I was underwater. Warm light filtered through the currents all around me, gently embracing me as I sank further and further away from the distant and impossible surface. It wasn’t an entirely unpleasant path—the water did not burn my lungs, and I felt no fear of drowning or being crushed despite the sea above me—but I knew that I would never be back to that surface again.

  A sound, faint and fuzzy, hit my ears. I tilted my head to the side, but I couldn’t ignore it as it sounded again. It could have been a voice, or maybe an animal’s call, and it sounded like it came from everywhere at once, but especially from below. I turned to look downwards, into the abyss of darkness the shade of where the boundaries of knowledge laid. There, in the endless chasm, I saw a flash, purple and faint, and the sound came again.

  “Who’s there?” I tried to call out, but suddenly the water turned hostile. I choked on my words. Whatever air I had managed to hold onto down here was lost, and I thrashed in the sea, trying to fight the inexorable pull downwards and get to that far-away surface. My throat burned, it burned like fire, before that heat spread to my lungs, and I felt for all the world I like I was being immolated from within. All the while, that sound kept on echoing, getting louder and louder with each repetition. It soon resolved itself, not into an animalistic call, but into a voice. A familiar one.

  “Belfry! Belfry, wake up!”

  I gasped and shot up in bed as the nightmare collapsed, breathing hard in fear, only to feel my lungs fill with air that was hot and thick with dust. I coughed and doubled over, falling to the ground. My eyes stung from the dust in the air. I forced some breath through my nose, and the smell shook me out of the grip of sleep. It wasn’t dust. It was acrid smoke.

  I got to my knees, blinking several times to get my eyes used to the stinging. Mr. Lawcrest was standing by the bed, his face pale behind a thin layer of ash. His shirt was lifted up over his nose and mouth to serve as a rudimentary mask, and I swiftly copied him.

  “Belfry,” he said, his voice trembling. “Get up. We need to go, quick and quiet.”

  “Mr. Lawcrest,” I said as I got to my feet. “What happened? What’s going on?” A thought hit me, like the flick of a switch. “Where’s Grace?”

  Mr. Lawcrest beckoned for me to follow him out of my room, and I did. “Vandermaine is under attack,” he said.

  The knot in my stomach that had manifested two days ago when the cuirassiers first arrived reappeared. “By who?” I asked.

  “Veskites, I think,” Mr. Lawcrest said. He hurriedly fetched a small chest and a basket and began piling belongings into them. “I saw rocs in the air, and they’re fighting with the dragons. The town’s on fire. Grace is outside, with the sheep.” He suddenly lurched up and tossed a hatchet towards me. “Go help her. Cut a hole in the fence, take the sheep down the mountain, and hide. I’ll be with you in just a few minutes, I need to gather up everything worth taking. I’ll be damned if I let those blasted rebels make use of anything of mine.”

  I nodded, taking halting steps towards the door, uncertainty slowing me down. The town was under attack? The sudden danger made me feel dizzy and sick. “Are you sure you’ll be okay?” I asked.

  Mr. Lawcrest paused a moment before nodding. “Yes,” he said. “The fight is all in town. We’re just being careful.” He gestured towards the door. “Now, go.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said with a nod, and dashed outside. It was still the dead of night, and the thick haze of smoke in the air blocked whatever light from the moons was able to cut through the dense cloud cover above it. There was still a drizzle of rain, but not enough to tamp down on the flames or the ash. The whole of the mountainside was tinted orange, and I hesitated to even look towards town. The view was blurry, but that didn’t stop me from seeing the outline of great conflagrations that burned up and down the streets. The glow from the low city was volcanic, with pitch black smoke coming up from whatever coal stores had been ignited down there.

  All around, sounds of dragon roars, earsplitting bird screeches, shouting, and gunshots echoed throughout the valley. I could see the forms of the great beasts wheeling overhead, two dragons swerving in the air, roaring and blasting angry orange flames as they charged towards the silhouettes of gigantic birds of prey: the rocs that Mr. Lawcrest had mentioned. I only counted three, but I had other priorities than getting a full headcount of how many monsters were destroying our town.

  I sprinted into the fields, as fast as I could without risking choking again on the smoke. I didn’t see the sheep, but I could hear them easily, bleating loudly in distress. I caught up to them soon. Their white coats were covered in a dusting of black soot. At least they blend in with the darkness, I thought.

  Juniper wormed her way out from in between the flock, whimpering and pawing at my feet. Her eyes were big and sad, and she kept looking away towards the burning town. I gave her some scratches behind the ear. “It’s okay, girl,” I said. “We’ll get out of here in just a minute, and go somewhere safe.”

  I looked around, searching for any sign of Grace. She wasn’t nearby, but I was partly blinded by the smoke, so I wasn’t terribly surprised. “Grace?” I called out as I ushered the flock towards the fence. “Grace? Come on, we’ve got to go! Where are you!?”

  There was no answer. It felt like a fist clenched around my heart. I came to the fence and stopped, holding the hatchet close to my chest. I needed to go, but I couldn’t leave without Grace. Mr. Lawcrest would be able to find me, probably, but what if he didn’t know where she was? The bleating of the sheep felt like a saw on my brain, keeping my thoughts from quieting. It’s fine, I told myself, it’s fine. She’s just at the barn, rounding up the lambs. They like to stay in there during the night, and we’re bound to have stragglers.

  I looked up just in time to see one of the dragons collide with a roc, both beasts spinning as they descended, grappling each other and swiping with their claws. From their backs, the silhouettes of people, a cuirassier and a Veskite roc cavalryman swung about their mounts from saddle lines. Flashes of gunfire erupted in the air, then the harsh clanging of metal on metal as they attacked with their melee weapons, then the two monsters pushed away before they hit the ground, flying in opposite directions. The dragon blew a swath of fire as it retreated, the flames landing in fields that I only hoped were empty as they washed over the mountainside.

  I hunkered down by the fence, listening to the sound of my heartbeat. We had to go. They weren’t avoiding collateral damage at all. The damn dragons probably started the fire in town in the first place, and saints knew that if they had to retreat, they’d burn the whole valley while they did to keep it from feeding the rebels.

  I heard boots splashing in the mud, and I looked up, hopeful for a moment that it was Grace. It wasn’t. Mr. Lawcrest came running, chest and basket in hand and full of a mixture of tools, preserved food, and whatever valuables he had in his home. He scowled as he saw me, and I immediately stood to attention.

  “What are you waiting for?” he barked.

  “Grace,” I said. “She’s not here. I don’t know where she is, but she didn’t come when I called.”

  Mr. Lawcrest immediately shifted from panicked aggravation to pure panic as he looked all around in every direction, before eventually settling his eyes on the town. “Oh, damn it all to hell, girl,” he snarled under his breath.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, my own voice beginning to quake. “Where is she?”

  Mr. Lawcrest dropped the containers at my feet, all the metal implements in them clattering like old bones as he did. “She’s gone into town,” he said. “I knew she would do something reckless. Always wanting to take big and bold actions, that girl, even if it means she gets killed.” He stood, retreating a few steps before turning on his heel and pointing a finger at me. “You. Take the sheep and go. Focus on surviving, don’t worry about me. I’ll get Grace, and we’ll be with you before you know it.”

  “Mr. Lawcrest–!” I shouted, holding out a pleading hand, but he was already running away. I stared after where he had vanished into the rain and ash. My hands shook. I wanted to stay, and I wanted to stay alive most of all. I turned towards the fence and lifted the hatchet up.

  Thoughts of Grace crossed my mind. I hesitated. I couldn’t abandon her. No matter how much I wanted to break for the distant hills and get out of this war zone, I couldn’t abandon Grace.

  “Argh!” I roared, slapping my hand against my forehead. “Why can’t I just make smart decisions for once!?”

  I gripped the hatchet so hard I thought the wooden handle might break, and I swung it down on the fence. Adrenaline fuelled my strikes, and each chop hewed a bar in half. Three swings later, the bars were all cut, and I yanked them off one by one, throwing them to the ground beside me. The sheep didn’t need any motivation to start funnelling through the wide hole, but I clapped my hands loudly and shouted anyway. “Go! Get out of here!”

  They were out of the field in no time, running down the valley towards some kind of shelter. I hoped that if and when we all returned from this safely, we could get them back together, because if not I had just thrown our livelihood away. The only thing left in the field with me was Juni, still sitting at my heels and pawing the ground.

  I knelt down, putting a hand on her head. “Juni,” I said. “Go hide, then stay.”

  She whined and stared at me plaintively. “Juni,” I said more forcefully this time. “Hide. Then stay.”

  She took a few steps away, staring at me the whole time. The moment I stood, she stopped. “Nah-ah!” I barked. “Stay!”

  She gave me one last look, but then ran off southward. I knew where she was going, it was one of her usual hiding spots in our farthest field. Hopefully it was out of the way enough that she wasn’t at risk of getting hit with those spraying flames.

  With Juniper sorted and the sheep gone, I ran away, towards the path leading down to the main road. I couldn’t sprint, because then I would have to stop and catch my breath, and if I stopped my fear would have time to catch up with me. I knew Mr. Lawcrest would be ahead of me the whole way, though, and I had no idea where he was going.

  The chill of the night gradually faded as I got closer to town. The airborne sparks and cinders had already warmed the house, but here, every step bringing me closer to the burning town felt like another step towards a bonfire. Heat thoroughly permeated the air, and I began to hear the sizzle of boiling raindrops as they landed on the flaming ruins.

  The gate was entirely off its hinges by the time I arrived, and there were no watchmen on the walls, though there was a steady stream of coughing, burned, and hurt people running out. I heard screams of pain and wails of loss, but I didn’t have the time to slow down and consider any of these people. I dove through the crowd and past the gates.

  Instantly, fire was on all sides. Not every building was burning just yet, but there wasn’t anywhere I could look without flames filling some part of of my vision. The smoke was even thicker, and I had to crouch down to keep out of the worst of it. I ran as fast as my legs would take me, doing my best to stay out of the way and out of sight. I saw, through the veil of sparks, soldiers fighting in the streets. Blood mixed with dirt and ash as it ran in rivulets down the cobbles, sizzling as soon as it came into contact with fire. Every now and then I spotted a corpse, either in the defining blue, orange, and white of the empire, or the patchwork greens and browns of the rebels, or maybe even the ordinary clothes of civilians that had gotten caught up in the fighting.

  I heard a bullet whiz past my head, and I instinctively ducked down and to the side, throwing myself into a ditch by the side of the road. I could hear the clashing of a fight just near me, at least five soldiers by my estimation. Gunshots thundered out, and people screamed their war cries and smashed spears and axes against shields. I closed my eyes to try and rub them free of smoke while I hid, my back pressed up against the disturbingly warm wall of a grocery.

  I heard a sharp crack, and thought that it was another gun firing. I only realised my error when a chorus of other cracks sounded out, distinctly from above me. My limbs were way too sluggish from running. I got halfway to my feet, but I didn’t move anywhere near fast enough to get out of the way of the collapsing building coming down on me.

  “Kid, watch out!” a ragged voice behind me screamed, and I felt a massive shove push me forward onto the road. A huge wave of air full of gritty shards of stone and brick rushed over me as the top level of the building I had sheltered beside crumbled to the ground with a cacophonous crash. I glanced back. Whoever had saved me was buried under a pile of burning wood and stone. Their arms protruded from the pile, limp. A pistol was clutched in one hand, so I guessed they were probably a fighter, a rebel by the lack of imperial standard armour.

  I shakily crept back towards the pile, lifting the pistol easily out of their hands. It had the telltale flaccid rigidity of a fresh corpse. They must have died on impact. I felt the pistol, waving it around a little to listen to the interior of the barrel. From the rattling, it must have been loaded with one lot of crude shot rather than a bullet. Still, one shot was better than none, and I held the pistol tight. I gave the body one last glance, the reality of the situation just washing over me as I bolted from my hiding spot.

  I didn’t have any clues to Mr. Lawcrest’s location, and shouting would just give me away to anyone who might want to do me harm. But I had a guess as to where Grace might have gone. I made my way towards the low city, dodging in between tight alleyways that were thus far free of fire, until I came to the open switchback stairs that led down to to that district. The sounds of fighting faded, but I could still see the flying beasts in the sky, and I was in plain view if any of them wanted to take the opportunity for an easy kill. The stone pathways of the low city seemed to have themselves evaded the flames, but a number of factories and storehouses were burning so brightly that I couldn’t even look at them without being blinded still further by the light. Hot cinders on the ground bit into my bare feet, slowing my hasty run to a crawl.

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  It felt like hours of picking my way down staircases far from flames before I arrived at the layer that I wanted, thankfully free of the blaze, at least for now. I followed the same path as yesterday, eventually coming to that little wooden door in a nook between two houses. My heart just about burst when I saw the small stains of blood on the cobbles and, more worryingly, on the handle.

  I didn’t have time to second-guess, or to wait for confirmation. I threw the door wide open, and slammed it shut behind me. The inside of Gordon’s workshop was in total disarray. Nails littered the floor, and many of the shelves had been smashed to pieces. The forge was covered in long arcs of blood. And there, on the ground at the foot of the workbench, laid Gordon, with Grace kneeling and openly weeping at his side.

  I ran to her, kneeling down beside and putting my hand on her back. “Grace,” I said. “Grace. Your father’s looking for you. We need to go.”

  I took a good look at Gordon. He was surely dead. Blood had already begun to thicken in cascades down to the ground from two long cuts, one across the side of his neck, and another across his face over his one good eye, which would have been blinded if he were still alive. He stared upwards, lifelessly gripping a rusty sword in his hand, not unlike the ones I had seen in the hands of the cuirassiers, its tip also bearing the stain of blood.

  “Grace, come on,” I said more urgently, trying to shake her out of her stupor.

  “I was too late,” she whispered. “Saints, I was too late. Why couldn’t I have just woken up sooner…?”

  “Grace,” I said again, forcibly turning her to look me in the eye. Her face was stained with a layer of ash, with rivers of tears carving two thin lines through it. “You can’t do anything for him now. Right now, we need to survive. We need to find your father.”

  She glanced at the door, a rare look of terror crossing her. “I can’t…” she mumbled. “I can’t go back out there. We’ll die. The fighting’s getting worse. Buildings are coming down, we wouldn’t have anywhere to go. Do you know where Pa is?”

  I slowly shook my head. “No,” I admitted.

  “We’ll die, then, just wandering around,” Grace reiterated, wiping the tears from her eyes and smearing the ash at once.

  I pulled her to her feet, instinctively clocking the door that led into Gordon’s living space. “We’ll hide here, then,” I said, pulling her towards it. “Come on.”

  Grace resisted me. “But what about Pa?” she insisted.

  I put my hands on her shoulders. “Grace, look at me,” I said. “I know. Trust me, I don’t like this either. But you’re right. I almost died coming here. I’m only alive because….” I thought about those arms sticking out from under the rubble. “Because someone else made a stupid decision. So it’s either we hide in here and wait for the fighting to stop, or we go back out there, and then maybe all three of us die.”

  Grace tossed a pleading look at the door, as though some knight in shining armour would burst through and declare our troubles over if only she demonstrated how much she had suffered in the last hour. “But we can’t leave Pa…” she said again.

  “Do you want to live, or not?” I snapped, my patience reaching its limit under stress. Grace’s lips pressed into a thin, white line, but she followed me to the door.

  Gordon’s chambers were small and barren. Only a single room laid behind that door, with a cheap straw bed, a small table with a handful of dusty ornaments on it, and a crest hanging up on the wall depicting a heraldic dragon holding a sword in its mouth. I ushered Grace towards the bed, and we slid underneath it to wait.

  The time passed slowly. Here in our cavernous hiding spot, the sounds of combat in the town above were very muffled, but still, every now and then we heard an explosion, or the roar of a dragon. We stayed silent, partly out of fear of being potentially overheard, and partly out of a complete lack of energy to actually discuss anything. I had wanted to chastise Grace about coming into town in the first place, but I didn’t have the heart to anymore, not after what had happened here.

  My fears of the ceiling collapsing down on us or guards bursting through the door to kill us or take us hostage eventually quietened into a dull roar in the back of my mind. The adrenaline of the run through town began to wear down, and I suddenly found myself exhausted. We stayed there for what was probably hours, and all throughout I slept in fits, closing my eyes for a moment and blearily blinking awake minutes later, hoping that what little rest I was able to get here would offset the pain in my lungs.

  Some time later, I realised that I hadn’t heard a roar or an explosion of any kind for a while. I rubbed my eyes and scooted out from under the bed.

  “Where are you going?” hissed Grace.

  “To check things out,” I said. “It sounds pretty quiet out there.”

  Grace followed me as far as the chamber door, while I went all the way to the exit of the forge. After hours of sitting in darkness, Gordon’s body caught my eyes again. I forced myself to stare forward.

  I just barely cracked open the exit door to get a look outside. The drizzle was still coming down, but the sun seemed to be on its way up. There was still the faint flickering orange light of flames, but nothing as bad as it had been before, and breathing in the air didn’t make me feel immediately sick from smoke. I pressed my ear up against the gap to listen. It was as quiet as I had thought. There were a few faint shuffling sounds, but no gunshots, no explosions, and no bestial cries.

  “Grace,” I said, finally allowing my voice to raise above a whisper for the first time since leaving our sheep field. “It’s over. We can go.”

  Grace crept to my side, staring warily at the door. “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “If they aren’t completely done, then they’ve calmed down enough that we can sneak out,” I said. I pushed the door fully open. “Let’s go. We should be quick. Even if the soldiers are done fighting, I reckon tensions are still high out there.”

  Grace nodded. She held tightly to my arm as we slowly walked out of the forge, keeping our heads down as we made our way upwards and out of the low city. Some storehouses were still burning there, but a handful of people stood around them hurling buckets of water at the flames. Some were dressed in ordinary clothes or watch uniforms, but most had green sleeves and leather or plate armour that identified them as Veskite soldiers. I guessed they had won the battle.

  Thankfully no one on the streets seemed to pay us any mind as we slunk up the stairs towards the town centre. Some other rebels were moving towards the town outskirts, many dripping with blood from deep wounds or supporting others who were. We ducked into alleys when we could, but we obviously weren’t their main concern in that moment.

  “Where are we going?” hissed Grace as we neared the town square.

  “Back to the fields,” I answered, leading her forward.

  “But didn’t you say that Pa came into town looking for me?” asked Grace. “What if he didn’t….”

  Her grip on my arm slackened and fell away. I turned back to see her take off towards the town square. I had been trying not to look at that place. It was a bloody massacre. At least twelve soldiers of the watch, cuirassiers, and rebels laid dead around the cobblestones, and as many civilians laid with them. Char and burnt blood stained everything a wretched shade of black. The massive carcass of the green dragon from before laid on the fountain, impaled on a long and heavy spear that propped it up against the ground.

  Grace ran to the side of one of the bodies, someone who had maybe tried to hide from the fighting around the corner. Their body was turned away and blackened on one side, so it wasn’t recognisable from a distance as anything other than the remains of a very unfortunate soul.

  “Grace,” I said, going to her side. “We don’t have time for—”

  She turned the body over so that it was face up. Half of his face was charred, but once I saw the other half, there was no doubt that it was Mr. Lawcrest. His remaining eye stared up unblinkingly at the sky. His long hair and beard had caught fire as he fell, exposing bits of his skull as the flames had burned through his skin. Grace slid her arm under his torso to try and pick him up and hold him closer, but the right side of his body was so badly burned that his forearm broke away and fell to the ground as she did.

  “Grace…” I mumbled. She didn’t hear me or didn’t listen. Instead she got to her feet, stumbled backwards a few steps, and managed to turn around before vomiting in the street.

  She stood there, stock still, for a few more seconds, before collapsing at the side of her father. I knelt down beside her and embraced her tightly. We didn’t have anything more to say. We just sat there until the sun began to burn away the weather, letting what rain remained dissolve our tears as they fell to the empty, ashen streets.

  ────────────────────────────────────────

  Days later, I stared at the town of Vandermaine from atop our little perch on the mountainside. The Veskites had taken swift control, and had already begun the process of rebuilding destroyed buildings, and they had built an enormous funeral pyre in the Lundenian tradition in the town square to burn the bodies of all who had fallen, whether they were cuirassiers, watchmen, rebels, civilians, or dragons. Mr. Lawcrest was in there somewhere. I could see its flames all the way from here as they reached their orange fingers up towards the sky. The rebels were trying to earn good will with the people that they had just conquered. I spat at the ground as I thought about it.

  Word on the streets was that the Veskites had already seized our provincial capital of Kirkwall to the west. Whether the imperial forces tried to continue the war or not, their little rebellion had completely dominated the province of Rimewater Vale, and they were here to stay.

  I turned away. I couldn’t stand to watch the man who had taken me in be used as a symbol by people who were, at best, complicit in his death any longer. Just thinking about it made me sick with rage.

  Grace was sitting by the stump her father used to chop firewood on, Juniper laying down on the grass at her feet. We hadn’t bothered to go and get the sheep I had let loose. They were still free somewhere in the valley. Whatever we were going to do from here, it wouldn’t be shepherding.

  She glanced up as I approached, putting on the fa?ade of a smile. “Hey,” she said. Her voice was deep with exhaustion.

  I blew out a tired breath. She was trying to put on a brave face for me. I wished that she would just accept that it wouldn’t help this time.

  “We need to figure out what we’re doing,” I said, not bothering with the pleasantries. “We can’t just sit here much longer. We’re almost out of food.”

  Grace sighed. She reached down to give Juni some scratches behind the ear. I was so glad that Juni hadn’t run off with the sheep. Grace really needed her presence right now to keep from falling down a dark pit in her mind that she wouldn’t ever return from.

  “Always business with you, huh?” said Grace.

  “It’s survival, Grace,” I said. I sat down on the ground opposite her. “I don’t want to go hungry if we can help it.”

  Grace eyed me curiously. “Well, since you’re the one bringing it up, do you have any plans?”

  I sat back, looking towards the cloud-saturated sky. “We could always try and join the Labourers’ Guild,” I said. “There aren’t any real requirements for it, and it’s simple work that’ll at least keep us from starving. Or, we could try to find apprenticeships. I don’t know if anyone is taking any right now, so that’s a risk.” I looked down at my hands. “Or we could…look out for ourselves.”

  Grace’s eyes hardened. “I thought you were done with that stuff years ago,” she said.

  “We’re desperate, Grace,” I tried to defend myself. “The main thing we need to do is stay alive. Whatever that takes. Right?”

  Grace stood and walked out to fix her gaze at the northern horizon, where the foothills gradually smoothed out into the flat, marshy Lake Lands. I followed her, staying a few paces behind.

  “Belfry,” she said, her voice wistful, almost ethereal. “I want to leave.”

  Dread pooled in my heart. “What do you mean?” I asked gravely.

  “There’s no good reason to stick around here,” she said. I saw a glittering tear fall from her chin. “I’ve got no family left except you. Our livelihood here on the farm is all gone. So now’s the best chance I think that I’ll ever have.” She took a deep breath, like she was at the ledge of a precipitous fall. “I want to go north. I’ve done some looking. There’s a flight academy up by the Crownbreaker Sea where the empire used to train cuirassiers.”

  I clenched my teeth. I was silent for several seconds, trying to reach for something to say. “You’re joking, right?” I said.

  “I’m not,” she answered. “I don’t know if the order’s still around, but I want to go look.”

  I held my breath, but couldn’t hold the vitriol back any longer. “How stupid can you be?” I snapped. “It was one of their damned beasts that killed your father! How could you ever think about joining them after that? Did you even hear what…what Gordon had to say about them?”

  “You were right before,” she said, not yet raising her voice herself. “‘There can’t be too many heroes’. I want to be one. The emperor’s gone, there’s a chance for things to change. Maybe it won’t be the cuirassiers. Maybe it’ll be some other knightly order. But whatever it is, I want to be a part of it. I want to help make things better.”

  “You’re just one person,” I countered. “You can’t expect reality to bend around you, Grace. The cuirassiers are monsters who make sure we have a healthy amount of fear for the emperor. Now that he’s gone, or dead, or whatever, they’ll either die out themselves or just turn into enforcers for what ruler the rebels prop up instead. They’re not the heroes, Grace, and they never will be.”

  “Maybe they’re not,” said Grace. Her face tightened with resolve. “But that doesn’t change anything. Whether it’s with the cuirassiers or not, I’m going to make sure that there are people who will look out for others like you and me. Maybe I can’t change anything on my own, but I’ve got to try anyway.”

  I shook my head. “You’re going to die,” I said. “You haven’t got enough supplies to make it there. And even if you did, even if they did change, they still killed your father.” I grit my teeth, trying to keep my own tears from flowing. “How could you ever forgive them for that? You…you traitor!”

  Grace whipped around, her eyes steely as they stared into my soul. “What do you want me to do!?” she shouted. “What is it you want? Do you want me to just wait around to rot? Do you want me to sit here and wallow in grief forever? Because I know that that’s not what Pa would want!”

  I held my hands up, guilt immediately stabbing into my heart. “Grace, that’s not what I—”

  “Oh, it’s not what you said,” she said. “But it was what you meant! Don’t try and pull this shit with me, Belfry, I know you.” She stuck an accusatory finger in my face. “I know you, way better than I think you realise. Just because you’ve given up on the world, given up on everyone but you, doesn’t mean that I have! And I’m not going to let you poison me like you have yourself. I’m not going to just sit here until I’m killed by disease or misfortune. I want to do something with myself, Belfry, whether it changes the world or not!”

  The guilt turned into fury and sorrow. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t. “You’re not going to die for a cause, Grace,” I said. “You’ll just die. And it’s not a waste to stay alive. Unless you think that it’d be better if I saved everyone the trouble and went ahead and wait to starve?”

  Grace covered her face with her hands. “You know that’s not what I—ugh!” She pushed me aside. “Get out of the way. You can come with me or not, but I’m tired of this stupid argument.”

  She marched towards the house, grabbing a basket of small tools and food, and a knife that was lying at its side. The basket was hidden behind the pile of firewood. She must have known that I would try to stop her. This was planned.

  “Grace!” I screamed. I tried to run towards her, but stumbled and fell to my knees. “Please. Please, don’t throw your life away. I don’t want to lose you too.”

  Grace hefted the basket and walked towards the path that led down to the road, the road that led north, far away from Vandermaine. “I don’t either,” she whispered. “That’s why I’m going. You can come with me, if you want.”

  I shook my head hard. “If you leave,” I seethed. “I don’t ever want to see your face here again!”

  She sighed. “Then I guess this is goodbye forever,” she said. “Look after Juni for me.” And with that, she walked forward, away from our little home on the mountainside.

  “Grace!” I wailed after her. “Grace! Stop! Stop!”

  My pleas fell on deaf ears. She didn’t even stop to give me one last look. I watched her from the hilltop as she joined the main road, surveyed the landscape ahead one last time, and disappeared behind a bluff.

  I breathed hard, holding back tears and staring after the space where she had gone. Juniper pushed her nose under my arm, looking at me with her big brown eyes.

  “Go away, you stupid cur!” I screamed and stumbled back towards the house, away from Juni, and away from the road. I leaned against the wooden wall, trying desperately to get a hold on my emotions as the dam holding them back cracked and leaked. I balled my fist up and slammed it into the wall again, and again, and again, until my knuckles split and bled hot blood onto the ground, until I couldn’t hold it any longer, and fell down to the ground, where I curled up and cried until there were no more tears left.

  I was alone. Again. Somehow, it hurt worse the second time.