“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Lily glared at Caeden as they rode the elevator back to their rooms.

“What do you mean?” Caeden had no idea why Lily was so mad at him. This wasn’t his fault! “You’ve been angry with me this whole time, and I don’t get it.”

“How can you be so calm, so uncaring!” Lily shouted.

“What do you want me to do?! Yell and scream about things I can’t change? We reported what we heard; the school will handle it from here.” Caeden stated matter-of-factly.

“Weren’t you listening? They don’t even believe us!” Lily stomped her foot.

Caeden could help it; he laughed. “Lily, come on, you can’t be serious.”

“You heard her! She straight-up called us liars!” Lily looked ready to slap him, which Caeden admitted he might deserve right now.

“Lily, the school can’t have students running around telling people that the Revolution infiltrated the school. It would undermine confidence in the institution. It's the same reason that the CA, in general, refuses to acknowledge the Revolution as a problem. It makes them look bad.” Caeden explained. “They’ll find those two, maybe more. Either way. They’ll handle it quietly, so no one finds out.”

“Fuck.” Lily let out a massive sigh, “You’re right. That’s what they’ll do.”

“So, are we good?” Caeden asked, relieved that she had come around.

“No, we’re not good!” Lily shouted, “I’m not going to just sit around with terrorists about!”

“Why?” Caeden stared at Lily in utter disbelief, “You know the school will handle it.”

“No, I don’t. They deliberately told us that they didn’t believe the threat was real, and I’m not leaving that up to chance. I refuse to sit around and wait for someone else to solve it.” Lily glared at him, grey eyes practically glowing with conviction, “I don’t understand how you can be so relaxed about it! The Revolution is in our school, in our building! They were trying to sabotage the place where we practice. Who knows what else they’ve gotten into! These are the people that tried to kill you; they maimed your uncle! What the hell, Caeden!”

The elevator dinged.

“You want to know why I don’t care?” Caeden spoke, his voice low.

“Yes!” Lily shouted, exasperation layered in her voice.

“Fine, I’ll tell you, but don’t blame me if you don’t like what I say,” Caeden warned.

“Whatever, just spit it out.” Lily rolled her eyes.

“Come on. We shouldn’t be hanging out in the elevator lobby.” Caeden gestured her toward his and Erik’s room. They walked in a heavy, uncomfortable silence. Caeden almost chuckled. This was the first time he’d ever had an argument with a friend.

“Well?” Lily tapped her foot impatiently as Caeden sat down on his bed.

“Sit. This will take a while to explain.” Caeden gestured toward Erik’s bed across from him.

“Can’t you sum it up?” Apparently, she had little interest in his actual reasoning.

“Not really, not if you want to understand what kind of world we live in.” Caeden shook his head.

“Oh, I understand the world we live in very well.” Lily shot back, though she did sit down.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Caeden offered, “But it seems we think about it in very different ways.”

“You’re right about that.” Lily snorted.

“Hmm,” Caeden stared at her for a moment, “How do I start? I never like talking about this since it's ultimately pointless. But I do want you to understand, so what the hell. Since you intend to get involved in some dangerous shit, I don't really have a choice.” Caeden took a deep breath.

“First, you should know about my parents. The ones that raised me, not my birth parents. I never cared about them much. I know other orphans who were obsessed with finding their birth parents, but I never was. I think that’s down to my adoptive parents being amazing, loving people who took good care of me. I was a pretty willful child, I think. I got in trouble a lot. Me and other little kids would run around the streets getting into all kinds of trouble.”

“That was before I knew I was shrouded.” Caeden sighed.

“What? How could you not know? It’s an inborn thing.” Lily was genuinely confused.

“I mean, I didn’t know what that meant. Being shrouded was not a nice thing for a child to be out on the continents. Earthstrom was just big enough to see a few visits on rare occasions, but that was more than enough to sour the whole community’s opinion. Of course, as a kid, I knew none of that. All I knew was one day, I showed one kid my shroud; I think I just cut some grass or something stupid, I don’t remember. What I do remember is that afterward, I never played with any of those kids again.”

“Oh,”

“Yeah, it was pretty jarring. I think I was about five? I don’t know. Anyway, things got really lonely for me after that. But it was worse for my folks. Their friends started treating them like they had the plague. They were friendly, but we couldn’t come over, and they wouldn’t visit. I can remember a few times when they would encounter an old acquaintance on the street. It would be smiles and greetings, then a hasty retreat. I had no idea what was wrong. It was like the whole town became a foreign place full of strangers overnight.”

“I can remember a particular time when someone on the street stopped my father and asked him why they hadn’t gotten rid of me yet. My dad laughed it off like he was talking about ornery children. The other guy wouldn’t let it go, though, talking about how having a shrouded was bad luck, all the misery I would bring. Dad got me out of there quick, but it stuck with me.”

“Then,” Caeden sighed, that endless ache that lived in his chest coming back, “They died. Well, actually, they were murdered.”

“What!” Lily jumped up, “How? Why?”

“Have you not caught on to the theme of the story yet?” Caeden quipped with a bit more bite in his words than he intended. Thinking back to that time dug up old feelings that he had abandoned years ago. “Sorry, that was rude. Your surprise is warranted.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Lily shook her head, sitting back down. All her anger had vanished into sympathy. “This must be hard. Me yelling at you and interrupting can’t make it any easier.”

Caeden gave her an appreciative smile before his memories whisked it away. He truly didn’t want to talk about this, but he wanted Lily to understand him well enough that he might get her to stop before she did something stupid. “It’s fine. I know that was probably surprising to hear.” Lily nodded silently.

“Well, you’re probably wondering what happened. It’s more depressing than anything. A man came to our home and killed both of them. We were sitting down for dinner when there was a knock on the door. Dad went to answer it.” Caeden took a deep breath. He hadn’t thought about what happened that night in years. Not in any detail. It was unreal how well he could recall everything that happened.

“He cut Dad’s throat. Didn’t even say a word, just slashed his throat and walked over his body. I don’t think Dad really felt it. There was so much blood so fast, he must have passed out almost instantly. He was probably dead before he hit the ground. Regardless, the man stepped over his body and started coming toward us. My mom screamed, and then he spoke. ‘I'm going to kill that shrouded. You stay out of my way, woman, or I’ll do you in too.’ Mom didn’t listen. She started throwing cutlery, plates, whatever she could grab. She never got a good shot in.”

“He just covered his face with his hand and walked through it. There was nothing heavy enough to really be dangerous. I used to wonder what would have happened if we had soup that night, and my mom threw a big pot at him. Could have knocked him out, or knocked him down. She might still be alive. But that’s irrelevant. No, he just walked right up to her and grabbed her hair. She started hitting him, but he hardly seemed to notice. He stabbed her in the gut, over and over.”

“Then he dropped her like a sack of garbage and came for me. The whole thing was so surreal. I don’t think I realized what was happening until he was basically on top of me. It was like a nightmare, just completely incomprehensibly terrifying. I was glued to my chair; I never made a sound. He grabbed me by the face and lifted me into the air, laughing madly. ‘Finally, I’m going to kill one of you rotten fuckers. You all should just die.’ Then he tried to stab me. He went for my throat, just like with Dad. He never made it.”

Caeden let out a dark chuckle. “My shroud kicked in, cut the guy in half, right down the middle. He never even nicked me. I don’t really remember any of that, though. I just remember being fucking terrified, bawling my eyes out until the peacekeepers showed up. Even then, I don’t remember much of anything until the next day, when I woke up at Unc’s place.”

Caeden wiped away a few tears that had made their way out of him. He hadn’t recounted that day to anyone since he had to tell his uncle and the police that next day. It somehow hit so much harder than just remembering it by himself. “I later learned that the guy was some asshole who got fired from a convoy of etherships owned by a family. He blamed shrouds in general. Got drunk, remembered I was in his neighborhood and somehow got it in his head to take revenge. Peacekeepers heard the story from some drinking buddies of his that he told his plans to. They thought he was joking. He wasn’t.”

“That’s horrible.” Lily reached over and patted him on the arm. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. But I don’t understand. Aren’t you angry? You have more reason to hate the Revolution and people who think like them than anyone.”

“Oh, I was.” Caeden laughed. “I was furious at everything for years. Just ask Unc. I was a fucking nightmare to deal with. He tried to channel my anger into smithing, which worked. Beating on metal for hours on end was a good way to constructively let out that anger. But I wasn't dealing with it, not really. I was avoiding actually processing my grief and hate and self-loathing. That went on for two years. Until this happened.” Caeden waved around his left hand, with the chunk taken out of it.

“Right, I never asked.” Lily nodded.

“This right here is what made me who I am today.” Caeden rubbed his hand along the scar tissue where two of his fingers used to be. “It was an accident. I was especially angry that day. I don’t remember why. I got careless and smashed my own hand so hard it pulverized the bones. The whole mess had to be removed. I spent weeks healing, stuck in a bed with nothing to do. It gave me time to think. Time to process and just breathe, for the first time in two years. I was a mess. I was still only eleven, but I had a lot to think about.”

“That’s when I figured it out. That man was right, on some level. Trying to kill me and killing my parents was fundamentally, inexcusably wrong, but he was right that there is also something fundamentally wrong with our world. Shrouds are insane, Lily. I was nine, and I killed a grown man by accident. That’s just wrong. When we live in a world where a child could kill an entire town by throwing a tantrum, there is something fundamentally wrong.”

“I absolutely agree; the Revolution are scum who want to take out their anger on an entire group of people purely to sate their own anger and hate for the wrongs that have been done to them. I just find it difficult to hate them, or even get very angry. Because it's pointless. No matter what they do, the Revolution will never change the world we live in because the shrouded hold all the cards. No matter what they do, no matter how many they kill, they will never change this world. It’s just sad, watching their futile struggle against a system they lost to at birth.” Caeden shrugged.

“That’s why I don’t care. Because whatever their planning will fail, and if it doesn’t, it won’t matter anyway. They lost before they started. This world will never change because the only people who could change it don’t want it to. It’s that simple.”

“So you’re not going to do anything because they’ll fail?” Lily asked, some of her indignation coming back.

“Yup. Well, more than that. Nothing you or I could do will change what will happen here either. Neither of us knows what’s going on, and we aren’t even close to powerful enough to change anything. Compared to the actually powerful shrouded, we might as well be a couple more unshrouded. It’s not that different.” Caeden explained.

“No.” Lily stood and crossed her arms.

“No, what?”

“No, I refuse to accept that.” Lily shook her head. “Caeden, you had something awful happen to you, but I think you’re using this excuse that nothing ever changes to stop trying. You don’t know that. If you never try to change anything, you never will. So, no. I refuse to accept a world where my actions don’t matter. I will do my best to find out what’s going on and stop it until someone has proven to my satisfaction that they beat me to it. Until the school tells me they caught the revolutionaries, I’m going to do my damndest to stop them myself. I’ll do it with or without you. So you need to figure yourself out.”

Then she left Caeden sitting there, no longer so sure of himself.