“You’re a better person than me.”
“Nah. I really don’t think that’s true.” Asher side-eyes me from where he’s sitting, forearms resting on his knees, hair falling into his lashes. I’m reminded of a moment when we were kids. I’d told him to scud off during a hunt because he was spooking all the game. When I found him afterward, he was sitting on a rock, just as he is now. His body has changed, but his expression hasn’t.
“Let’s drink to Vee,” I say, raising my waterskin.
Asher nods, lifts his as well.
“Rest easy, Vee,” I say to the stars. “I’m sorry I failed you.”
We drink, then sit in silence for what feels like forever.
“You didn’t fail her,” Asher says a while later. “The gods did.”
“I thought you had full faith in the gods.”
“I do. That doesn’t mean I always understand how they work. And this isn’t solely your fault, Delta. It’s the General’s, and the Loyalists’, and mine by extension, as you pointed out, and Bain’s and Cree’s, because who are we all but children of the gods? They could change everything, save any soul they want to spare. I don’t understand why life is the way it is, but I believe it will all make sense in time.”
“That was beautiful, Asher.”
His brow wrinkles. “You making fun of me?”
“No. I’m serious. If my ma or Indie, or really anyone, ever admitted to me that they didn’t understand the gods, maybe I would have struggled less with my faith.” I take another sip from my waterskin. “Life is strange, isn’t it?”
He nods. “Life is strange.”
A chill settles over the wastes as night lengthens. Again, we don’t have a fire, for fear of giving away our position. I curl into my jacket and tuck my hands beneath my cheek. The earth is hard. The ground has taken in the night’s cold.
I hope Bay is warm, wherever she is. I pray she’s in a cradle in the nursery, blissfully unaware of all that is happening around her. Of course she’s unaware, I tell myself. She’s a baby. Something pangs in my ribs, and I realize I miss her. I wish she was sleeping in the sling right now, snuggled against my chest, our bodies warming each other.
I will get back to her. Even if it takes me forever—even if I fail everyone else in my pack and she is the only one left—I will not let the General destroy my entire family.
I fall asleep repeating this vendetta and wake only once, shivering. Something tightens near my stomach. I look for Bay, the sling, but of course she’s not there. It’s Asher’s arm. He’s moved beside me in the night, curled his body around mine. I almost elbow him off, but he’s warm, a comfort.
I nuzzle nearer, soaking up his heat, and in the morning I shift away before he wakes and can see that I needed him.
Chapter Twenty
A shadow falls over us by midmorning. I put a hand to my forehead, shielding my eyes, and tip my head back.
“Vulture?” I suggest. The bird is a dark silhouette against the sky. It doesn’t look big enough to be a vulture, but I don’t know why any other animal would waste energy following us.
“Looks more like a falcon,” Asher answers. “Maybe one of the General’s.”
“Well, that would be unfortunate.”
We’re trying to make light of things, but we both search the horizon as we pause to drink from our waterskins. There’s no sign of anyone following us. Perhaps it’s a wild falcon, scavenging like every living thing in the wastes. We finished the last of the jerky this morning and my lips are now blistered and raw. If we don’t make it to Powder Town today, the bird might be rewarded with two corpses to pick at.
I stuff my hands into my jacket pockets, protecting them from the sun. “How much longer?”
“Hard to say. Soon, I think.” Asher pauses at a tributary. It’s wide, deep even. I peer through the rust-colored water and feel like I’m looking into a crevice. The strange coloring plays tricks on the eye.
As we start looking for a place to cross, a gust of hot air hits my sunburned cheeks. The bird screeches overhead and peels away. I’m wondering what’s spooked the creature, when the ground erupts. Water shoots from the crevice and into the sky, roaring like a beast.
“Geyser!” I scream. I grab Asher at the wrist and haul him back. The water erupts like a wall, pushing up through the crevice. A droplet scalds the back of my hand, but I don’t dare take another step away. A hot pool waits right behind us.
Still gripping Asher’s arm, I watch the cascading wall of water peter out as it moves through the crevice. When it’s not trying to kill you, it’s almost pretty.
“That bird nearly got his meal early,” Asher says once things are quiet.
I twist, searching the skies, but the bird has vanished. Scared off by the geyser, I think, but then I spot the truth to the east: dust. Not a true storm, from the width of it, but a decent squall. It’s bearing down on us fast.
“Asher!” I shout. He’s already jumped the crevice. “Goggles. Put on your goggles!”
He glances over his shoulder, and his eyes track beyond me, going wide when they find the squall. He reaches for the skull mask he’s had hanging between his shoulder blades on a piece of rope.
“You don’t have goggles?” I yank mine on, pull up my scarf. It’s second nature, these movements.
Asher shakes his head. With the ram skull on, he looks like Reed, and it’s a terrifying reminder that the Loyalists are still searching for us. But Asher’s blue eyes shine through the open eyeholes in the skull. Eyes that will go blind from the dust.
We need a blanket, something to shield him. We need—
I shrug out of my jacket, leap across the crevice, and fling the leather over his head before tugging him to a crouch. As I’m holding his head to my chest, the squall hits. Dust and rubble claw at us. The wind howls. We’re knocked off our feet, tumble sidewise.
I wait for the excruciating sting of burning water, but we get lucky and fall on dry land. I keep the jacket pinched beneath Asher’s chin. Not so tight that he won’t be able to breathe, but firm enough to keep the dust out.
The wind roars with one final blast of intensity, then vanishes. I let go of the jacket. My clothes are covered with dust. Grains of sand have made it through my scarf and into my hair. I take a swig of water and spit, cleaning out my mouth, but the grit remains in my nose. I exhale hard through my nostrils. No such luck. The only way to be rid of it will be a good bath. I’m not wasting drinking water.
Asher stands. When he pushes back the ram-skull mask, his face and hair are much cleaner than mine. Leather will always stand up to a squall better than a scarf.
He balls up the jacket and hands it over. “Thank you.”
“You saved my knives. I saved your eyesight,” I say with a shrug. “We’re even now.”
“Oh, is that the only reason you did it?” He extends a hand and helps tug me to my feet, smiling the whole time like he knows it’s not true.
“If you already know the answer, why bother asking? Gods, you’re insufferable.”
“And you’re—”
“Lost,” I say, cutting him off. Our tracks have been swept over by the squall, and there are cobwebbed tributaries running everywhere. I can no longer tell which one erupted with the geyser.