As Eloise walked numbly around the room, staring at the women still in stasis, I was torn between supporting her and giving her space. We had explained, and she had glanced through the pamphlet and eaten some food. But she was still in shock, and weeping. Helga stayed by her side, for which I was deeply grateful. Sometimes, support only truly helps if it comes from someone who knows.

Suddenly, Eloise's hand shot up to her scalp, where she felt the cap. She started picking at it.

"Eloise, please don't," Beanpole said.

"Get it off," Eloise muttered, pulling at it. Then, more loudly, "Get it off!"

Then, screeching. "Get it off!"

I shattered. I wanted to murder something green and alien.

Helga took her hands, smiled at her, got her to calm down a little. Then Helga brushed her own hair aside to display her cap. "It won't come off, ever," she said. "But that's okay. It will never control you again."

Eloise's face was full of horror. "I want it off!"

I stepped forward and placed my hands on Helga's and Eloise's. "Eloise," I said softly. She was shaking, and still staring at Helga. "Eloise, look at me," I said.

She turned her eyes toward me. They were full of shame.

"I want to show you something," I said. "Please look carefully."

I pulled my shirt up and turned around, then twisted my head to look at her. "Do you see the scars?" I asked.

Eloise looked at my back. Still in shock, she didn't answer.

I reached behind my back and traced one of the scars as best I could. I'd never seen them, myself, but others had described them to me. I had about twenty.

"These scars are from one of the aliens," I said. "They're incredibly strong. One of them picked me up and whipped me as hard as he could, again and again. I healed, but the scars remain. And they'll remain forever."

Slowly, Eloise freed her hands from Helga's and reached out to trace one of my scars. Her touch made me shiver.

I let my shirt fall into place and turned back around. "People have died fighting these aliens," I said solemnly. "Two of my friends died just to liberate this city. The scars on my back are nothing compared to that."

I touched her head. She flinched, but I persisted. I stroked her head lovingly. "This cap is a scar, just like the ones on my back. It's a hurt, a memory of an injustice." I took her hands again. "But it's an injustice we all share. It's not yours alone, it's all of ours. And your scar doesn't define you any more than my scars define me. So if you think for one moment, for one second, that that stupid cap makes you anything other than the free, strong, and powerful woman that you are, I will remind you every day that it is not so. And I will keep reminding you for as long as it takes."

Hesitantly at first, Eloise smiled at me, that beautiful smile I missed so much. The room was still and silent. I was vaguely aware that everyone was watching this. I didn't care.

"Guillaume," she whispered, her eyes full of tears. She reached out to touch my face. "Your wisdom has grown."

 

I held her hand as we headed for the city gate. Along the way, she asked about her family, but all I could tell her was that I had left the chateau the day after she was crowned Queen of the Tournament, and I had never been back. She asked about Henry, and I told her he was on a mission elsewhere, but would return soon.

We reached Camp Freedom to discover it was no longer called that. A new sign told us it was Freetown.

Our entire group reported to Julius. I introduced him and Eloise, and Julius was pleased to meet her. After a few minutes of pleasantries, he kindly said to me, "Will, why don't you take the day to show Mademoiselle de Ricordeau around and catch her up properly on all that's happened in the last few years?"

I nodded my thanks, then smiled at Eloise and said, "Come on," jerking my head slightly in the direction of the kitchens. She could tell I had a plan.

I filled a satchel with food, fetched my canteen, borrowed a second canteen, and grabbed a clean blanket. Eloise looked around with intense interest every moment, as if everything was new. Like Helga, she stood out in her pageant gown. She still clutched the pamphlet Beanpole had given her.

I led her away from town, away from the river. The land sloped upward, and we stopped maybe fifty meters shy of the cemetery. It was a beautiful sunny morning, still just a couple hours after dawn. I spread the blanket on the far edge of a small meadow, purposefully choosing a spot near a copse which blocked the alien city from view. Here, we sat in the shade but still had a clear view of the town, the river, and the surrounding land.

That day is etched in my memory. The sunshine, the breeze, her face, her voice, and all we spoke about. We had the entire day, so we didn't rush anything.

I patiently told her my story, from the moment my best friend Jack was capped to the moment she woke on the floor of the Pyramid of Beauty. I didn't do this to make the situation all about me; I had no need for that. I did it because it wasn't just my story, it was the story of everything the resistance had discovered and accomplished so far – the fullest explanation possible of the cap she wore, of what had been done to her, and how she had ended up on this hillside miles from home. I omitted nothing, no matter how painful.

Hearing all these things – how the Masters had hurt all of us, not just her; how we were all fighting together; that she wasn't alone; the answers to so many mysteries – calmed her immensely.

She never interrupted me, not even to ask questions I knew she must have been burning with, allowing me all the time I needed to finish my tale. She just watched me with those intense, intelligent brown eyes.

She gripped my hand as I told her how close I had come to allowing myself to be capped so I could live with her, and my agony at watching her leave because the cap forced her to, and how that had hardened my resolve never to give in again.

Throughout my account, the only sound she made was a horrified gasp when I told her the most astonishing, crucial information of all: that a spaceship was on its way to murder us, and we only had eighteen months left to overthrow our oppressors. She had read it in the pamphlet, but hearing me tell how my Master had spoken of it made it so much more real to her.

She gripped my hand again, harder than ever, as I got choked up telling her how I had stood before her in the Pyramid of Beauty while a spy, thinking she was dead. I paused my story and she held me for a long time after that. But she still didn't say anything.

I had no desire to embellish any heroics on my part; seeing my friends die had cured me of that forever. But neither did I diminish my role in the fight. I simply told her plainly about destroying a Tripod with the metal egg, winning at the Games, escaping the city with Fritz's help, riding Crest to lure a Tripod into a trap, and my grief over losing Crest. I told her more about Julius, and about the resistance in general. She listened patiently as I spoke about the infiltration team, and about the ultimate sacrifice two of us had made.

I told her of my dread at the thought of ever entering the Pyramid of Beauty again, and how Beanpole persuaded me to, anyway, leading to the biggest miracle I had ever received. At which point she wept and we held each other tight.

After many minutes we finally pulled apart with a laugh of relief, and we were both tired and hungry. I had never realized how exhausting merely talking, and listening, could be.

It was the middle of the afternoon. We shared some roast chicken, cheese, and bread. As we ate, she broached the subject I was curious about, but also dreaded.

She said, "It's interesting to hear how you followed the clues to figure out we were still alive."

"I didn't. That was Beanpole. He's brilliant."

"I must thank Jean-Paul, then. He noticed the scratches we made on the insides of our cells, and that we had ripped free of our restraints. I am grateful our efforts weren't wasted."

Keeping my voice neutral, I said carefully, "You woke up and tried to escape."

She smiled a little, and tried to hide the haunting in her eyes, but I glimpsed it.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I asked.

She shrugged. "I woke, standing in pitch darkness, unable to move, wondering where I was and how I got there. It took a few minutes for my memories to return. Then I remembered everything: my home, my family, the Tripods, the cap, the aliens, obeying their commands, wanting to serve them. The memories were clear, but I couldn't understand them. I couldn't understand why I had done what I had done. The air was so stuffy, and perfectly still; no ventilation.

"Then other women started screaming, and I remembered I was in a room of women, all of us mounted in cases. I remembered how ugly, slimy, and nightmarish the aliens were, and I was terrified that any moment they would appear. After a few minutes I heard banging noises, and I guessed that some of the others had freed their hands. I pulled as hard as I could, and I finally freed my arm, and I hit the cell cover just like the others.

"Then the screaming stopped, only to be replaced by questions. Where are we? What's going on? Why did we obey the monsters without question? Why did we submit to being capped? Everyone kept asking each other, but no one had any answers. Some cried, others screamed some more.

"At one point, I called out to everyone, 'Tell me your names!' Just to keep some semblance of order, and to hold off the panic. A few answered, but most ignored me. They just kept panicking, screaming, asking questions, and scratching, clawing, and hitting their cells.

"We were hungry, and so thirsty, and we got so cramped. It felt like forever. But I don't remember it ending. My next memory is waking next to you."

"I'm so sorry you went through that."

She shrugged. "Now I know what was happening. You and your team had extinguished the pool of fire, and we went back to sleep when you relit it, which you had to do. It's over now, and I'm just so grateful to be here."

"I'm kind of grateful you're here, too."

She gave a small laugh at that, and said, "Then you will have to thank Jean-Paul, as well."

"Oh, if I thank Beanpole for every time he's saved me, or saved someone else, or did something brilliant to save the entire human race, I don't think I'd ever be finished."

Smiling, and in wonderfully good humor, I lay on my back and stretched. She lay on her back next to me and held my hand.

"During your story, I lost track of the years," she said. "How old are you now?"

"Seventeen."

"And I am still fifteen. We are almost as close in age as we were before, but in the other direction, yes?"

I panicked mildly at the thought of having to do birthday math in my head. "I think so? My birthday is actually a week before Capping Day. I turned thirteen just before Jack was capped, and I turned fourteen a week before I would have been capped."

"I'm the opposite – my birthday is a week after Capping Day. When I turned fourteen, I had to wait an entire year to be capped, when I was almost fifteen. Jean-Paul says I didn't age inside the city, so I'm still fifteen years and three months old. And you are seventeen."

"Eighteen in a few months, but yes."

She sighed good-naturedly. "I don't know what to do about my birthday now. The next won't really be sixteen for me."

"I'm sorry your life is so complicated."

"Me too."

Like a ton of bricks, a thought finally hit me which should have struck long before. "Your turban! You weren't supposed to reveal your head until six months after you were capped, and for you, physically, it's only been three months."

She shrugged. "The Masters instructed me to remove the turban. When they did, all modesty about the sight of my head disappeared instantly, and it's never returned. Isn't that odd? I wonder if that means the modesty was planted in our society by them in the first place. Also, that entire need for modesty was centered around the cap, which I now find disgusting. So, no, I no longer want any turban." She sighed. "But I do want my hair to grow long again."

We lay in comfortable silence, watching the trees dapple the sunlight; watching the clouds drift nowhere, everywhere, clouds which cared nothing for the people and aliens far below. Birds sang in the distance. Eloise's head touched mine, our fingers intertwined. We didn't move or speak for a long time. We didn't need to.

"So your friend, Fritz," she said finally. "He has many more scars on his back than you."

"So many," I whispered. "He had it so much worse than I did. Technically, he only has one scar...because his entire back is just a single, giant scar." My voice was so very quiet as I watched a bird wing its way across the clouds. "He was whipped every day for about a hundred days. I think he must have taken over a thousand lashes..."

Eloise gasped.

"...and he never complained even once." I grew so emotional I had trouble breathing for a moment, as I remembered Fritz worn almost to nothing, yet still focused solely on the mission. "I truly believe with all of my heart we would never have brought this city down without him. His leadership, his cool head, his ability to see problems before they happen, are why I escaped, and why we won here. When this is all over, Fritz should be honored as one of our greatest heroes. I'll introduce you tonight."

She squeezed my hand and looked at me. "I will be honored to meet him."

She turned her gaze back to the sky. The look in her eyes was of one seeing it truly for the first time. It made my heart burst.

"And there is more than one alien city, in a world that is round and bigger than I ever dreamed," she said. "The people who live far east of here. Asta?"

"Asia."

"Asia. They look different from us?"

"Their skin is a different color, a little darker, and their faces are generally different than ours. And their languages are completely different. I mean...I can understand Spanish pretty easily because I know Italian, and some of it sounds like English and French, and even German will do that a little bit. But the peoples in the far east make completely different sounds, with syllables and intonations you've never heard and are entirely unrecognizable. And they write vertically, using symbols instead of letters and words. It was...really educational to see how a separate people could take an entirely different path, and create a culture so alien to everything I've ever known. I had already seen some of that when Fritz and I went on our recruiting trip, but not nearly to that degree."

She held up the page from the pamphlet showing the world map so she could study it again. "And the city in America," she said. "Henry. We know nothing?"

"Nothing yet. I can't even begin to imagine what went wrong." After a few moments, I said quietly, "I miss him."

She rolled over, put her arm across my chest, and nestled her head against my shoulder. "I love you, Guillaume."

I kissed the top of her head, breathed her hair, and held her. "And I love you, Eloise de Ricordeau."

And the rest of that afternoon? Well, like I said...it's etched into my memory forever.

 

We left the meadow about half an hour before sundown. But Eloise wanted to visit the cemetery before heading back, so I showed it to her. Several crude headstones had been erected, but the vast majority of graves were still unmarked. Someone had put up a flimsy wooden sign, but it had already been blown over.

Eloise stuck it back in the ground, and I helped her reinforce its base with stones so it would stay up.

She looked at the headstones a few moments, then asked me to tell her, to the nearest inch, where the freed slaves were buried, and where Mario and Carlos were buried. I showed her.

She walked around, absorbing everything. Then she stood at the front of the cemetery, facing the headstones, and solemnly bent to one knee. I stood a few meters away, respecting her space. She remained there, head bowed slightly, eyes closed, I presume in silent prayer. An action one would expect from the daughter of the Comte and Comtesse de la Tour Rouge; an action I know she would have performed even had she been a peasant, for that was just who she was.

She was amazing.

And that made me the luckiest man in the world.