He’s gone, he’s gone.
By sheer luck, we reach the dam wall. Through the settling dust I can make out the crop fields, hundreds of workers paused in a crouch, frozen with fear, or perhaps uncertain whether they should keep harvesting despite the chaos. Farther beyond, a section of the Backbone sports a gaping hole along its base—evidence of the explosion Reed set off last night. Several floors of residences are missing.
As we scramble over the dam wreckage, the Prime goes down, shouting. I expect the worst as I check her, but there’s no blood, no bullet. It’s her leg. She’s misstepped, gotten her foot wedged between two rocks. She draws it out, cringing. When she tests the joint, drawing an invisible circle with her toes, she gasps.
“Go!” she shouts. “Find the General. End this.”
“I can’t leave you!”
She tucks low behind a boulder as a few bullets ping down on us. The Loyalist rifle shots are coming less frequently now, their powder supplies nearly depleted. “I can’t run,” she grits out, “but I can cover you. Now go, Delta, before our moment has passed.” Sweat coats the Prime’s dark brow, and there’s a ferocity in her gaze, a drive to survive this moment, nothing more. I need to survive it, too.
I bolt to action. No second-guessing. No time for fear. I move, or I’m dead.
I clutch the mag-rifle to my chest and push to my feet, sprinting as fast as I can. Through the fields, finding the straightest path, my boots pounding the dirt. And then I see him among the workers—Asher, crouched low and taking aim, covering me along with the Prime. I nearly lose my footing at the sight of him. When I look again, he’s not there. And of course he’s not. I’m imagining things, my grief conjuring up ghosts.
I shake my head, force myself on.
The Prime’s mag-rifle barks behind me. Over and over. Bullets ping near my feet and whiz past my shoulder. But whoever she is firing at never manages to strike true. Gasping, a stitch forming in my side, I duck beneath the Backbone’s lowest overhangs, entering the storerooms and stables. To the left, destruction, the result of Reed’s work. Sections of ceiling are propped up with haphazard stone and wood planks. To the right, stores of crops and water, wagons and horse stables. I find the nearest staircase and climb.
Memories come back, searing and sharp.
Corridors that are familiar.
Ghosts of moments I’ve already lived. Reed leading me to my room, my jacket clenched to my front as my shirt hung open in the back, my brand bared. Being led to the library, desperate for the Oracle to know how to read an unreadable map.
The halls are eerily quiet, every last Loyalist probably called to the dam wall when they saw our fleet coming.
I take another stairwell. Then another.
The General will be in his chambers, far removed from the fighting, letting others bleed for him as he hides.
When I’m nearly to the top, a shadow moves at the far end of the hall. I turn to retreat, only to see another shadow about to round a corner. Loyalists.
I duck into the nearest room, heart racing, willing the beaded curtain that serves as a door to stop swinging.
I freeze at the sound of crying.
I’ve stumbled into the nursery.
Bay is here. My eyes skirt over the cradles, searching even when I know I should hide.
“Please don’t hurt them,” a woman says. Two toddlers cling to her legs, their faces buried in her skirt. She thinks I’m the enemy. That the Powder Town forces are the ones to fear.
I shake my head, put a finger to my lips to signal silence. But she takes this the wrong way—that I will harm her if she’s not quiet—and she breaks down sobbing.
Footsteps sound in the hall. There’s another doorway behind the caretaker, a second room. Maybe I can hide there.
Too late, I register the sound of the beaded curtain clicking behind me. “Someone promised us that you were dead.” The Loyalist wears a ram-skull mask obscuring his face—the General’s Third. The last of his Four that remains, aside from Reed.
Another Loyalist ducks through the curtain. No mask. An average solider. He moves toward the caretaker, blocking my way into the second room.
I back away from the cradles. Slowly. Until my hip hits the window ledge.
Glancing out, I can see the wreckage of battle. Our fleet is scattered beyond Bedrock’s dam, half the wagons overturned, charred and burning. The others stand abandoned, Powder Town flags whipping on their masts, their crews now infiltrating the settlement through the opening blown into the dam. Aqueducts have splintered and fallen. Water spills into the wastes, flowing like blood over stone. The crop fields have descended into chaos, workers running for cover while the Reaper’s troops clash with the Loyalists. The air smells like blood and fire.
“Are you gonna shoot her or not?” the Loyalist asks the Third.
“Not yet,” the Third says, eyeing me through the slits in his mask. “The General may want to question her.”
“I’ll bring her to him,” says a familiar voice. Reed, stepping through the curtains.
“You said she was dead,” the Third grunts.
“She was. I burned her body.”
“Then how is she here?”
Reed shrugs. “Perhaps she’s gods touched after all—maybe even a god.”
The Third’s weapon remains on me, but he looks fearful now, as if I might turn him to ash by blinking.
“I’ll take her to the General myself,” Reed offers.
“No. Something’s off.”
Reed strides quickly across the room and grabs me by the shoulders. His eyes are distant, and he barely looks at me as he brings his knee up, driving it into my gut. I buckle, cough, nearly hit the floor. Only Reed’s grip keeps me from collapsing. When I straighten, he has a knife at my throat. I try to jerk away, but he plants the blade firmer, draws a drop of blood. Dread coils in my stomach. Have I trusted the wrong person, been betrayed again?
“I’m on your side,” he says to the Third. “Let’s go.”
But the man’s eyes are thin, suspicious. “Why would a god let you do that?”
“I’m only allowing it because I want to speak to the General,” I say quickly. “Take me to him, and you will be rewarded.”
“Go then,” the Third says to Reed, motioning with his weapon. “Lead.”
Reed shoves me into the hall, walking me in front of him now, my arms held behind my back. The Loyalists follow.
“I will slit your throat,” I grit out. “I promised you.”
“My throat or theirs. Your call.” He presses something into my palm. The hilt of the blade he held at my neck moments earlier. I feel his hand on my back, lifting the strap of my mag-rifle.
I twist, dipping my neck to the side so he can lift the rifle strap over my head as I turn. Then I throw, the blade spiraling down the hallway. It buries into the chest of the General’s Third, whose eyes go wide with shock. Reed fires twice, and both men fall. I jog to retrieve the blade. Turn back to Reed. “Just playing a part again?”
“Same as you were. That was good—your line about rewarding them.” He nods at my stomach. “You okay? I tried to not have it land too hard, but it had to be convincing.”
“I’ll survive. What happened? You blew the powder early.”