Page 45 of Triplets for the Barbarians

I’d give anything to kiss the hurt away, but I know it wouldn’t be enough. I doubt anything will ever wipe it all off the canvas of our lives. “And we will keep hurting, one way or another. The only thing we can do is make sure no one else goes through something like this ever again. Our brothers knew this day might come. We all knew it.”

“Shaytan will pay,” I reply. “He will pay for each of these souls and all those he wasted before them. We never killed the way his people do. We were never this savage or heartless.”

“Weren’t we?” Yossul mumbles.

There are ghosts in our past, many angry at the things we did long before Jewel and her friends came to Sunna.

Finally caving in, Jewel falls to her knees and starts crying her heart out. I’ve never seen her so soft and so broken. Seeing our Kreek family obliterated, knowing we could’ve done better, somehow.

Yossul and I share Jewel’s heartache, though she’s the only one who’s actually manifesting it. Her wails pierce the morning sky, reverberating across the river plateau and drowning out the howling of the southern winds and the murmurs of the steaming water.

The whole world comes to a halt as my brother and I kneel beside Jewel and wrap our arms around her. We hold her close and tight, our hearts intertwined as she lets it all out. Every year spent here, every day she has sacrificed so her friends and our people could live better and longer, so our species wouldn’t die out.

We hold her close as she releases every emotion she’s been holding on to. It’s been raging inside her, pent up and simmering in a rising heat. She’s reached the real boiling point, and I get it.

We take one step forward, and then we’re thrown back two.

At every turn, the Sky Tribe finds a way to embitter each of our victories. We keep winning battles, but at the rate at which we’re losing our people, I fear there will be no one left with which to win the war.

17

Yossul

The hours pass in heavy silence as we muster the courage to dig through the smoking rubble for the bodies of our fallen tribesmen. The women didn’t make it, either. Our final count has about two hundred people dead, which means there are a couple hundred Kreek survivors still somewhere out there.

We’ve sent out messages to each telegraph point, hoping our brethren of the Fire Tribe will intercept them and bring them to safety while we relentlessly toil to bury as many of our own as we can.

Fadai and I agree to burn the rest. It’s easier to build funeral pyres from whatever wood we can find around us, particularly down by the river. Jewel works hard to chop a few blackwood trees down while Fadai carries the logs up, where I assemble the pieces.

We steal glances at one another but when it’s done, it’s as if the whole of Sunna breathes a sigh of relief.

Jewel’s gray eyes are sad and puffy, the occasional tear still bursting from them. I make sure to kiss each of them away, and when I’m not near her, Fadai does the same. She knows she’s not alone in this. She knows this isn’t only her burden to carry. The three of us bear the responsibility. And the three of us will bear the retribution against the Sky Tribe, too.

“I only hope they didn’t suffer too much,” Jewel says as we watch the flames engulf the funeral pyres. We managed to build ten, each holding about ten to twelve sets of remains. It was a gruesome job, and I doubt I’ll ever forget these images. I don’t want to forget. “I hope it was over quickly.”

“Judging by the blast radius and the depth of each explosion, it’s likely that most of them didn’t even see it coming,” Fadai says.

The smell of burnt flesh still lingers in my nose. It makes my stomach turn, but I swallow the whole sensation and keep it in. I keep it to myself as I rest an arm around Jewel’s shoulders. “The others were probably out sleeping under the night sky, down by the river,” I reply. “Otherwise, we would’ve found more bodies.”

“It’s a good thing they liked sleeping out in the open, then,” Jewel sighs. “If I catch whoever ratted us out, I’ll…” She stops herself, shuddering with anger, and takes a deep breath. “No, that wouldn’t be fair. We’re not made of stone. Whatever the Sky Tribe did to their Kreek captives, it must’ve been bad enough, unbearable enough to force this information out of them.”

“This was always a possibility, with or without a captured Yellow Gang member talking,” I say. “We cannot dwell on what happened for much longer, Jewel. The damage we delivered to the Sky Tribe in Pearl City will lead to much worse. This happened before we even took their starship out.”

She gives me a worried look, fear glistening beneath her long, black lashes. “They will be out for even more blood.”

“Yes. And you know where they’ll go first,” I reply.

Fadai nods slowly. “Sapphire City.”

“The ceasefire has clearly ended,” I say. “What they did here is nothing compared to what they’ll do now that we’ve cost them another space vessel.”

“Worse, even, we got Jewel out of there. Shaytan and Blaze must be seething,” Fadai says.

“Let them,” Jewel mutters. “I look forward to watching the light die out in their eyes once I’m done with those two. I may not be as big and as strong as a Sunnaite, but I will make those fuckers pay for what they did. Mark my words.”

“Oh, I believe you,” Fadai says. “And you have our full support.”

She is unstoppable even when she’s in a good mood, but now, it’s different. She carries grief and guilt in her heart and anger in her mind, yet everything is led by her natural determination. There is no one alive on Sunna to stop this woman when she becomes laser focused.

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