Page 49 of Triplets for the Barbarians

We’re hoping to gather enough intel before the siege on Sapphire City begins. If we can get a line on that fucking starship, we can point the long-range weapons and destroy it as soon as it takes off. We don’t have the resources to pull off what we originally wanted to do in Pearl City at this point. But frankly, I don’t care. I no longer care how many more people suffer before the last starship comes down. After watching our funeral pyres, I have little to no sympathy left until it’s over.

“For years, the Sky Tribe used propaganda to portray us as savages,” I say after a long pause. “Mindless beasts who never had Sunna’s best interests at heart. We only wanted the women to ourselves. Screw education, they used to say. Screw science and evolution. Screw the arts and literature. Do you remember, Fadai?”

My brother smirks. “How could I forget? I kept asking our father why they were calling us savages when they were the ones snatching our women from their huts and forcing them into bonds they didn’t belong to. I remember Alla and Sheri, our cousins, screaming when the Sky Tribe mercenaries raided our village while our father and his fighters were away, screaming when they dragged them out by their bare feet, kicking and wailing while we had to hide because they would’ve skinned us alive if they’d found us. We were mere boys of ten and eight, and they would’ve flayed us and left us to rot in the sun so our father would have quite the sight to return to.”

“And the people believed those lies,” I say. “They were afraid of us. Granted, it did work to our advantage in certain aspects. It was easier to rob their convoys. Rumors of our prowess did seep back into the Sky Tribe garrisons, and I did enjoy watching those bastards piss themselves when they saw us coming. But don’t you think it’s time we start spinning tales of our own about the Sky Tribe? We’ve got plenty of material to work with.”

Jewel understands what I’m thinking. “A propaganda campaign designed to discredit the Sky Tribe in the eyes of those already doubting them. Yes. Their incompetence. Their greed. Their recklessness. Their desire to breed with women outside the solar system instead of protecting and cherishing the ones they still have here.”

“You could add rumors of a cure for the plague,” Leela chimes in. “You’re already working on one, aren’t you? Solomon’s research brought you farther along.”

“Of course. We’re so close to nailing that damned viral strain,” Jewel exclaims. “Here we are, the Fire Tribe, reaching out to the people, testing vaccines, and developing a cure for the plague, while the Sky Tribe is busy chasing stars. Their loyal subjects are impoverished and miserable, victims of increasingly more violent marauders coming out of Diamond City. Warlords and corrupt politicians. And then the starship in Pearl City. The explosion, the damage it left behind… it’s unforgivable!”

Fadai knocks on the table. “We’ll draft the messages and send them over to Amber and Alicia. I’m sure they’ll add their own twists to each until they’re ready for print. We should spread the fliers across the realm before the end of the week.”

“Desperate times call for taking a page out of the enemy’s playbook,” I say. “Before their armies can reach Sapphire City, the whole of Sunna should be rumbling with dissent and indignation over what happened in Pearl City. If they lose the people’s support, it will cost them in the long run, even if they do manage to take Sapphire City back.”

If they lose the people’s support, it should get us intel on the starship before they launch it. Alicia used to tell us about using propaganda against them. We never really considered it because we believed honesty and righteousness to be the better policy. While they were employing dirty tricks and ruthlessly hunting us down, we figured we’d simply beat them in the traditional way, with weapons and wit on the battlefield.

But after so many years and particularly after the last blow they delivered, all bets are off. I will fight them righteously, and I will fight them dirty, too. They deserve to die screaming and writhing in agony, just like our brothers and a handful of surviving girls died the other night.

They deserve to see their whole future in ruins, their starships melted, and their dreams of a superior race of Sunnaite crushed under our bare feet. The more I think about what the Sky Tribe deserves, the more creative and darker my imagination gets.

I should stop, so I pour myself another glass of wine, gulping it down to temper my angry soul.

Jewel reaches a hand across the table and covers mine. “Are you all right?” she asks in a low voice while Fadai and Solomon’s wives continue their conversation about methods to employ against the enemy in the coming days.

“I’m as all right as I can be,” I tell Jewel. “I’m trying to keep my composure.”

“You and I both. Fadai, too. Look at him,” she whispers.

I do look at him, and I see a young and fierce warrior with grief in his eyes and fury burning within him. Unlike me, however, Fadai stays calm and seemingly soft while his sharp tongue spins words, his sharp mind spins thoughts, and his soul spins the universe on its axis—that’s how strong and determined my younger brother is.

I dare not claim his youth is an advantage. He’s been through the grinder just like me. He’s just as tired.

“Relentless, isn’t he?” Jewel asks me.

“He is, yes.”

“What about you?”

“Jewel, my love, I will destroy this entire planet in order to be with you,” I reply, my voice low so only she can hear me. “Do not talk to me about doing the right thing for our people anymore. Not with two hundred of our brothers’ ashes still cooling. That’s not what drives me anymore. It’s you. You drive me. Fadai, too. Don’t think for a second he’s the nobler type.”

She blinks a few times. She wasn’t expecting such words from me at such a delicate time. But I’ve had so many hours on the drive over to put my thoughts in order. To accept my nature and the strength of my deepest desires. And the truth is precisely what slipped from my lips just now.

I’m doing everything for Jewel. For Jewel and Fadai and me. Sunna can thrive with us when it’s all over, or it can die for all I fucking care.

I never asked to be a part of this war, yet I fought honorably. The price I paid for my honor, however, is too steep for me to accept my position as a martyr. It’s not worth it.

It’s also not something I’m willing to shout from the rooftop, but I am done taking the honorable path in the future.

No, I will fight dirty and do everything in my power to get what I want—what I deserve.

What Fadai and I deserve in return for what we’ve lost.

19

Jewel

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