Snow Like Ashes (Snow Like Ashes, #1)(68)

History, the past, whatever Decay Hannah fears—it doesn’t matter anymore. Because it’s gone, every bit of it wrapped up in Angra as he grips the stone in a powerful fist. There’s nothing left to help me now.

Herod grabs me off the floor, the look on his face telling me he isn’t done yet, not this easily.

Breathe, Meira. Don’t think, don’t analyze, don’t even react.

Angra relaxes into his throne. “Not now, general,” he orders, and I freeze as if I know what he’s going to say. I do, don’t I? I’ve known since we first entered Abril.

“Take her to them,” Angra growls. “I want them to break her before you do.”

Herod pauses next to me, his disappointment silencing him as he flings me around and the two guards march me back down the dark hall.

The dusk sky seems bright compared to Angra’s palace, even with the light streaming into his throne room and the encroaching darkness out here. I blink it away and notice, heart dropping, that the Winterian slaves are gone. Only their shovels remain, sticking out of the dirt. I have a feeling I’m about to find out where they were taken.

“Put her with the rest. Oh, and Meira?”

I keep marching down the stone path, my body jolting with each step. I’m healed, but Angra’s magic made me unsteady, wobbling with each footfall like a leaf on the wind.

“I will see you again,” Herod calls after me. “Very soon.”

He laughs, voice fading as he returns to the palace. The doors slam and the smallest bit of tension unwinds from my muscles. He’s gone, for now.

The guards take me through Abril’s slums, the buildings getting worse and worse the deeper we go. Rotted wood collapsing into rooms, piles of rancid garbage littering street corners. Spring citizens watch us as we pass, smirking at the newest Winterian prisoner. But the lives around them—their collapsing houses, the dirt smudged on their children’s faces. How can they be proud of destroying one kingdom when their king doesn’t even care for his own?

The soldiers and I reach a barrier of spiked wire that vanishes into the city. Its high walls cut off the slum from what I can only assume is a—

“Winterian work camp. Welcome home,” one guard grunts, and unlocks the gate.

It takes all of my remaining strength to keep walking, one foot in front of the other, as they close the gate behind us. These aren’t even buildings; they’re cells. Just like Herod said. Cages with three solid sides, a roof, and one gated door, small and cramped and stacked on top of each other like blocks. Some are empty but most hold hollow, vacant Winterian prisoners watching with soulless eyes. They don’t care. How could they? Angra’s beaten any care out of them, left them to rot in these hovels until he needs them for work.

The soldiers shuffle me down the long row of cages. Dust coats my boots, the wind sings in my ears like a desperate wail. Cages stretch for rows and rows, so many that my stomach aches with nausea again.

Three other camps like this sit throughout Spring. Angra really did imprison an entire kingdom, enacted the worst dominance over his victims by turning them into slaves. As a child it was always impossible to imagine—so many hundreds of people locked away? But now . . .

How did we let this happen?

The guards shove me into an empty cage on the bottom row. There’s nothing in here, no cot or food or furniture. Just a dirt-covered space with a view of more cages across from me.

“Don’t get comfortable,” one guard spits. “We’ll be back for you.”

I glare at them through the bars, fingers tight on the iron. “Go ahead and try,” I murmur, but they’re gone, the newest Winterian slave already forgotten.

I’m alone now. And I don’t have to bite my tongue or stay strong or not let them see me break. That sad freedom rushes at me, and everything that’s happened, everything I’ve seen and felt, bubbles up in my throat. I back to the wall and slide to the ground, pulling my knees up and burying my face against them. The Winterians across from me are watching. They’re gaping and wondering and whispering, That is one who lived out there while we were in here. Why hasn’t anyone saved us?

Because we failed. Because I let Sir die. Because our only ally is rolling in the desecration of their own kingdom. Because we only have half of Hannah’s locket, and it took us this long to even get that. Because Angra is so much more powerful than we ever knew.

My shoulders tremble and I pull myself tighter, fighting sobs. Sir trained me better than this, but I don’t have any strength left to keep myself stoic and calm. Mather was always the one who was able to hide his feelings no matter the situation. And if Mather is on the run, and Theron, and Bithai fallen, and Angra as ancient and evil as Hannah said—I’ll probably die in here.

I force a soundless scream into the cave of my legs, gripping my hair and squeezing into myself. No. This isn’t how it was supposed to end—

The lock on the door clicks, but I can’t find it in me to care. Let Angra come for me, or Herod even. There’s nothing else they can take from me.

Feet shuffle in and the door locks again. Someone’s in here with me.

A second passes. Two. Whoever it is kneels beside me. I keep my eyes shut, sniffing in the darkness of my knees, and stiffen when a hand unfolds on my shoulder.

I look up. It’s the Winterians from the palace, the two men and the girl who got whipped in the dirt. She has the marks on her arms to prove it, jagged cuts caked in dried blood. But she’s smiling, a comforting smile, and light shines deep behind the bruises around her eyes.