Snow Like Ashes (Snow Like Ashes, #1)(76)

He should be with them. Him or Mather. Not me.

“She has come to us as a beacon, like the others who passed through Abril—”

Gregg and Crystalla probably stood in this exact spot, probably toiled at the wall. And they died. No one here knows more than that they left—that Angra took them from the camp and they never came back.

“—a light to shine hope into our misery,” Deborah continues. “Her presence signifies an awakening, a reminder we so desperately need that we are more than Angra’s slaves!”

The crowd murmurs to themselves. Those who look at me with hope start to smile, start to nod, but the rest simply shrug off Deborah’s speech like they’ve heard it all before. Like her words are this room, a hollow and forgotten thing. Just another trembling sword raised against the greater might of Spring.

Deborah lifts my hand into the air, her old face ten years younger in her joy. I can feel her words coming, bubbling up with her hope, Nessa’s hope, all those fragile faces waiting for her outburst.

“We are Winter!” Deborah shouts.

The same phrase Conall said moments ago. Its meaning stokes the hopeful ones into cheers, a handful of voices against the doubtful scorn of the others. Deborah has to see them, the ones who glower and whisper while their countrymen cheer. She has to know the danger of false hope by now. It’s cruel of her to give them this; it’s cruel of her to tell me I will meet any other fate than death here.

I yank my hand down and Deborah faces me. “No.” My response is instant, thoughtless, urged by something cowering in a corner of my soul. “No. I’m just—I’m only one girl. What do you even think I can do? It isn’t fair of you to let them—”

Deborah cocks an eyebrow. “Fair would be none of this ever happening to begin with. Fair would be you living out a carefree existence in Jannuari, with a warm bed and a loving family. Nothing is fair, Meira.”

I step back. All of this reminds me so much of Sir that my chest aches. I don’t want that life as much as I should. I want . . .

But nothing comes. None of my usual certainty about what I want, who I want to be, and the only thing I think, feel, know at all is: It doesn’t matter what I want. My desires don’t matter here. They never did. While I took merciless advantage of the fact that I never had to deal with growing up in slavery, they were here. Here.

It’s just me now, like Hannah said. Sir should be here, it’s true. Mather should be here. But they aren’t. And since it is just me, I owe it to them to do everything I can to free our people. Even if I die here, I will die mattering, and that’s what I’ve wanted all along, isn’t it? And I will, just not within my own set parameters—I will matter in ways beyond my comprehension of the word, because I will matter in whatever way my kingdom needs me most. That, I think, is a truer mark of belonging somewhere—being willing to do anything, everything, that needs to be done, regardless of what I want.

As soon as those thoughts fill my mind, a dam breaks and need floods me, cooling my cheeks, tingling my limbs. I fought so long and so hard to be me, to be Meira in all of this, to help Winter in my own unique way. But this isn’t about what I want, it’s about what Winter needs. It’s always been about what Winter needs.

As Deborah stares down at me, as the Winterians cheer in soft, quiet groups again, I realize that they make me more me, more present than I have ever felt in my life. Like I’ve been waiting all along to understand how much bigger, better, more invigorating this is than anything I could be on my own.

Deborah puts her hand on my arm, one gentle squeeze. “Your presence is proof that there is life outside of Angra’s walls.” She smiles at the crowd. “Even the strongest blizzard starts with a single snowflake.”

Eventually the excited chatter dissipates into expectant silence. We can’t stay down here too long—this cavern was made so a few people could have a reprieve every so often, not so everyone could be here at once. The only reason they risked it today is because of me. The thought makes panic flare through me, and I hurry after Nessa without prodding.

She and Conall lead me back through the tunnel. Two knocks on a wooden door above us and Garrigan pulls it open, reaching down to help out first Nessa, then me. Conall pulls himself up and closes the door, shuffling dirt and rocks back over it before arranging himself by the barred opening, Garrigan on the other side. One look in their eyes, at the way they survey the road beyond our prison, tells me they’re keeping watch over us. Not that they could do much to protect us from soldiers, but it’s a small comfort knowing they’re here.

Nessa sits next to me and wraps her arms around her knees. It’s only slightly lighter here than in the tunnel, the sky still caught in those last fleeting moments where the sun hovers behind the horizon, just waiting for its moment to break through the shadows and flood the world with radiance.

Nessa looks at me, her eyes flashing. “Conall will come around. Everyone else too. They just don’t trust themselves to hope.”

I keep my eyes fixed on her in the dimness. “Why do you?”

She looks away, picking at a spot on her dress. It’s a two-sizes-too-big declaration of her time here, stained and worn through. “When I saw you in the palace grounds,” she starts, her words a hum against the silence of the camp. Every other cage is quiet, forced into a terrified muteness by the threat of monsters in the dark. “I felt you when the soldier whipped me to the ground. I’ve never been able to get through that without screaming, but when I saw you watching us . . . I don’t know. I had the strength not to scream.”