PodCastle

* Author : Carrie Patel
* Narrator : Setsu Uzume
* Host : Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali
* Audio Producer : Peter Wood
*
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PodCastle 401, ARTEMIS RISING: The Color of Regret is a PodCastle original.


Welcome back to Artemis Rising II!
The Color of Regret
by Carrie Patel
Sefid’s aura was the same luminescent gray as storm clouds. “You will not regret this.” Yet he said it in that tone that people used when it was certain you would.
Nasrin cleared her throat. “What is there to regret? I am grateful for the matches.” She shifted on the concrete bench and slid the matchbox into the pocket of her faded corduroy coat. As a city bus rolled around the corner, commuters across the street pressed closer to one another, blending the colors of their own varied auras.
Sefid’s smile was merely a bristling at the center of his thick, black beard. It didn’t distract from the quick glance at his wristwatch. “You know as well as anyone how few of us there are in this province. Iran needs more people like your father. We trust that a daughter of Azad Rajavi won’t fail us.”
Nasrin hated hearing others talk about her father as if he were already dead. Martyrs were only romantic to people who didn’t have to carry their memory.
“I know my duty,” she said. The bus rolled to a stop with a hiss of exhaust and hydraulics. The commuter line shuffled forward.
“Good. Any instructions we have for you, or any messages we need you to pass along, will be left in the alley. You remember the procedures we discussed?”
She did. Still, she wanted to go over them again, one more time. She wanted the reassurance of seeing him nod along as she listed the dead drop signals: gray-coded messages came from Sefid, blue-coded messages came from Farhad himself, and anything else was a decoy. But her talents were rare, not irreplaceable. If he detected any uncertainty on her part, he’d call the whole thing off, and the resistance would move on without her. Chances were, this was another test. Everything else with Sefid had been.
So she said, “Of course,” and clutched the matchbox in her pocket. Sefid rose from the bench, crossed the street, and melted into the glowing crowd boarding the bus.
Nasrin waited for another three minutes, as she’d been instructed, and counted the beads of sweat that rolled down her neck.
Her sister was waiting when she returned home.
“So? How did it go?” It was impossible to keep anything from Leila. Her powers of perception were rivaled only by her lack of discretion.
“Fine,” Nasrin said, shoving her hands deeper into her pockets. “How’s dinner coming?”
Leila watched her gesture. “It’s close.”
Nasrin ducked into her bedroom, hoping to shut the door before Leila could follow. “Don’t let it burn.”
“It’s simmering. I’ve got time.” Leila, her face aglow, was halfway through the door by the time Nasrin turned around.
Nasrin’s hand tensed around the matchbox, and her sister’s gaze dropped as if she could see it through the corduroy coat. Nasrin sighed. “Shut the door behind you.” She pulled out the matchbox and opened it as Leila hovered next to her.
A withered cigarette butt, smoked down to the filter, lay in a sparse bed of matches. Farhad’s scent—or what must have been his—clung to the box: earthy and musky, a mélange of sweat and gunpowder. More importantly, his aura stuck to the cigarette, which glowed a dappled blue and threw off sparks like a severed cable. She was careful not to touch it, lest she wear it away.