Ten FOR A LONG TIME, the soldier called Trina Delmar floated—weightless, senseless, like she used to at the bottom of the tide pools in the cove where she and her brother played when she was younger. Back then, she used to dream she was a fish, and wished she had the money to get a gengineered sea pony like the aristo girl up the bay had. But then the revolution had come and the aristo girl and her parents had disappeared and one day, Trina had seen the pony washed up on the shore, its marvelous coral flippers ragged and torn, its big, faceted golden eyes lifeless and swarming with blackflies. The revolution. It was supposed to save them all. But then her brother had told her of impossible treasons and she’d tried to help him, only to be confronted with bleeding old men and guards who didn’t seem to care as much for equality as for making people pay and a cliff top where the last person she’d expected to voiced the same fears as her brother had—fears she didn’t even want to admit were possible.
