“You’ll do what you have to,” Asher says after listening to another bout of my complaining. “You always have.”
We’re sitting on the roof of Prime Hall. We started meeting here a few days after Reed left for Bedrock, and we haven’t stopped since. The streets are too crowded with townsfolk always shadowing me, and Cleo’s isn’t private enough to talk freely. Or to . . . not talk either.
But here on the roof, with only the stars for company, we can steal a few moments together. Between his work in the saltpeter beds and my time spent on wind wagon construction, these opportunities are few and precious.
Tonight there is no aurora—no ribbons or curtain of light. Just a quiet sky filled with stars. It’s a small break in the string of storms, just as the documentation at Eden had described. It’s happened only once since the active phase began and lasted only a day and a half. The Prime was off delivering another supply of powder to Bedrock, and the Reaper used the opportunity to run all her soldiers through training with the mag-rifles. Asher and I joined in target practice, relishing the sound of the weapons as they fired, operable in the tiny break between storms.
“I don’t know,” I say to Asher now. “The kids idolize me. They’ve got these big eyes, as round as the moon. They believe everything I tell them, and all I’m telling them is lies.”
“No, you’re not. The storm will pass. And then the General will fall.”
“But I’m not who they think I am. I’m nobody.”
He shakes his head, breathing out a quick laugh. “You are far from nobody, Delta. And not just to me,” he adds before I can argue, “to everyone. The weapons you brought the Prime mean that her plan is more likely to succeed. The changes you made to Harlie’s wagon allowed it to sail. The truth you found at Eden—the truth we found . . . It will reshape everything.”
“You act like I did those things alone . . . Like I read the map without your brand and traveled without Harlie’s wind wagon. Plus, I hate lying to the kids here. I wouldn’t want Bay to think I’m some Green Goddess. I’d want her to know the truth: I’m just a girl with a brand that led to the biggest lie of all.”
“We’re frauds together then,” he says. “Branded with falsehoods.”
I crack a small smile.
“Although I feel like I’m the one with a bone-dry waterskin,” he says. “You get revered as a god and I still have to turn over shit all day. Damn saltpeter beds.”
I’m laughing into my palms when a flash of light erupts to the east. A yellowish cloud glows low on the horizon, flickering, fading. It’s small—so tiny I may have missed it if I wasn’t looking precisely in that direction—but I shoot to my feet, terrified.
It’s too early. Far too early. I wait for the resounding blast to come a few heartbeats later, rolling through the night like distant thunder, but there’s nothing. We’re likely too far away to hear it.
“What was that?” Asher says, eyes fixed on the horizon.
“The powder,” I say. “I think Reed just blew the black powder.”
* * *
“Could he have betrayed us?” asks Luce the Reaper.
Everyone has gathered in Prime Hall—me, Asher, the Trinity, the Prime. Tensions are high and tight, poised to snap.
“No,” I say. “He wouldn’t have done that. Something went wrong.”
“Hold on. We don’t even know if the flash of light you saw was the powder blowing,” the Chemist points out. “It could have been something else.”
The doors to Prime Hall fly open and Saph bursts through.
The Prime bolts to her feet.
“Apologies for the interruption,” Saph says between gasps. “A falcon just flew over the wall and dropped this in the clearing.” She tosses a leather pouch onto the table. The Prime and I share a glance before the woman upends the tiny bag. Two tiles topple out—one aged and worn, the other made of pale, fresh wood.
Everyone leans in for a closer look.
“That’s Bedrock’s symbol,” the Prime says, pointing to the bird emblem on the older tile. “But what’s this?”
On the newer tile is a crudely burned circle, with eight points of varying lengths branching off it.
“A star?” Asher offers.
But it’s too sloppy to be a star, too haphazard. It looks more like a circle bursting apart, more like—
“It’s an explosion,” I say. “Reed sent this to warn us. He blew the powder—and that’s what I saw flashing to the east.”
“But why?” the Reaper asks.
The Prime tucks the tiles into the pouch and hands them to Saph. “Did the falcon wait for a reply?”
“She dropped the pouch, circled once, and then flew east.”
“Thank you, Saph. You may return to your post.”
Saph gives a curt nod and jogs off. The rest of us watch the door fall shut behind her.
“Why would Reed blow the powder early?” the Reaper asks again.
“Should we wait until the next trade to confirm the message?” the Chemist asks. “Or do we attack now?”
“We only have nine wind wagons ready,” the Tender says. “Our goal was fifteen. And it’s possible it’s a trap. He could have sent that message to ensure that we sail into an ambush.”
“An ambush in which the mag-rifles will be useless,” Asher points out. “They won’t function until the storm passes.”
The Prime looks to me. “What do you think, Delta?”
I touch my lodestone through my shirt. “I’d like to believe he didn’t betray us, but what I think doesn’t really matter.” Asher frowns. The Prime raises a brow. “If Reed betrayed us,” I explain, “it means that the General now knows everything and will attack us within days. If Reed didn’t betray us, something caused him to blow the powder early, and it must have been something big. Something that made him think this was our only chance and we’d be fools to waste it.”
The Prime nods. “Exactly what I was thinking.”
“But the mag-rifles,” Asher repeats. “They’re worthless if we go now.”
“We have the blast barrels,” the Prime says. “They will get us through the dam wall. And we have our archers, plus some modified rifles of our own. Delta’s mag-rifles were always a bonus, not the crutch we planned to lean on.”
“And they might work,” I offer. “There wasn’t an aurora tonight. No ribbons, no curtain. Nothing but stars. Like that short break in the storm when the Reaper oversaw the mag-rifle training. Reed probably noticed that break, too. He knew that if we left immediately, we’d have a window when the weapons would function. So he sent the falcon and blew the powder.”
“We’re going to hang everything on a maybe?” Asher says.
“The wastes are nothing but a giant maybe,” I argue. “Maybe there will be enough water. Maybe a dust storm won’t level my home. Maybe my pack won’t die. We gamble daily, and we stay alive by finding the situations where the maybes lean closer to will pan out than won’t. And this looks like it will work. This is as good as we’re going to get.”