She smiles, a slow lifting of the corners of her mouth that makes me wish I could turn back time to happier days when her smile was as impulsive and honest as she was. I’m going to tell them what we’re up against, and what we have to do to stay safe. We’re responsible, but I can’t say that to the survivors who sit scattered around the clearing at the center of our camp eating their breakfasts and thinking their own thoughts as they stare at what’s left of the lives they once knew. And everywhere we look we see death and destruction. It doesn’t matter that we never intended for the monster to enter the city itself. We’re responsible for calling the Cursed One to Baalboden, hoping to use the device Rachel’s father inadvertently took from Rowansmark to control the beast and destroy our brutal leader. I take her hand and rub my thumb across her skin as I look away from the city. She looks past our camp-four rows of shelters made from cobbling together jagged slices of canvas, dead tree limbs, and bits of salvaged material that huddle beside the Commander’s compound like an outcast beggar too bedraggled to have any pride-and gazes south at the ruins of Baalboden itself.Īlmost all of it. I suppose it’s too much to hope that he fell off a cliff or got eaten by wolves.Īll of it? She sounds strong too, but her fingers clench into fists as if she’s bracing herself. Including accepting the job of leading these people in the absence of the Commander, who ran into the Wasteland the day of the fires and hasn’t been heard from since. I don’t want to be the one to explain it, but I’ve done a lot of things I didn’t want to do. The truth of the situation facing the tiny group of Baalboden survivors is a complex creature full of shadows and secrets. The dark bulk of the Commander’s compound crouches on the hill behind us, and the charred remains of Baalboden stretch out nearly as far as the eye can see. She sits beside me, her scuffed boots touching mine while long strands of her hair rise in the early morning breeze like fine lengths of copper wire. "What are you going to tell them?" Rachel asks.
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