I can’t believe he’s alive. All those years we assumed him dead, and here he is, walking beside the wagon, whole and well. I should be elated, relieved—and a part of me is—but a larger part is furious. He’s trafficking servants! Which I fear is what I’m about to become. Powder Town might be where people go for security, but word among the smaller, more paranoid packs is that the security comes at a price, that people there aren’t quite free, and that a working class keeps the place running while the folks who founded it live comfortably.
It’s part of why Ma never wanted to make the trip, why she clung to Dead River with an iron fist.
Guess I’m about to find out the truth.
“This what you’ve been up to all those years, Asher?” Baby doesn’t even flinch when I break the silence. The wagon’s rocking like a cradle and she’s sleeping the best she ever has against my chest.
Asher gives me a narrow sideways glance and plods on.
“You escaped that raid at Alkali Lake to trap people like game? Silla would be disgusted.”
“My mother is dead,” he snaps, turning on me. Those blue eyes don’t look calm anymore, but rimmed with fire. “And you don’t know anything about me.”
“I knew—”
“You knew a kid. That Asher’s been gone since your half of the pack left.”
“The kid I knew was at least kind,” I point out. “He set animals free when our traps brought in more than we needed. He didn’t like gutting game, so I did it for him. He picked wildflowers off the scrub for his mother, and he never would have resorted to something like this.”
“He also grew up the moment he watched his pack die for him, and he went on growing up alone and abused and imprisoned. He didn’t have anybody, so he became what he needed to survive. I’m sorry you don’t like that, but I don’t give a rusted damn how you judge me. You always thought you knew best, Delta, and sometimes you did, but not about this. You know nothing about what I went through.”
I bite the inside of my cheek because he’s right about that last bit. The traders talked about Alkali pack-members shot in the heart, floating bloated in the lake, burned alive in their huts. I assumed Asher was among them. I never imagined he got away. Or rather, that the raid got him.
His buddies chuckle up front. It’s dead silent in these wastes—nothing but the creak of the wheels and their occasional grunts as they drag the wagon over a stubborn rut—and our voices have carried. Apparently they’ve never caught a sale that has history with one of them, and this is amusing.
“How’d you know it was me?” I ask Asher quietly.
“The scar above your eye.”
He put it there when we were wrestling one summer. A hard tackle, my head striking a sharp rock. Ma said I was lucky it wasn’t worse, that I could have died if I’d fallen differently. I wear that luck daily now, in the form of a pale scar that bisects my right brow.
I catch Asher watching me. His eyes seem huge, his jaw slack. For the briefest moment he looks like a version of the boy I once knew. It makes the relief I felt at West Tower come surging back. Then he frowns, and the magic is lost. He’s just someone who’s conned me.
“What are you playing at, Asher? You trying to make me feel like we share something? That you’re not carting me off to be sold?”
“No, I just . . .” He sighs and looks away. “I’ve been looking for you—for the pack—since I got out.”
I pause, turning this unexpected answer over in my mind. “How long’s that been?”
“Six moons.”
“Where were you before?”
His throat bobs as he swallows, but he refuses to make eye contact.
“Who are your buddies?”
Again, he stays quiet.
I glance through the cage and into the heavens. The Gods’ Star shines to the north, mocking me with its brilliance. As the seasons change, the other stars rotate around it, reminding us that every fate, every path, is tied back to our gods. This was true before they deserted us. It will be true even if they never return. Like my lodestone, the Gods’ Star shows the way north. The problem is we’re moving away from it. The wagon isn’t tracking north toward Powder Town, but almost due east.
“Asher, where are we going?”
“Don’t answer that,” one of the men snaps from the front.
“Where the hell are you taking me?”
“Tell her to shut up before I make her,” the other says.
“Shut up, Delta.” Asher’s voice is callous and firm. It could be an act, a way to keep the men happy. But it could also be who Asher is now. Like he said, I don’t know him anymore.
“If you know what’s good for you,” he goes on, “you’ll keep your mouth closed and not fight us. I swear to the gods . . .” His mouth curls into a snarl, and I don’t recognize him in the slightest. Not even his eyes. Whatever happened to him at Alkali Lake, whatever happened to him after . . . It’s changed him. The Asher I knew is dead, and I can’t trust the ghost walking in his place.
* * *
Several hours later, not even the rocking of the wagon can keep Baby asleep. She wakes with a vengeance, howling to be fed.
“She needs to eat,” I announce. “And I should change her wrappings, too.”
The wagon doesn’t slow.
“She’ll just go on crying until she’s fed. All night, even.”
“Bain, the baby needs to eat,” Asher says eventually. “Let’s stop.”
The bulkier of the two, Bain, grunts. “What’s the point in stopping? Just keep your rifle on them both. I don’t trust the girl.”
My hands are bound together in my lap, but not completely useless. Asher glances at the sling for Baby, my leather jacket and wool shirt, the bulk that implies layers.
“Can you get them off without help?” he asks.
I suddenly realize what they’ve all assumed. “I can’t feed her. She’s not mine. I need the goat’s milk and the feeding pot packed with my gear.”
Bain says, “We’re not stopping.”
“Gotta make good time,” the other adds.
Baby howls louder. Her nose is pink with cold. The wastes cool off fast without the sun, and even the warmth of my body and the sling doesn’t seem to be enough anymore. It’s a miracle any newborn lives. Fragile, weak things.
I rock her lightly, trying to distract her from the hunger pangs. It only makes her cry harder.
“We can spare a few minutes,” Asher argues to his friends. “Besides, the baby’s not worth anything if it’s dead, and weaklings don’t draw the same bids.”
That does the trick. Bain and his buddy straighten at the yoke, and the wagon halts. “Find the feeding pot and milk the goat,” Bain says to Asher. “And do it fast. I don’t like sitting still in the open.” Then he stalks off, muttering about taking a piss. His friend follows.
As soon as the guys are gone, I lunge for the cage, grabbing the driftwood bars. “Let me go, Asher. I can run.”
“To where?” He grunts from where he’s stooped to milk the goat. “There’s nothing for dozens of clicks, and they’d murder me for setting you loose.”