That first morning, the great bronze bells rang out six o'clock as I chased my sister down narrow Sídiros Street. We hurried only a few blocks away from our studio apartment, a cramped room with a view towards the sea. Nearly five million people lived in the sprawling city of beauty. The sun above shone warm rather than oppressively hot, made moderate by the early spring winds. In a few months, though, it would be scorching. A warm, clear ocean stretched alongside the city, the beaches pale and shaded by waving palms, in view off to our left.

Beneath our feet weathered paving stones and narrow streets whispered history up to the red-tiled roofs and many graven arches. In the distance, the spires and domes of the Temple of the Sun dominated the skyline, gleaming as if aflame in the dawn. Had I known then what I know now, perhaps I would have seen it differently: in red.

Even idyllic as it looked, that morning, things were anything but calm.

The pure and unbridled fear of a sibling seeing their younger sister approaching a great flame consumed me. "Endeis, please!" I grabbed her by the sleeve.

She tore her arm from my grasp and whirled around just before foot of the steps leading up to Kyrós Avenue. Her hands shoved me back, away from her. "You do nothing! You want me to do nothing!" she shouted bitterly, tears forming in her eyes. "I will not be silenced! Not by anyone!"

All I could taste was the salt from my tears. "They will kill you.” My voice shook despite all my efforts to be calm. "Please, End, come home."

Her dignity straightened her shoulders and narrowed her eyes. "Speech and assembly are our rights.”

“No, they are not.” I pointed at the wall. "That is who they see! Not a citizen!"

Dark red lines of spray-paint tagged the wall, forming a jagged, thunderbolt design that stabbed into the bodies of fallen brown worms. Below it, stenciled script read: Our nation, our power! Our nation, our blood!

"That is why I am going," Endeis said, her voice determined and her head high. "Living in the dark, breathing through cracks to stay alive—we deserve better. We were promised better. I am tired of being a sand-worm. I will be Lathraí or nothing at all."

I wish desperately I could say that I persuaded her, that I kept her from joining the protest, but I cannot. I crumpled and faltered in the face of my sister's courage. I loved her for it, but the fear it brought dominated my whole world. "I...I understand. I'm sorry." I felt myself trying to apologize for not sheltering her enough, for allowing the ugly world to exist. I stepped forward, pulling her into a hug that she didn't evade. "Promise me you'll be careful, End?"

She relented slightly, squeezing me back. "I always am."

In that moment, I did not feel reassured, but I knew that was her way of saying, Make your peace with what I'm doing. My sister always had her way, even with me. I wished I could protect her, that I could fix the world and stop the endless stones it cast at her. We all did. Endeis was more than just the darling of the family: she was our heart.

I turned and walked back towards Eleon's Cafe, my thoughts churning with dread. Diores was waiting, his russet eyes sympathetic. He was Ieró, but an understanding one, even though we hadn't grown up together. Above all other things, Diores was sensitive. He was an artist, a singer who thought of his music as a universal language of connection.

He offered a small smile, sweeping some of his sandy hair away from his face. "She'll be alright, Karsa," he said gently.

I nodded. My thoughts, however, said, You don't know them the way we know them. "We should get to work." My eyes fixed on the ground, gaze weighted by guilt. Endeis was right. I was part of the problem, feeling but never doing.

Diores gave my shoulder a squeeze. "Karsa, it's okay.” When I looked up at him, he gave me that same, worried smile. "Come on."

My nerves receded a little as we spread checkered blue tablecloths across the wood-topped wrought iron tables that stood in the street outside the cafe. Sídiros Street was a narrow avenue, closed to ámaxa traffic, so there was no objection to seating spilling out across the paving stones. Keeping my hands busy was my way of coping with the stress I could feel building in them.

Diores sang that morning as we prepared the cafe to open, something bright and cheerful. His tenor voice lingered in the air as he finished the song, the notes of a better world. Music is a strange thing. It can take you to another space altogether or make you see the reality of this one. Diores was the optimist and so he chose songs of light. I could not have made that choice, but then again, I lacked the luxury of a face that is allowed it.

When I was young, I tried so hard to disappear. I wanted desperately to be invisible, to see the Lathraí in me fade away, so I could have a real life. The only thing I didn’t resent learning was our language. This is who you are, my father reminded me often. Their approval doesn't matter.

Endeis was the daughter he hoped I would be.

"I am very impressed with the management," one of the older women at the outside table closest to the door said conversationally to her friends. "It's not often you find people willing to hire Laths lately. I'm sure she appreciates the work. They are such good workers."

"Atë, you mustn't say things like that," one of her friends squawked as I finished clearing a nearby table. "You know how they get."

The woman who had commented on my job seemed offended by her friend's remark. "She seems perfectly lovely.” Without waiting for a response, she looked at me. "Excuse me, miss?"

"Yes, ma'am?" I gave a small smile to set them at ease, as if I had heard nothing. To say I was frayed with worry would have been an understatement, but I had spent much of my life wearing a polite mask, no matter what was going on behind it. The appropriate response seemed to put them a bit at ease. "More coffee?"

"That would be lovely, dear.” Atë studied me closely for a moment. Her eyes fixed on my hands. "Oh, those markings on your hands are lovely. Are they painted?"

I could have explained the process of achieving the intricate red floral designs across my hands, but instead I just smiled. "They are.” I was always pleasant, always polite at work. Then I looked to the other two women, who were watching me warily. "Anything for you ladies?"

"I could do with another coffee," one said, adjusting her hat. It was broad-brimmed, designed to keep the sun off. It was a little excessive for the weather, but not unreasonable despite the early hour. "How long have you been in Astera, miss?"

There was the question that cropped up so often. It was meant innocently sometimes, but the dark underbelly of it was the assumption that I did not belong. I was born in the green jewel called Vlástisi, conquered by Astera generations before my birth. Captive or not, my land was part of the mess that was this woman’s country. "My whole life.”

It wasn't the expected response. "Oh, how silly of me," the woman said after that split second of blinking. "I assumed you were in Seisa for school."

"I am.” I wasn't certain if I enjoyed putting her off-balance or not. "My family lives in Helike."

"Helike?" Atë said with a smile. "My grandson just moved there! He swears by Mardas's clothing store off Liakáda Street."

That mention suddenly warmed me to Atë. "That's my family's store.” Genuine pride flooded my chest.

She seemed absolutely delighted by that, swatting at my arm. "No! Really? Well, when you call your family like a good daughter, tell them they're famous in Seisa."

"I will," I promised, feeling a little lighter at the thought of it. My parents put a great deal of effort into their business, so they were always pleased to hear that the often painful strides forward were appreciated by others.

A crack of thunder rolled out across a blue sky, prompting all of us to look around. "That's funny.” A puzzled frown formed on Atë’s lips. "I don't recall seeing a storm moving in."

I was the one who saw it, but I said nothing, struggling to know what it meant. A plume of smoke was rising from city center. I cannot describe the magnitude of the horror that struck me like a tidal wave. The protest was at city center.

Endeis was there.

"I have to go," I said without thinking. I saw only Endeis in my thoughts and felt only dread through my body.

I took off towards city center, hitting my full stride a block from Eleon's as I ripped my apron off and gave it to the breeze. For someone who ran track, the speed and distance were less of a challenge. I was fit enough that my breath only started to burn in lungs as I passed through the Kámara, the great stone arch that marks the entrance of the city center, a stone's throw from the Temple of the Sun. One of the holy spires lay on the ground, a smoldering pile of rubble.

Pandemonium ruled the street. People bolted past me towards the other parts of the city, leaving blood and the reek of smoke and great clouds of tear gas in their wake. My stomach knotted so tightly that I thought I would be ill. My pulse pounded through my veins as I stood, paralyzed by helplessness. Somewhere there, amidst the clouds of tear gas, my little sister was struggling to breathe.

"Endeis!" I shouted, my voice lost amidst the chaos and screaming. More people flooded towards me, their current shoving me out of the way, down onto a side street. I forced my way back and wrapped my scarf around the lower half of my face. It would probably do nothing to protect me from the gas, but it was the only thing I could do.

I bolted into the gas, my eyes immediately burning like they had never before. Tears poured from my eyes, blurring my vision. Perhaps that was why I didn't realize there was a man in the street near the rubble until I tripped over his body. I looked down. His eyes were wide in an ashen face, lips parted as he struggled for breath. The bloom of crimson across his chest told me that he was badly wounded. "I am so, so sorry," I blurted out through the coughing, kneeling next to him. My face was losing color too.

I was torn. I needed to find Endeis, but I couldn't just leave him there. I lifted him as much as I could before dragging him to one of the side streets just outside of the tear gas, broken glass stirred by our feet. He didn't even moan. He just choked and gurgled on his own blood, eyes glassy with agony. I knelt next to him once we were out of the worst of it, ripping off my outer shirt and applying direct pressure to the wound through his ribs, a useless measure if ever there was one. I was no medic. I had no answer to his pain.

"Help me!" someone screamed from the crowd, barely comprehensible through tears and pain.

I left him a moment and found the screaming woman on the ground and hooked my arms beneath her own. I wasn't strong enough to lift her completely up, but I pulled her quickly back into our alley. The man was still, his chest no longer rising and falling. His glassy eyes stared up at the sky unblinking.

He was dead. I felt a sound building inside of me, but it didn't come out.

Once my nose was free of gas and the tears no longer poured down my face, I looked down at the sobbing woman in my arms. Her lower right leg was gone and blood poured from her knee. This I did know how to deal with, at least in theory. I took my outer shirt from the man and I knotted it as tightly as I could around the woman's leg, just above her knee, in an effort to tourniquet off the flow.

I looked at the woman—no, girl. She was probably younger than me, a student like Endeis, though her pain lined her face as if she were far older. She had black, curly hair and skin as brown as my own. She screamed and sobbed as she clung to me, fingers knotted in my shirt. She looked up at me, terrified. "You're going to be okay," I promised. The sound of sirens approaching gave me hope.

Mercifully, it was an ambulance. I picked her up and carried her towards them, stumbling now and then. The crew saw me and rushed over, pulling her out of my arms. "Are you injured?" One of the medics grabbed my shoulders, forcing me to look into his eyes.

I shook my head. "I have to go get my sister," I said, wiping at my eyes. My nose had run something fierce, which meant removing my impromptu mask would be nasty. I left it on.

He grabbed my arm and shook his head. "They're arresting everyone ahead. The best thing you can do for your sister is go home."

"What if she's hurt?" My voice strained under the weight of my desperation.

The paramedic offered me a smile. "What's her name?"

I answered automatically, no thought given to risk. "Endeis Mardas."

He motioned for me to sit down on the bumper of the ambulance and catch my breath. "And you are?"

In that moment, I was terrified. I had never seen anyone die before and the thought that Endeis might be in similar condition was shattering. I sat down, if only for a moment. I started to feel dizzy and very sick. My whole body shook like a leaf in a gale. "Karsa Mardas."

He knelt in front of me, covering my shaking hands with his own. "We will look for your sister," he promised with a kindness I would have never expected. "Go home, Karsa."

I shook my head, but suddenly the tears were back. This is a nightmare. Soon, you will wake, I told myself. It must be a bad dream. I searched deep down inside of me, hunting for steel. "I want to help," I said unsteadily. "I can go into the gas."

Most of the crew had already set to work, hoping to triage people. The medic in front of me looked uncertain for a moment, but then he pulled off his jacket. He still had a paramedic shirt on to identify himself. He held it out to me. "Here, so you are not arrested. Help with the rubble. Just do what we say."

I nodded.

Not knowing is perhaps the worst torture of all. I worked for hours in the rubble, until the dust covered my hair and my face, turning my skin gray. For a little while, I was no longer Lath. I was just another person working on to steal from death the people who had fallen beneath the bones of the tower. The medics lent me gloves, but even with them, I tore up my hands on that broken stone. I still bear the scars on my legs where I was sliced by fragments of reinforcing metal.

I cannot say that it was great altruism on my part. It was sheer, unfettered desperation. With each person or body pulled out of the rubble, something between hope and dread flared. I expected to see Endeis the whole time, but she was nowhere to be found. I kept digging, kept searching, until the paramedic pulled me away.

"You've done enough," he said firmly as I swayed on my feet.

I realized then that the moon was in the sky and the light of the sun was no longer painting the heavens in light blue. My filthy, bloodied body was exhausted. "I..."

He was having none of it. "Come here.”

I obeyed. He cleaned out my wounds and bandaged them for me, rattling off instructions for care. It stung something fierce, but I refused to cry. Some of the cuts on my legs needed stitching, but he didn't have time to suture. Instead, he used special bandages to hold the wounds closed. After that, he called a taxí for me.

I held out the jacket to him. "Thank you," I rasped, voice so hoarse from gas and dust that it was barely audible.

"You did a good thing today," the paramedic said as he took it. "We'll find your sister."

I did not feel comforted in that moment. The dread was still there, deep in the pit of my stomach. When the taxí arrived, I crawled gingerly into the back. It was dark green, the sign of a proper city one, and barely smelled of sweet mageía. I gave the driver my address, shoving some of my money into his hands. I was too tired to know what I had given him. I slept then, hoping I would wake and find that all of this had been cruel illusion.