He exhales loudly. Asher knows me. I’m not going to let this die.
“I wasn’t at Powder Town long,” he admits. “Roughly two moons. Soon as it felt safe enough, I left to search out your pack. I’d heard talk that there were a few groups living west of Powder Town”—this is news to me—“and another to the south, halfway between West Tower and the Old Coast. I went west first. Maybe if I hadn’t, I’d have made it to you guys. To you.” His head twists to the side briefly, but he doesn’t make eye contact. “I got jumped by Bain and Cree three days after leaving Powder Town. They took all my gear, were talking about bringing me to the Barrel to trade. I couldn’t go there. If anyone saw the brand, I’d end up back in Bedrock, and I knew I wouldn’t escape a second time. The General would make sure of it. So I made Bain an offer. Told him I would help him bring in ten times what I might have been worth in the Barrel, so long as we could part ways after.”
“And he agreed?”
“Not at first. He wanted to know what I was running from. Probably trying to decide if he could get even more from me by turning me in. I just said I’d already worked in the Barrel once and couldn’t do it again. Turns out, he had, too.”
“You’d think that would make him want to help the vulnerable, not work against them.”
Asher grunts. “You don’t know Bain. He likes assets, comfort. I thought for sure he wouldn’t take my offer, but Cree started arguing that it wouldn’t be bad to have an extra set of hands setting up camp and making meals, and that it would make cons easier to pull off.”
He jumps a particularly wide tributary and turns back to wait for me. I don’t know if I can make this one, but as far as I can see, Asher’s found the narrowest place to cross. I bite my lip, get a bit of a running start. As soon as I leap, I know I’m not going to make it.
My heel hits the edge of the tributary. I don’t feel the heat through my boots, but the rock beneath the water is slick. My foot skids out from under me. Asher rushes forward. His arms hook beneath my shoulders, and I collide with his chest.
“I got you.” He staggers, pulling me upright. We’re so close, my nose nearly brushes his chin when I look up. There’s a small scar by his bottom lip that I don’t remember from when we were kids. I wonder how he got it.
He straightens his arms, putting distance between us. “Anyway, I worked with them for about four moons. You were the last job before I could cut loose, the last trade I owed them.” His throat bobs. “Gods, I wish it hadn’t been you.”
My face feels flush from being so close to him. I don’t like it, so I tell myself it’s from the heat of the day and not his nearness. “If it wasn’t me, we wouldn’t have reunited,” I say with a shrug.
“Yes, we would.”
“You don’t know that. I could have been taken when the Loyalists raided Dead River. Or we could have both wandered the wastes for the rest of our lives, never crossing paths.”
“I would have found you again,” he says surely, and I believe him. Asher has faith even when he shouldn’t. He believes wholeheartedly.
He turns and begins leading again. I watch where he steps, but I watch his back, too. Beneath that shirt, we are still alike, even if everything else has changed.
* * *
My mood sours quickly in the afternoon, and it’s not only because we won’t be out of Burning Ground by nightfall. Asher keeps trying to make conversation. By the way he steals glances over his shoulder, I can tell he’s trying to cheer me up, but nothing will help.
I remind myself that this was necessary. That staying wouldn’t have solved anything. That the only way to help them was to leave.
It doesn’t lessen the guilt.
Asher comes to a halt at dusk. There’s a pool to our rear and another one ahead, but enough dry land between that we’re not in danger of rolling into boiling water while sleeping. He sits on a small boulder and complains about his aching feet. I’ve had blisters on mine since morning, but the pain has been a welcome punishment. I deserve it, and more.
Asher hands me some jerky. I eat silently, barely looking at him.
“Did you swallow your tongue?” he teases.
“One of them is dead,” I snap. He couldn’t have known, and he was only trying to lighten the mood, but I can’t steady my voice. “At noon. Every third day at noon the General will execute another of my pack.”
Asher’s face pales. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
I stare straight ahead, chewing on my jerky.
“Who?” he asks.
“Alder or Vee. Whoever was oldest.”
“Vee,” Asher says, and of course he would remember more than I do about my own pack, despite being away from them for so long. Of course he has to make me feel even more like a failure than I already do.
“Vee, then. Vee’s dead. Because I couldn’t read the map.” I knead my hands together—my useless, worthless hands. Hands that did nothing. Suddenly I’m furious. “Dammit, Asher. If you hadn’t conned me, none of this would have happened.”
“This is on the General, Delta, and you know it.” Asher’s mouth is a thin line. There’s a crease in his brow to match it. “And Bain and Cree conned me first.”
“I know, but you should have fought back. You should have killed them.”
“You say that like killing is easy.”
I don’t tell him that it is, shockingly so. Instead, I look away. The Gods’ Star glints to the north.
“Oh gods, Delta,” Asher says. “When? Why?”
“I had to. I wouldn’t have gotten away if I didn’t.” I risk a glance at him, afraid he’ll be looking at me like I’m a stranger, like he’s terrified of me. But it’s the opposite. He’s looking at me like he wants to take away the hurt, like what I’ve said has cracked him open.
“There was a cart of corpses,” I explain. “Two Loyalists were taking it out of Bedrock to a pyre. I hid under the blanket. The only way out is with the dead.”
“Or with the sewage.”
Despite everything, I feel the corner of my lip twitch into a smile. “One of the Loyalists left early. I killed the other once he was alone, and I took his horse.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“You’re a rotten liar.”
“No, really. He was a Loyalist. He worked for the General. I didn’t like the blood, how easy it was, or the rush I felt in the moment. But it’s not like he didn’t deserve it.”
“He was just trying to get by,” Asher says, taking a swig from his waterskin. “We all are.”
“So we’re just supposed to forgive them? Pretend they don’t have blood on their hands? No, they chose to fall in line with the General, Asher. That Loyalist chose his path.”
“Maybe only because it was the better of two terrible options. Maybe, if there was a way he could pay for his crimes, he could be forgiven, earn his place beneath the stars again. Not right now. Nothing is in place for such practices. But maybe someday.”
I stare at him long and hard. He means it. He believes that no one is too damned to be redeemed. He has hope that some future version of this world exists, where the right people will rule, where the guilty can pay for their crimes and maybe even start over.