Sky to Sea: Crimson Sash, #2

By Amanda Marin

They thought their troubles were over … but they've only just begun.

 

For Neve Hall and Micah Ward, the New Republic has always represented more than its legends of snowflakes and butterflies. It has also meant hope—and the freedom to love. But reality differs from their dreams. Living in a shelter for refugees, the pair must convince their immigration case manager that they are worthy of citizenship. Failure means deportation back to the Nation—and their deaths.

 

But assimilating isn't easy—especially when tensions between the Republic and Nation flare. Before long, Neve and Micah find themselves at the epicenter of the conflict, kidnapped and held hostage by Sans Murs, a group of radicals who won't surrender until the Nation meets their demands. Sans Murs has named its terms, but the Nation has one of its own: Micah's return. Torn between two worlds, are they fated to unravel?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Iron Blossom Press
• Release date: Aug 24, 2024
• ISBN: 9781961371071

Book preview

ONE

The list Anh gives us is daunting. My hands shake as I flip through the packet, skimming its contents. Level of schooling. Employment potential. Physical and mental health. The pages go on and on. There are at least two dozen categories here, each of which we’ll be judged on and will factor into our Immigration Suitability Score—a number that will be used to determine if Micah and I can stay here, in Ville Marie, in the New Republic … or if we’ll be sent back to the Nation, to die.

Does everyone who applies for citizenship get evaluated the same way? Micah asks. He leans over my shoulder, also scanning the list. I glance up at him, trying to read the expression on his face, wondering if he’s as intimidated by it as I am. But he appears calm, as stoic as the Sufferer he used to be.

Anh nods. Although we welcome newcomers, we can’t accept everyone, she tells us. This system helps us sort out those who are best suited to life in the Republic from those who aren’t. Over the next few weeks, you’ll be assessed based on those items. Applicants with the highest Immigration Suitability Scores are awarded permanent residency status by a magistrate.

I look around us. We’re sitting at a table in the common room at the shelter. This is where they relocate everyone seeking citizenship from the refugee camps along the border. Like the shelter in Kébec Village before it, there’s nothing especially inviting about this space. It’s a modern building, box-like and functional, with white walls and plain furniture—none of which is very comfortable—but it’s all we have.

We’ve only been here a couple weeks, and we barely know any of the other immigrants. Despite the languages and skin tones and histories that make us different, though, we share something important. We’re all here because we want a better life. It’s strange knowing that each of us—from the scarred woman reading in the corner to the curly-haired boy with a toy gyrotrain—will be reduced to a number instead of a name … and that some may not be allowed to stay at all.

What happens to applicants with low scores? I ask. The words squeak from my throat like a kitten crying for milk.

Anh shifts in her seat, uncomfortable. Reluctant to answer. This must happen a lot to her, being an immigration case manager, her days filled with sad scenes and bad news. After their tourist visa expires, they’re returned to their homelands.

My breath hitches. When Micah and I escaped the Nation, the Enforcers hunting us on Deer Mountain said we’d be shot if we tried to come back. I didn’t let the threat bother me much at the time—I was too relieved to be across the border. But now, finding out there’s a possibility the Republic will reject us, too, my heart thumps with fear.

What about refugees, like us? We’re applying for political asylum, I remind her.

Frowning, Anh avoids my stare. Even though she’s young—a recent university graduate, probably—I can see in her face that she’s already exhausted by it all. Breaking the hearts of hopeful immigrants. Turning away people eager to start their lives over. Denying others the freedoms of the New Republic—freedoms they should’ve had in their own homeland, if the world was fair.

I’m sorry, but not everyone who applies is automatically granted asylum, she says quietly.

Beneath the table, Micah takes my hand. We can’t go back to the Nation, though, he tells her. Despite his composed expression, I finally hear a tremor of worry in his voice. We’ll be killed.

Killed? Surprise registers in Anh’s face. Behind her glasses, her brown eyes flicker down to the stack of papers crammed into a folder in front of her, the beginnings of our immigration application. This is only our first in-person meeting with her, and she’s still trying to learn the details of everything we explained to the guards who helped us on the mountain.

That’s right … You’re the Sufferer and the Sieve who broke the law of anonymity, she murmurs as she searches through the pages. She looks back up at us, and her face is filled with sympathy. You fell in love and were labeled traitors.

Yes, Micah says, sounding a little hoarse, that’s us.

He glances down at me, and his gaze is heavy, flooded with equal parts affection and pain. It startles me to see the hurt there. I don’t know what it means—if he’s not happy we’re finally free to be together or if something else is bothering him. Something more than the possibility of being returned to the Nation, maybe. Something like the memories of his time at the work camp in Galloway, where he was sent as punishment for breaking his contract with the Nation—or of being shot and watching Luke die during our escape.

There’s no regret in Anh’s face, though. Instead, she seems encouraged. The magistrate will look favorably on a story like yours. We know the Nation usually executes runaway traitors returned to them, and we take that into account. Besides, you’ve been persecuted for love. Civil liberties cases are always treated with special care here.

What about my age? I ask, spouting off the next of the worries stacking like bricks in my mind. I’m still seventeen for a few more months. Will that count against me?

Anh shakes her head. Not at all. We accept immigration applications from minors if their lives are in danger back home, which yours is.

I want to feel relieved, but when she glances back down at our file, her lips purse and her face crinkles with concern all over again.

This says you both crossed on foot from Concord Province, without documentation. Is that correct? she asks.

I scoot closer to the edge of my chair. Is that a bad thing, coming here the way we did?

It would’ve been better if you’d followed legal channels, but we understand that can’t always be helped, especially for refugees.

We had no choice—it was the only way we could get here. The Nation would never have given us immigration papers, Micah explains.

Anh raises a palm to quiet us. Let’s not worry about that just yet. She tries to smile kindly to lessen our fear. It’s my job to advocate for you—to help you stay. And if you work hard and show your commitment to being a good citizen of the Republic, none of this should be a problem.

No problems. I like the sound of that. I ease back in my chair and loosen my grip on Micah’s hand.

This must be mistake—this must be wrong⁠—

Just as I start to relax again, a panicked voice echoes across the common room. Anh, Micah, and I turn toward the entryway, where a thin man with a dark, stringy beard stands. In one hand, he holds a letter—official-looking and ripped at the corner from being opened too quickly. With the other hand, he clutches at the sleeve of the older woman who distributes the mail delivered by courier drones.

Hamza, please calm down, she tells him.

The man only shoves the letter toward her, though, begging her to take the pages from him. No, you give this back—you tell them they make error⁠—

The woman double-checks the address on the envelope. Just to be sure. Maybe he’s right. She shakes her head, though. There’s no mistake. It’s for you.

Clutching at his head, the man lets out a long, low sob. Such terrible, haunting sadness. No, no, no ... I cannot go back ...

Desperate for someone to help her, the woman looks around, doe-eyed. She’s just a messenger; she has nothing to do with the letter’s contents. Noticing the scene, one of the shelter’s social workers comes forward. Patiently, he leads Hamza away, down the hall. As they go, the papers fall to the floor. Abandoned. Unwanted by their owner. Unable to be claimed by anyone else.

For a moment, I stare after the man, confused and worried, then my eyes drop to the letter on the ground. Even from this distance, I recognize the logo printed at the top of the pages—it’s the same one on the file folder in front of Anh: an abstract globe cupped by a pair of hands. It’s the seal of the Ministry of Immigration, Diversity, and Inclusion—MinImm, as Anh’s told us it’s called for short.

What was that about? Micah asks softly.

Hamza must’ve just gotten his Suitability Score, Anh says, clearing her throat. It probably wasn’t high enough for him to stay.

That might be Micah and me soon. We might be told, despite weeks of hoping and trying to comply with whatever the New Republic asks of us, that we’re not good enough—not welcome—within these borders after all.

Noticing our uneasiness, Anh is quick to clarify. Hamza’s situation is complicated. He has a criminal history. We think he came here to avoid prosecution.

Micah’s face pales. As if reaching out to scratch a phantom limb, he brushes his left shoulder where his traitor’s sash was pinned. But I’m a criminal, too. I would’ve been expelled if Neve hadn’t found me first.

Anh shakes her head. You’re not a criminal like Hamza. He’s a businessman accused of corruption in his homeland, and there’s evidence that he might’ve killed a man there, too.

I bite my lip, hoping she’s right—that the Republic isn’t like the Nation, that it will see a difference between love and murder.

What will happen to Hamza now? Micah asks, his voice faint.

I see the sadness in his face. The compassion. The concern. The refusal to give up on others, even when their actions are unforgivable. If he could, he’d probably try to help Hamza somehow—request the magistrate give him a second chance or offer him money for travel to another country. But it’s impossible. We can’t jeopardize our own chances of staying, and we need each penny for ourselves.

He can appeal, Anh tells us. There may be something he can do to raise his Suitability Score, too. If he had relatives here or married a Republicite, he’d stand a better chance—we try not to split families apart. She sighs. Hamza’s running out of time, though. His tourist visa expires soon, and if he fails to convince the courts he’s innocent, he’ll be deported.

Deported. My bones frost over at the word. It makes me think of expulsion and Isla Pryce from the Center for Compassion. Of Micah standing on the scaffold in Bristol, a red sash pinned to his arm. Of him being strangled. And then I think of worse things—like the blood from his gunshot wound and his gray, sickly face on Deer Mountain. Of the days he spent in the hospital afterward, so weak, so close to death.

I close my eyes, trying to force the image from my mind.

No, we can’t be deported. Returning to the Nation isn’t an option. I won’t let Micah suffer like that again.

TWO

They have floatscreens in the New Republic. When I was leaving Bristol, Tali joked that they might not, but they do. Micah and I can’t afford our own, of course, so we use public ones, available at kiosks across Ville Marie, just like they are in the Nation. These are a slightly different model, and they offer two language choices, English and French. But otherwise, they’re similar enough.

Except for one important thing: the newsfeeds.

There’s much more information available in the New Republic—news about the Nation, even. There are so many things I’d never seen before coming here. Pictures of the border wall. Videos of National refugees crossing the Straits of Kébec in makeshift rafts. Stories about citizens of the Republic who help smuggle Nationals across the border—les cerfs, they’re called. The deer. They’re named for an animal, like the coyotes who used to smuggle immigrants over the Nation’s southern border before the wall was built.

I can’t believe all of this, Micah murmurs later that morning as he stands at the kiosk beside mine outside the shelter. Back in the Nation, being seen with him like this—in public, during the day—would’ve been unimaginable. But not here. Even after weeks together in the Republic, every moment in the sun with him still feels like a luxury. There are so many more refugees than I ever imagined.

I glance over at his screen. He’s supposed to be contacting his parents. Messaging to tell them that we’re alive and safe. Reminding them that they can’t believe whatever the Nation put in the newsfeeds about us. By the looks of the data and details flickering along the display in front of him, though, it seems like he’s gotten sidetracked.

There are hundreds of them every year, Micah goes on. He looks up at me, brow creased and serious. And most die along the way—look, seventy-seven percent mortality rate. Most are shot by Enforcers. The rest perish from the journey itself.

Really? I lean closer to read the shocking statistic for myself. These kinds of stories aren’t covered by journalists in the Nation. Our leaders don’t allow them to be published. Instead, they dismiss them as lies and exaggerations.

That could’ve been us, I whisper, haunted.

It very nearly was, too. We were shot at. We watched Luke die. And we spent a long, horrible night shivering in a cave, knowing each moment might be our last. All for our love of each other. No lies or exaggerations about it. We’re lucky to be alive; it’s something I feel every day, each time I look in Micah’s eyes, but now I know it for a fact, too.

And then a terrible truth occurs to me. Everything we survived might’ve been for nothing. It might be undone in a single heartbeat by a number—our Immigration Suitability Score. We might become like Hamza. Thinking about it makes me feel cold and hopeless all over again.

Seeing the shadow of fear creeping across my face, Micah shuts off the floatscreen and turns toward me. When I lift my eyes to his face, there’s a soft, sympathetic smile there—special, just for me.

Maybe we were almost part of the seventy-seven percent who died, but we weren’t, he says. He speaks gently, in a soothing tone—his Sufferer’s voice. Think of the odds we overcame just getting here. The Suitability Score system is nothing to be afraid of by comparison.

But I don’t know French, I tell him, and I didn’t finish my last semester at the National Academy. What if I ruin everything?

He tries raising his left arm to reach out for me, but he stops halfway, grimacing with pain. His shoulder—where he was shot by Enforcers during our escape—is still too weak. Micah only got the stitches out last week, and he’s barely able to do the exercises the medics taught him to rebuild his strength, let alone more. Giving up, he brushes my cheek with his right hand instead.

You couldn’t ruin anything if you tried, he says, his grin returning. We’ll get you enrolled in school again, and I’ll help you with French.

I raise my eyebrows. You know French?

Always modest, he shrugs. A little—enough to get by. One of the benefits of having a language professor for a dad.

Hearing him rattle off solutions so easily makes my fears sound trivial. That’s part of why we’re so good together, I guess—and why we always have been. One of us is strong when the other is weak. It’s how we made our time together in the Center for Compassion work, sharing the Suffering. And it’s how we survived the trek across Deer Mountain.

Okay, I agree, nodding. I toy with the scarf around Micah’s neck, tucking it beneath the collar of his coat to keep out the cold. While most people around here are wearing light fall jackets, we’re still struggling to get used to the New Republic’s cooler climate. We’ve been dressing like it’s winter since arriving in Ville Marie. You help me with French, and I’ll help you with your shoulder.

Micah’s grin broadens, and he leans forward, touching his forehead to mine. Perfect. Now that we’ve solved that, let’s move on to tackling the rest of the world’s problems, he teases. What’s next? The latest ocean blight or rampant poverty in Uhuru?

I giggle and hook my arm through his. Then, we set off to wander the city, exchanging the shelter, with its plain brick and step-like, multi-leveled roofline, for the charm of the old port area by the river. As we walk, I look around at the beauty surrounding us—at the charming old stones, towering columns, and ivy-covered arches of Ville Marie’s most ancient neighborhoods. In the Nation, these buildings would’ve been torn down and rebuilt long ago. But not here. Here, history is treasured, not rewritten. It rests side by side with the modern, a work of art on every street.

My breath clouds in the cool air in front of me, and for a moment, it seems as though we’re in a dream. Like anything is possible. I think maybe Micah’s right. Maybe we could, just for a day, conquer whatever challenges we put our minds to.

---

The truth is, healing Micah’s injured shoulder will be harder than he thinks. It’ll require more than physical therapy—more than time and rest and healthy foods. That’s because it’s not just a gunshot wound that pains him. It’s worse than that. A hurt that goes deeper than skin and bone.

I realized this because of his nightmares. They started his first night in the hospital, right after the medics removed the bullet from his shoulder. They sewed up his wound, but another, deeper one opened within him. I stayed beside Micah in the clean, tiny room with its thin bedsheets and the blinking machines that monitored his heartbeat. I had nowhere else to go, and even if I did, I wouldn’t have wanted to leave his side, so I slept in the chair next to him. When he cried out for the first time—about halfway through the night—I slipped under the covers beside him and held him close until he was able to fall back asleep.

It’s been like that every night since. Micah suffers alone in his sleep, like a kind of dying, until his pain is so great that it wakes us both up, and I try to bring him back to life. At least the social workers at the shelter have made an exception for us. Technically, because we’re not married, we’re supposed to sleep separately, in the large, impersonal bunkrooms—one for single females, the other for males—located on another floor of the building. But because of Micah’s nightmares, they’ve allowed us to share a smaller private room meant for families. This way, I can care for him.

Caring for him is exactly what I do tonight when the nightmares return. I sit up, startled and blinking away tiredness, to find him muttering in his sleep, thrashing and clawing at the bedding beside me. I try to wake him up gently.

Micah?

I lightly shake his shoulder—his right one, not the left, which, beneath his T-shirt, will be forever scarred by the Nation. And when that doesn’t work, I try again. I take his head in my hands, a palm against each of his cheeks to steady him.

Micah, you’re all right, I tell him. You’re safe.

With a gasp, his eyes jerk open. For a moment he looks at me through the dark, as wild and scared as an animal staring down the barrel of a poacher’s gun. Then, as the ghosts in his dreams begin to fade, he sits up and wraps his arms around me.

Thanks, Neve, he says quietly as he clings to me. That was a bad one.

What was it this time? I ask.

The Suffering … abstracts from Sieves—other Sieves, not you. Micah’s careful to clarify that point, to make sure I don’t feel guilty for doing this to him.

It’s not always the Suffering that haunts him. Sometimes it’s his dishonoring ceremony in Bristol, or things he saw in the Deep Prison or at the work camp in Galloway. Insanity, abuse, people brutally killing and being brutally killed—Micah has witnessed the worst of humanity. Yet he still loves. He still has the warmest heart of anyone I’ve ever known.

Do you want to talk about it? I ask him. It might help.

He shakes his head slightly, his cheek bobbing against my neck. I better not.

You don’t owe your Sieves your silence anymore, I remind him softly. Even though he’s no longer a Sufferer—and never will be again since Suffering doesn’t exist in the New Republic—he’s still reluctant to betray the vow of silence associated with his old contract.

I know … It’s not that.

Then why? Are you afraid Governor Bell or the director at the Center for Compassion will somehow find out and come after you?

Micah pulls away so he can look at me. He brushes some hair back from my face, tucking loose strands behind my ear to see me better. No, I’m not worried about them … It’s nothing—nothing important.

He’s not telling me something. I can see it in his eyes. Knowing him, he’s probably trying to protect me from some burden he doesn’t want me to have to shoulder. He’s always been like that, strong and selfless—almost to a fault. It’s one of the things I noticed first about him, and I love him for it. Tonight, though, it makes me uneasy. I’ve left everything for him: Rafe and Tali, my parents, and my home. We’re all the other has now. There shouldn’t be secrets between us when we’ve made such sacrifices.

But I can’t force Micah to confide in me. I can only patiently wait until he’s ready to share and keep caring for him as much as I can until then. So I say, Okay ... But you can tell me anything—I hope you know that. Whatever’s going on can’t change how I feel about you.

A small smile forms at the