, instead, a pang of longing for a thing he can’t yet be—-a thing he’ll never quite be, whether he gets elixir or not:
Cedrae.
They celebrate at the noodle place in the Grasslands District, Isre’s favorite restaurant.
It’s casual and easy, just a group of his friends and Theren slurping noodles as someone sings the blues next door in Lugha—-which Isre understands, because his late mother taught him, but Theren doesn’t.
Isre is in the middle of translating the song for Theren when Zuza appears in the doorway.
“Is that . . . my priestess?” Isre says, interrupting himself to squint at her.
“No, it’s my date,” Theren replies. He pauses, and then amends, “Who is also a part--time priestess, yes.”
Even though Zuza’s not any kind of religious figure, Isre still looks a little scandalized as Theren waves Zuza over and wraps an arm around her waist.
“I told you I’d get better at sleuthing,” she says, right up against his mouth. She kisses him, then looks up and says, “Hey, Din. What’s your brother’s surname?”
Theren doesn’t have to give Isre a warning look, because Isre is a good brother.
“He doesn’t have one,” Isre says casually. “It’s just ‘Theren.’ Like a famous artist.”
“Oh, so the entire family is in on the bit, huh?” Zuza says, smiling down at Theren.
“Want some noodles?” Isre asks her.
“No,” Theren and Zuza say, in unison.
Theren slides his hand into hers and stands. “Happy Imbuing, Isre. See you on Friday?”