River of Bones and Other Stories by Rebecca Roanhorse

Author:Rebecca Roanhorse
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: S&S/Saga Press
Published: 2026-03-03T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

At first, everything’s good. The Senator’s collar chafes but it doesn’t cut. My room in the dorm is a single. Decent. Bigger than my old jail cell, so I can’t complain. My course load is average, most of the classes focused on science and math, subjects that kept me out of political talk and history, subjects where the Senator’s name is unlikely to come up.

I spend my free time walking around the university level. I loiter in the library. I eat at the cafeteria, holding down a table by myself. Nobody bothers me, but nobody talks to me, either. Turns out it’s easy to be back at my single in the dorm by twenty hour every night because I got nothing to do. I find myself looking forward to my weekly check-ins with Mx. Stone because at least it gets me off this level.

But in my third week of boring student life, the loneliness makes me reckless and I decide to do a little exploring. Nothing to get me in trouble. Just a walk, maybe dinner somewhere besides the cafeteria. I promise myself I’ll be back at twenty station hour like I’m supposed to.

First, I try the residential levels thinking I’ll stroll through some parks, gawk at some nice houses. I quickly find out my ID’s not coded to let me in, just like Mx. Stone promised. But I’m undeterred and restless enough to keep trying. But it’s no dice all the way down until I hit the single digits and then ping, I pour out onto level nine with the rest of the crowd.

I follow the flow of Earthers, Genteel, and others, letting the masses take me where they will. I shuffle down a street of neon and flash. It’s mostly restaurants and shopping here, trendy eateries and midrange boutiques, Streams blasting the latest news and gossip from every open café door. At first, I worry I’ll be recognized. Someone will see past the color job on the eyes and the new hair and see Senator K’lorna’s adopted son. But after an hour not meriting even a second glance, I relax. It’s nice, this anonymity, slipping and sliding through the throng like I’m one of them. Like I belong.

An illusion, but I’m all in.

I wander off the main thoroughfare and find a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant serving noodles with some kind of hydroponic vegetable and make a dinner of it. I sit in the front and people-watch.

It feels nice. Normal.

After a while, I decide it’s time to head back. There’s no day or night on a station, but they lower the artificial lights just like a sun cycle, so by the time I’m heading back toward the lift, it’s dark, and I know it’s late. The lifts run every thirty minutes, so if I catch the next one, I can be back at the dorm by curfew.

I’m standing, waiting, when a hand comes down on my shoulder.

It’s so unexpected that for a second I panic, old memories shooting to the surface and gripping me by the throat.

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