Skyhunter (Skyhunter, #1)

by Marie Lu

Map looks like a heart

When I was small, I would join the crowds to watch the famed patrols head out past Newage’s walls, ready to face the Federation’s monsters. They are Mara’s most elite branch of soldiers, revered by everyone, notorious even in other nations. My eyes would shine at the elaborate harnesses looped around their shoulders and waist, their guns and knives and black steel armguards, the masks covering their mouths, the circular emblem embroidered on their sapphire seasilk coats that draped down to their boots.

Attack on Titan vibes here

I would linger there, balanced on the branch of a tree, transfixed by their lethal grace until they had disappeared from view. Now I’m one of them. It is less glamorous when you are the one riding toward death.

My gaze focuses on the leader of the group. It is bigger than the others, its cracked muscles more prominent. Like alligators in the southern lands, Ghosts continue to grow in size and strength until something kills them. If nothing does, they will live forever. Some, I hear, tower higher than elephants.

More Attack on Titan vibes

I dart from my hiding place at the same time I yank my blades out. The familiar hush of metal sliding against sheath hums in my ears. My swords catch the light. I race along a fallen log. The closest Ghost to me doesn’t even see me coming before I launch into the air and swing my blade at its neck.

Omg, AND they use two swords to attack the neck?

I push my hair back and sign to him. “Are you okay?” He nods. We exchange a brief smile.

Aren't they supposed to have their mouths covered?

On top of the walls’ front gates is a mantra engraved by the Early Ones: We sow the seeds of Infinite Destiny for our children so that they may rule from this earth to the stars.

So they're speaking the same language

I swallow hard. I don’t know how to apologize for the death of his son. Cannot tell him my deep shame at being unable to protect his favorite child.

Uh oh, you should have led with that detail. I'm not ready XD

At first glance, Jeran looks like nothing more than a slender boy, his hair tied up in a knot of red gold and his eyes the blue of glacier water,

Why hello, Anime Boy

“My mother says Baseans get their black hair from sleeping in the mud.”

Your mother is an idiot.

Jeran sees us approach. His face softens with a smile that turns his eyes into crescents as he hurries toward us, tripping in his rush. I can’t help smiling back. Jeran is ruthlessly graceful when practicing the art of death. When he’s not, he can’t find his balance.

Well, shit. I was joking with the Anime Boy comment XD

He’d been so young, perhaps no older than twelve or thirteen—but he was pointing a gun at me, the insignia on his red sleeves shining. My memory has blurred away the details—in my mind, the emblem is now nothing but a smear of silver.

$10 it's the insignia she almost but not quite remembered on the prisoner's chest. BONUS if that's the actual prisoner XD Edit: DUUUUDE

Your sweet friend Jeran. He speaks Karenese,

XDDDDDD

Below the National Plaza, we discovered an enormous, cylindrical pit five levels deep. Originally, this pit had been dug out by the Early Ones, the walls made of smooth metal, like a silo for storing grain. Adena thinks they may have once used it to launch weapons more massive than anything we’ve ever seen. She’s always sniffing the air when she’s down here, murmuring about the lingering scent of something sharp and chemical.

Whelp. We know what that means XD So is this Earth?

That’s when I see a slight movement wriggle from his shirt pocket. A small, furry head peeks out from it, its nose sniffing the air, beady eyes locked on the food. It’s a fat mouse with a missing tail. To my surprise, the man lifts his hand so the mouse can climb into his palm, then lowers the creature to the bread, where it puts its tiny foot-paws on the crust and starts nibbling away.

Mfer has a Lovely Item lol

“Yes.” I hold my middle and index fingers together, then wave them toward myself. He imitates me. “No.” I make my hand into a fist and twist my wrist. “Friend.” I hold my middle and index fingers up and make a cutting V motion straight toward him. He does the same.

It's nice he's learning the motion, but there's no way he knows what any of that means. Like, I know he's going to magically understand because plot, but realistically? No.

As Jeran starts asking him about his favorite foods, I approach Adena.

How do you know? You don't speak that language.

Sometimes I wonder whether Jeran feels relieved after his father’s punishments, as if it resets the clock on when his father will lash out again.

“Aramin will never say a thing about it,” Adena says softly, and I turn my attention back to her. She nods down at the Firstblade. “But he always looks around for Jeran after a battle. To make sure he survived. Sometimes I think he would have been a better Shield for Jeran. He certainly cares enough for him.”

..... <3?

The brand on Red’s chest, the one I’d puzzled over from the first moment he appeared in the arena. It is the same symbol emblazoned on the sleeves of the soldiers that had invaded my town in Basea, the troops specifically assigned to massacre us. It is the same symbol as the one worn by the young soldier who couldn’t bring himself to shoot me.

Called it!

And it is not just the symbol that is the same. It is his eyes. It is his face. Different now, as a grown man and as an experiment of the Federation, but still him. Now I suddenly understand why I’d felt so compelled to save him in the arena. The real reason. Red is that twelve-year-old boy. The same one who had held the gun and failed to fire. The same young soldier from that night.

Holy crap, I REALLY called it!!!

“Thank you for dinner, Mother Kanami,” Jeran says to her in excellent Basean, bowing his head. My mother beams at him and pats his cheeks. “Prettier every time I see you, Jeran,” she tells him, and he blushes so pink that Adena laughs.

His Basean or him?

Signed not as the Firstblade, but as his own name. Jeran blinks back tears as his hands tremble against the letter. He doesn’t even seem to care that, in reading this letter aloud, he has all but revealed to us the feelings between himself and the Firstblade.

Was that a secret? XDD

It’s only here that I realize something that turns my stomach. We’re traveling through Basea.

So like, she went on about how the climate is getting warmer the farther they go so I was thinking they were at least halfway... but no. They're still right next to Mara. I feel like the weather should be the same.

Jeran’s eyes follow the retreating figures. “That was General Caitoman Tyrus,” he whispers back. “The Premier’s younger brother.” He glances at me in sorrow, his voice hollow. “He told Constantine to stop harassing the survivors from his conquests.”

So like, wtf did he mean when he said he knew Talin???? That made no sense and nothing happened?

They may try to take everything from you, my mother had said to me on our first night in Mara’s Outer City, huddled over a fire. Her eyes were locked on mine, sharp as flint. But you can take from them too.

“You’re the one I saw at the bathhouse,” he says in that rasping voice. He speaks to me in Maran this time, which is how I know he’s figured out who we are. “And you’re the one bonded to my Skyhunter.”

Well, was wondering when he was going to finish that thought

In the darkness beyond him are similar rooms to his, and when I look inside them, I see the shapes of two others. Strapped to flat tables. Chained to the floor. Wings of deadly steel grafted onto their backs.

You know, I think that whole setup is too heavy to fly. Just saying. ALSO!!! The skyhunters would be more technologically advanced than a normal ass plane xD Why don't they just have planes? Is it a gas thing?

Dark circles haunt Jeran’s eyes. His shirt is also splattered with old blood, but he seems mostly unharmed.

.... He took a gut shot from an arrow

I look at him, feeling that tug between us, knowing I would kill for him, and that he would for me.

Yeah, because you've already done it. A lot.

“You see, Mara is rumored to hold the ruins of an ancient technology mightier than anything we’ve ever discovered. It is a weapon buried in the ground, deep in their old silos. It is the power, they say, contained inside the hearts of stars and the cells of man, a source of incredible energy that can carry us all into the next millennium.

You are several centuries away from being able to handle nuclear power.