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The sand moves.
I don't remember telling it to. One second I'm standing in the pit with my fists clenched and the next every grain around me is lifting, slow and wrong, like the air itself is holding its breath. The crowd noise cuts off. I can feel them staring.
The sand doesn't listen to words. It listens to the part of me that's screaming don't die here, and that's enough.
My opponent—some bulk from Sector 3 with fists like cinder blocks—stops mid-swing. His eyes go wide. He's watching the sand spiral up between us, a curtain that wasn't there a second ago, and I can see him doing the math. Awakener. Real one. Not the fake tags people buy off Echo's network.
"What the—" he starts, but I'm not listening anymore.
Because it's already starting.
The first thing that goes is breakfast. Not this morning's—I didn't get breakfast this morning—but one from before. Underground. I was eating something warm, something that tasted like it had vegetables in it, and someone was sitting across from me. I can't see their face. I had it five seconds ago. Now it's just a blank space where a person should be, and the sand keeps rising.
"Kai!" Someone shouts from the edge of the pit. Ashmark maybe. I'm not sure.
I push the sand forward. It slams into Cinder Block Guy and he goes down hard, skidding across the pit floor. The crowd erupts. They love it. They always love it when someone bleeds, and this time it's not me, so that's something.
But I'm losing more.
The shelter. I can still see the layout—nine levels, water recyclers on the bottom two, living quarters in the middle—but I can't remember the smell. I know it smelled like something. Rust and old air and too many bodies in one place. I had that this morning. It's gone now.
Cinder Block tries to get up. I don't let him. The sand wraps around his legs and yanks him back down. He's yelling something but the sound is far away, like I'm hearing it through water. My head feels full. Not of thoughts. Of weight. Of sand that wasn't there before.
I used to have a rule. Don't use it unless you have to. Don't burn memories for a fight you can lose some other way.
I'm breaking that rule now and I know it and I can't stop.
Another memory: a door. Metal. I was standing in front of it and someone was behind me, telling me to wait, telling me it wasn't time yet. I don't know who. I don't know what was behind the door. I don't even know if it was real or if I made it up, but now it's just a shape with no color and no context, and the sand is still moving.
Cinder Block isn't getting up anymore. He's down. I win. That's how this works, right? You put the other guy down and you get your tag and your meal ration and you walk out. That's the deal.
Except my legs won't stop shaking.
I drop the sand. It falls all at once, no grace to it, just a collapse. The pit floor is covered in it now, more than there was before. Someone's going to ask where it came from. I don't have an answer. I don't even know if I pulled it out of the air or the ground or somewhere else entirely.
The crowd is still screaming. They're on their feet. Steelhook's people are moving through the stands, probably taking bets, paying out the ones who called it right. I don't care about any of that.
I care about the thing I just lost.
Mom.
I can still see her. Dark hair. Thin face. Hands that were always cold because the shelter was always cold. I've got that much. But her voice—
I reach for it and there's nothing.
I know she used to say my name. I know she used to tell me things, important things, things I was supposed to remember. I can feel the shape of it, like a word on the tip of your tongue, but I can't hear it anymore. It's not muffled. It's not far away. It's just gone.
I bend over and put my hands on my knees. Someone's going to think I'm tired. Good. Let them think that.
The sand on my hands feels like every other sand I've ever touched. Dry. Gritty. Dead. It doesn't feel like the thing that just took her voice. It doesn't feel like anything.
"Get up."
The voice comes from above. I look up. Ashmark's leaning over the edge of the pit, one arm extended. His face is doing that thing where he's trying not to look worried and failing.
"You good?" he asks, quieter.
I'm not. I don't say that. I take his hand and let him pull me up. My legs almost give out halfway but I lock my knees and make it. The crowd's starting to thin out now. Fight's over. Entertainment's done. Time to move on to the next thing.
"That was stupid," Ashmark says, low enough that only I can hear. "You know what happens when you show off."
I do know. That's the problem. I knew it before I did it and I did it anyway, because the alternative was Cinder Block turning my face into paste, and I like my face where it is.
"I didn't have a choice," I mutter.
"You always have a choice. You just don't like the other options." He's steering me toward the edge of the pit, toward the narrow stairs that lead back up to ground level. His hand's on my shoulder. I think he's trying to look casual. It's not working.
We make it three steps before Steelhook's people cut us off.
Two of them. Military uniform, the kind that's seen actual storms, not just the city's fake drills. They've got that look. The one that says they've shot people before and they'll do it again if you give them a reason.
"Kai Ruin," the first one says. It's not a question.
"Yeah."
"Come with us."
Ashmark's hand tightens on my shoulder. "He's got a meal ration to collect. Fight rules."
The second guard smiles. It's not a nice smile. "No tag for this one. Commander's orders. Awakeners get processed different."
Processed.
That's a word that means bad things. I've heard it before. People who get processed don't come back the same. Sometimes they don't come back at all.
"He won the fight," Ashmark says, and his voice has an edge now. "That means he eats. That's the rule."
"Rules changed." The first guard steps closer. He's taller than me. Most people are. "Commander Steelhook wants to see him. Now."
I can feel Ashmark's hand shaking. Not a lot. Just enough that I know he's running calculations, trying to figure out if he can get me out of this, knowing he probably can't.
"It's fine," I say. My voice sounds far away. "I'll go."
"Kai—"
"It's fine," I say again, and I pull away from his hand. The guards move in on either side of me. Close. Too close. Like they think I'm going to run.
I'm not going to run. Where would I even go? The city's a cage and the storms are outside and I've got no food and no shelter and no idea what I just lost besides her voice.
We start walking. The crowd parts. Some of them are staring. Some of them are pretending not to. I catch a glimpse of someone in the back—dark coat, hood up—and for half a second I think it's Echo, but then they turn and it's just some scavenger kid, nobody I know.
The guards lead me past the pit, past the betting stalls, past the food line where people are queuing up with their tags. My stomach twists. I haven't eaten since yesterday. Yesterday morning. Whatever Ashmark scrounged up from his contacts.
We're heading toward the old command post. The one Steelhook took over when he rolled into Ironspine with his convoy and his guns and his survival plan that sounded real good until you realized it involved people like me getting processed.
I try to remember what Mom said about people like Steelhook. I know she said something. I know she warned me. But all I get is sand in my head, dry and heavy and wrong, filling up the space where her voice used to be.
The guards stop in front of a reinforced door. One of them knocks. Three times, slow.
The door opens.
Steelhook's standing there. Tall, gray-haired, uniform so clean it looks like it's never seen dust. He's holding a tablet. He looks at me the way you'd look at a tool you're thinking about buying.
"Kai Ruin," he says. His voice is smooth. Controlled. The kind of voice that's used to being obeyed. "Seventeen years old. Underground Shelter 9. Sand manipulation. Class B potential, possibly A if properly trained."
He's reading off the tablet. I don't know where he got that information. I never told anyone my classification. I don't even know my classification.
"You put on quite a show," Steelhook continues. "Impressive control for someone with no formal training."
I don't say anything. My mouth is too dry.
"Here's the situation," he says, and he sets the tablet down on the desk behind him. "Ironspine needs Awakeners. Real ones. Not the black-market fakes, not the low-grades who can light a candle or move a pebble. We need people who can hold back the storms. People who can fight."
He takes a step closer.
"You're going to work for me now. Military intake. Full rations, clean water, a bunk that doesn't leak. All you have to do is use that power when I tell you to."
I can feel the sand in my head, pressing against the inside of my skull. I can feel the empty space where Mom's voice used to be.
"And if I say no?" I ask.
Steelhook smiles.
"Then you don't eat," he says. "And tomorrow, when you're too weak to stand, my people will drag you in here anyway. So you can make this easy, or you can make it hard. Your choice."
Behind me, the door closes.
I'm alone in here with him, and I can't remember what she told me to do if this happened, and every grain of sand in my head is screaming that I already lost something I can't get back.