“I think you’re gods touched,” the girl concludes. “You just don’t know it yet.”
“That would be nice, actually. I wish I was.”
“You are. Or will be. I can feel it.”
“What was your name?” I ask.
“Rain. My mamma named me after what we need most. She said it’s the most fitting name ever because now that I’m here, she doesn’t even need rain, just me.” She grins proudly. “Okay, bye now!”
The girl runs off, and I stand there thinking about how many people I know named after some form of water—this small girl, myself, Brooke, Bay. Our gods deserted us and so we started looking for hope in one another, choosing names that remind us of what we’ve lost, hopeful that a loved one with that name might make us feel closer to what we so desperately need.
“There you are!” Cleo is standing at the edge of the bridge, hands on her hips. “Did you eat? Or even rest? We’re due back.”
The sun has long since crested the sky. It’s midafternoon. Time to harvest again.
I follow Cleo to the boardwalks, my heart heavy. The days will keep passing, no matter how much I wish to slow them, and harvesting sulfur is not going to save the people I love.
* * *
On the way back into Powder Town, I hear a familiar voice. “And the newest prototype?” I crane my neck, searching, and there, just inside the main gate and standing at the base of a watchtower ladder, is the Prime.
“Still untested,” Luce the Reaper answers.
“That’s unacceptable.”
“I have watchtowers to man, general training to oversee, boardwalks you now have me patrolling. We can’t do everything at once.”
The Prime’s shoulders pull back. “Drop the boardwalks and postpone training for a week. This needs to be a priority.”
The Reaper nods, and the rust-colored braid hanging down her back twitches in response. “It will be done.”
“Thank you.” The Prime places a hand on the back of Luce’s neck and draws the other woman closer, until their foreheads are touching. There’s something intimate about the moment, the way they’re looking at each other.
When they part ways, I break away from Cleo. “Prime!” I call out, jogging after her. She looks up, startled. Behind me, Cleo is hissing something about protocol. I take it you need to request an audience with the Prime, that you can’t just run at her like a heathen, but I couldn’t care less about norms anymore. “I need to speak with you.”
“I have some time tomorrow. Come to Prime Hall during your lie-down.”
“No. It has to be right now. Right here.”
I’m not sure what does it. Maybe my tone, or the desperation that’s certainly showing on my face. Maybe it’s simply that the Prime is the type of ruler the General will never be—firm but kind, someone who truly cares about her people. Whatever it is, I watch her opinion shift, her face softening.
“Reaper,” she says, calling over her shoulder, “may we borrow a watchtower?”
“Whatever you need,” the woman replies.
Orders are shouted, and in a blink the Prime and I are ascending a ladder to relieve one of the guards. The watchtower is small, and with the Prime less than an arm’s length away, her annoyance with me is as obvious as an incoming dust storm. “What is it?” she asks bluntly.
“I need your help taking on Bedrock. My pack is dying. Everyone there is dying. The sleeping ilk keeps them slow and weak. The General works them until they fail.”
“And you think this is news to me? That I do not see it every moon when I bring him a shipment of powder?”
“Then why don’t you do something?”
“We are doing something,” the Prime says. “I take people in. I keep them safe. I bargain with the devil until I can do more than bargain.” Her eyes flit away from me, toward the Reaper below us.
“What’s the prototype? Is it something that can stop him?”
“Maybe. But not yet.”
“What do you need? I’ll do anything to help.”
“We need time, Delta. You can help by harvesting sulfur and letting me do my job.”
“But there isn’t any time. Don’t you get it?”
“It is you who does not get it,” the Prime snarls. “I have one shot at this. One. If I act before we are ready, if I take him on with even a sliver in my armor, he will find it and he will destroy us. That’s how perfect our execution has to be. I will attack only when that attack will be a success, because if I fail again, it will be more than an eye that I’ll lose.”
I shudder, recalling the moment the General’s falcon held his beak near my face, how a mere whistle would have cost me an eye. How my compliance saved it.
“What happened?” I ask the Prime.
“I tried to undermine him several years ago. He was growing too strong, eating up the exposed packs, swallowing the wastes’ good men and turning them into Loyalists. The Reaper suggested we bring an explosive in with one of our deliveries. Detonate it while in his storeroom, call it an accident. Then, with his supplies destroyed, we could bring fighters in during our next powder delivery. Hide them beneath the wagon covers and take the General out.” She pauses for a moment. “One of his Four caught us lighting the explosive. Reed, I think he was called. He smothered the fuse, turned us over to the General.”
The Prime glances east, in the direction of Bedrock.
“He killed my accomplice immediately. Then two more of the Reaper’s soldiers for good measure. It’s a good thing Luce stays behind to defend Powder Town during deliveries or she’d be dead too.” Genuine fear flits across her features, and I know I am right about what I saw earlier. Luce the Reaper is more than a soldier to the Prime.
“And me?” she goes on. “It all happened so fast. The whistle, the pain.” She touches the eye patch lightly. “‘If you try anything like this again, our agreement is void,’ he told me. ‘I will march on Powder Town and overrun you. Wipe out your people. Bring mine in to take over powder production. Torture your Chemist until she reveals how it is made. And I will keep you alive to witness it all. Only you. So that you know, every day, how much you failed them.’”
She turns back to me, and there is a terrible heaviness to her good eye. Whatever responsibility I am feeling for my pack, she feels the same thing for the people of Powder Town. I was foolish to ever think otherwise.
“I am sorry about your pack, Delta of Dead River, I am. But I cannot help you save them at this time. I will take on the General someday, but only when we are absolutely prepared to confront him. When I know with certainty that we will not fail. And I fear that day will be long after he’s executed your family.”
I nod, feeling numb. I don’t like it, and I hate that she can’t help, but I don’t hate her. She’s only doing what I would in her place—protecting her pack, defending her home.
“What’s the prototype?” I ask again, curious.
“I’m afraid that is for only me to know. Me, the Reaper, and the select few she chooses to help test it. The fewer people who know about it, the less likely that information about it will slip into the wrong hands.” She raises a brow as she studies me. “What is it that the General wants you to read?”