Snow Like Ashes (Snow Like Ashes, #1)(70)

“You.” A soldier turns from shouting at Conall and Garrigan to watch me emerge from the cage, his eyes a dark sort of greedy, and my stomach turns.

But the soldier nods toward the end of the road where the uncaged Winterians have gathered. “With the rest for now.”

Relief surges through me. Angra hasn’t called for me today.

Nessa pulls me forward and shock fills me up like it’d been waiting outside the cage for me all night.

This is the first time I’ve seen the Winterians of the Abril work camp. Of any work camp.

More Winterians join us from the second layer of cages, gathering into a haphazard cluster to march down the road, dust swirling around our shuffling feet. Dozens of people crowd around, frail bodies in tattered rags, clothing brown from years of sweat and dirt. Children too. If Angra had wanted to simply slaughter all Winterians, he would have done so long ago—it would have been a kinder fate. But instead he keeps them locked up, letting families grow and generations spawn in captivity. It’s a cruel victory to show dominance over another by destroying them—but it’s crueler still to do so by destroying their families.

Winterian children watch me as they stand stoically beside their parents. Their faces say they’ve learned not to show weakness. Weaknesses get used until all you can do is scream at the unfairness of a life like this, a life of living in cages stacked atop one another, of growing up in a place where you aren’t even seen as a person. A life of waiting in torment for the twenty-five mythical survivors to set everyone free.

I meet a woman’s eyes. She’s Dendera’s age, her top lip curling at me, and I flinch back. A man beside her echoes her grimace, and another beside them, so many looks of derision that I feel no safer here than in Angra’s palace.

Misery wraps around me, hot waves of disgust at myself, at their lives, at everything that happened to our kingdom. How long did it take them to stop hoping we’d free them? How quickly did Angra beat the hope of escape from their minds?

How quickly will he beat the same hope from me?

Looking at the faces around me, at their sixteen-year-long suffering . . . what could I possibly do to stop any of this? What could any of us have done—Sir or Alysson or Mather or anyone? It’s too big, the wounds too deep.

A soldier cracks his whip into the crowd, throwing a few slower Winterians to their knees. One elderly woman, two old men. Red welts line their arms but we hurry on, pulled by the current of fear. We should fight against the soldiers who whipped them to the ground, stand up for our countrymen and the injustice Spring did to them.

We should have done a lot of things.

Nessa squeezes my hand between both of hers. She hasn’t stopped hoping, and any wariness she feels pales next to her faith. I almost prefer the glares, the lingering snarls of the others. Their anger is understandable, something I can accept. But Nessa—

Did I look at Sir like that?

The question flies through my mind, a string of words that wraps around my throat and squeezes off air. All the refugees looked at Sir like that, didn’t we? He was our source of hope. He was the beacon that would lead us to freeing our people, to getting our kingdom back.

And he died. Just like that. Our hope snuffed out in one swift and careless moment.

I tremble under thoughts of him, his shadows in my mind making every part of me ache and writhe. I can’t be Nessa’s hope. I can’t let her think I’m any more capable than anyone else, because I can die just as easily. I can’t do to her what Sir did to me.

We stop when we reach a crowded gate. Soldiers sort through us at the front, marching groups off to various areas of the city for work.

“My brothers and I will be back in the palace grounds,” Nessa whispers, her hand tightening on mine. “I don’t know where you’ll be. I don’t know if—”

I force a smile. “It’s all right.”

Nessa’s lips twitch and she nods.

Minutes later we’re at the front of the line. Conall and Garrigan grunt numbers to a soldier by the entrance. 1-3219 and 1-3218. No names here. Angra stripped them of everything—country, home, life. Why not their names too?

The soldier orders them to the group bound for the palace. Nessa, unwilling to let go of my hand, approaches the same soldier.

“1-2072,” she says, and the soldier consults a list.

“Palace grounds.” He glances at me and squints, sizing up my appearance next to Nessa. I’m too healthy, too well fed. He checks the list and cocks one eyebrow.

“Angra has something special for you,” he says. “To the wall, R-19.”

R-19. R—Refugee? Refugee 19. Because I’m the nineteenth Winterian refugee who Angra will kill. Herod probably saw Sir die in Bithai, so he was the eighteenth. Gregg and Crystalla, seventeen and sixteen.

Nessa leads me past the soldier into the groups of sectioned-off Winterians. When a few people stand between the soldiers and us, she pulls my ear to her mouth. “The wall is where they send those they wish to push beyond their limit,” she whispers, her fingers digging into my hand. “Work but don’t strain yourself—just make it look like you’re working hard. Maybe you can get through without—”

“Nessa.” I shush her. Her concern hurts, a heavy expectation I don’t know if I can fulfill.

“You didn’t come here just to die,” she exhales, half a question, half a promise.