Chapter 2

RAIN SOAKED THROUGH Teth Winstead's jacket straight down to his skin. He shivered, continuing to place bricks into a wheelbarrow. Every twenty minutes or so someone else came along and replaced his full wheelbarrow with an empty one.

Teth didn't bother keeping track of time until he caught a glimpse of the sun setting slowly behind the buildings before him. He stopped his work and saw all the other workers preparing to go home. He stretched his arms inside his waterlogged jacket and collected his day's pay from the site supervisor.

Rain was unusual on this part of the planet Pil II, but Teth didn't think anything of it; the cool water felt magnificent on his face. He walked through a crowded market filled to the brim with shouting vendors, makeshift carts, and displays of food. Teth stopped at his favorite stand, which displayed trays of steaming bread rolls.

The vendor, Sheila, behind the counter smiled when she saw him. "Well, hi, Teth. You look like you've had a day."

"Yeah," Teth said. "I took another construction job."

Sheila nodded sadly. Teth's muscular forearms and callused hands spoke of years of hard labor. The lines under his ocean-blue eyes spoke of something worse.

Teth held out a few coins of Currency. "The usual, please."

"Sure thing." Sheila took the coins and put some rolls of bread into a paper bag. She handed the bag to Teth with a knowing grin. "I put an extra one in there for you. Say hello to your sister for me."

Teth took the bag and smiled back. "Thanks a ton. See you around."

"See you around, Teth. Don't work too hard! I'm serious!"

Teth chuckled as he walked away. "I won't!"

It was two miles to the shack Teth shared with his sister. The shack's rent was ridiculous, considering its poor, hasty construction from sheets of aluminum and miscellaneous blocks of stone, shoddy plumbing, and spotty electricity, but to Teth, it was home.

Teth pushed open the shack's old wooden door open and found his twelve-year-old sister, Pyra, trying unsuccessfully to plug leaks in the ceiling with pieces of cloth.

"I'm back," Teth said, closing the door behind him.

"How was work?" Pyra asked. She frowned as one of the cloths in the ceiling started to drip.

"Same old, same old."

"Any dinner tonight?"

He held up the bag. "Yep. Sheila says hi by the way."

"Oh," Pyra smiled. "Well tell her hi back the next time you see her."

"I will. Now let's eat."

They dug into the bag and munched hungrily on the rolls, not speaking. Both Winstead siblings had jet-black hair and piercing ocean-blue eyes. They had similar, somewhat bony features, though Teth sported a scar descending from his right nostril to his upper lip. He was by far the taller of the two, kept his hair short, and was lean with muscle from countless days of hard labor.

Pyra, on the other hand, was skinny, with long hair, a small nose, and a look of amusement permanently affixed to her face.

Teth flicked his eyes around the small room, as he ate, out of habit. Always wary, he'd seen his fair share of street fights. For seven years, Teth and Pyra had been forced to live on the streets of Pil II's largest city, Bycrest. During the days, Teth had searched for work while Pyra scavenged what little food she could. During the nights, Teth kept watch over whatever doorstep or alleyway they bedded down in while Pyra slept.

Thankfully, circumstances changed when Teth turned sixteen and qualified for a General Worker's License, which allowed him to take harder, slightly better-paying jobs. They had moved into the shack with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Pyra had been thrilled; she didn't remember their life from before the rise of the New Human Sovereignty or their parents' house in the Bycrest suburbs. One day, Teth would give Pyra a house like that. One day, maybe

"Teth?" Pyra asked, swallowing the last of her rolls.

"Yeah?"

"I've been practicing," Pyra rubbed her hands together eagerly. "Want to see?"

"Sure," Teth said. "Show me but be careful. We don't want this place to catch fire."

Pyra held her hands out, fingers spread apart. She closed her eyes, concentrating. Teth watched intently. After a moment, tiny blue arcs of electricity began to dance between her fingers. Some of the bolts darted across her palms and up her arms, and one dashed across her eyebrows. Teth grinned.

"Good," he said. "You're learning a lot faster than I did."

"Really?" Pyra asked, opening her eyes. The electricity on her hands faded and she gave Teth a wry smile. "You should watch out, or I'll be better than you soon."

"I don't know about that," Teth said, willing a sheath of blue electricity to appear over his right arm. The arcs hummed and writhed, not moving nearly as much as Pyra's. He concentrated the electricity into a ball in his hand, then passed it to the other hand with ease.

"Show-off," Pyra said, raising an eyebrow nonetheless.

Teth allowed the ball to disperse in his hands. "Don't worry," he said. "You'll learn to control your powers, focus them. It just takes time."

Pyra frowned. "I want to learn now. I need to be ready when we fight again."

Teth snorted.

"You know," Pyra said. "The Altered. We can't let the Sovereignty go on forever."

"Pyraª" Teth sighed and leaned forward in his chair. "There is no fight. The Sovereignty won. That's that. We're Remnants now."

"Then why should I bother learning to use my powers?"

"I need to know you can take care of yourself," Teth said. "If something happens to me, I want to know you'll be okay."

"But on my own, if I wasn't in some bigger fight, I wouldn't be able to use my powers to defend myself," Pyra protested. "The second I did, the Hunter Guardsª"

"Enough," Teth said. "Discussion over. I want you to practice with your powers, and you will. Now, get ready for bed. You have school in the morning."

Pyra groaned. Teth cleaned up the remains of dinner and made sure Pyra brushed her teeth before she fell asleep. He switched off the shack's light and laid down on his bed, staring up at the leaky ceiling. Teth ached for sleep, but he couldn't close his eyes. If he did, the nightmares would come again, memories of days long gone, but still somehow happening.

In the shack, the Altered siblings were quiet.