I hadn’t thought of it like that. “I’m not trying to force you into going out of guilt—”
Sam shook his head, and for a moment a there was a look in his eyes I couldn’t identify, but it broke my heart. Then he was hard again. Distant again. “You don’t have to use guilt against us. If you’re going north, then we all go. We can’t stay behind, can we? There’s no catching up with the other group. And there’s no surviving on our own.”
So they’d join me not because they loved me or believed I was right, but because there was nowhere else to go. And because they believed they owed newsouls their lives.
They were angry with me. All of them. Even Sam.
Especially Sam.
“So that’s your plan?” Stef said. “Menehem’s poison, dragons, and optimism?”
It sounded so stupid when she said it, but I wouldn’t give in. “The dragons will listen to me.”
“Why?” She scowled. “Because you have sylph friends? Because you’re the newsoul? Surely you realize that nothing else out there—sylph aside—cares what you are. They can’t even tell the difference.”
“I’ll find a way.” I would. I had to.
Stef leveled her gaze on me. “Is that before or after they eat Sam?”
Her words were knives in my heart. “I won’t let anything hurt him.” Though when I met his eyes, I could see it was already too late.
“Even if you find a way to convince them, what next? You’ll just set your poison out, put Janan to sleep, and let the dragons rampage through Heart?” Stef threw up her hands in mock surprise. “Oh, I know why that sounds so familiar. That’s exactly what Menehem did.”
“I’m not like Menehem,” I hissed. “I’ll tell the dragons not to hurt people. And we can warn people to stay away from the temple while the dragons—”
“Rip it apart?” She advanced on me. “Do you think that’s going to work? Tear apart the temple, and Janan can’t ascend?”
My eyes stung with tears, but I wouldn’t cry. I wouldn’t. “I wasn’t finished.”
“What else?” Whit asked.
“I read something about dragons in the books. Something that might help us.” I took a deep, steadying breath. “The dragons have a weapon.”
The cave went so quiet I could hear the sound of snowfall.
“More than their teeth and talons?” Stef muttered darkly. “More than their acid?”
“Yes.”
Sam closed his eyes.
I tried not to look at him. Or any of them. I tried to focus on the shadows shifting on the wall, but I couldn’t ignore Sam’s wretched expression. “Yes, another weapon. I’m still working on translating the symbols, but it seems like this weapon is something they revere. Something that’s important to them.”
“And you think what?” Stef’s voice was a dagger. “You think they’ll just give you the weapon? Or use it because you ask them to? They’re not part of your army.”
I pressed my mouth into a line.
“And even if they do have a weapon, why haven’t they used it before now?”
“Because they’re trying to use it on Janan inside the temple?” That hadn’t been meant as a question, but my voice defied me and lifted at the end. “Look, maybe I’m wrong about the weapon. And the dragons. But do you have a better plan? Do you have any plan? You got us out of Heart and you’ve kept us safe from drones, and I can’t thank you enough for that, but what now, Stef? The rest is up to me.” I glanced at Cris and the other sylph shifting into the natural shadows of the cave, as though trying to avoid notice. “I don’t know if it will work. I don’t know if anything will work. I have to try, though.”
No one spoke, though Sam’s betrayed expression, Whit’s obvious confusion, and Stef’s hostility said everything.
My voice was hoarse as I grabbed my coat. “We leave tomorrow.”
This time, I was the one to leave the cave.
I wandered through the twilight forest, sorrow curled up inside my chest. The sadness was lodged so firmly I could hardly breathe, hardly think. Only as light bled from the world did I realize I’d forgotten a flashlight and my SED, and the only ones who might come looking for me were shadows.
The moon hung somewhere above, but it was dark tonight. I could see the outlines of trees, thanks to starlight, but soon I was lost, shivering inside my coat, which suddenly seemed inadequate. Ice crunched under my boots and broke off against my sleeves as I brushed past.
In the dark, shivering and aching with misery, I swept snow off a boulder and slumped onto the stone. My butt froze instantly, but after everything, I was too tired to care. I was too tired to keep picking my way through the dark.
It was my nineteenth birthday.