30

 

Dawn had turned the sky gray-green in the east. The guards stood by the main gate into the old palace, saying nothing, holding their rifles with barrels raised a few degrees above horizontal, as I walked away. I expected a bullet in my back at any moment. The path back through the buildings to the road was deserted. The troops from the Citadel had departed hours ago. 

On the Godwin road, heading west, I found two bodies in the barren fields: Broch, lying face down in the dirt, had been shot in the chest and jaw. Youk, the fast young runner, lay on the other side of the road a few meters away, on her back, calm eyes staring at the dusty morning sky. Ahead and behind, the thicket silva made ugly groaning and rattling sounds, settling, throwing up billows of gray dust. The tunnel was a nightmare, dust falling all around in drifts like ash, sections half-collapsed, the air almost unbreathable. I thought I would suffocate before I stumbled out into daylight again. Behind me, the tunnel collapsed and I was surrounded by a thick cloud of acrid powder and ammonia. I closed my eyes and ran clear, then lay gasping on my knees by the road, eyes burning, covered with clinging grime. My skin itched furiously. 

I had sent Broch to his death, I had guided Youk and perhaps the others into death, and I did not know if I had accomplished anything. The soldiers had passed through the roads and might be in Naderville even now, fighting Keo's unprepared young men and women. Lenk would lose; Beys would command. 

I pictured Shirla already dead, and Randall with her. As I lurched along the road, rubbing the skin on my arms and chest and head, I stopped my scratching long enough to reach up to the skies and shout, “Come take me now! Where are you? Take me now!” 

I think I was asking for a gate to open, but I might have been asking to die.