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  “I’m not a Conjuror,” I whisper. But my terrified murmur is lost to the wind and screams filling this dead place.

  The woman behind me slumps to the ground. They force us forward, and she’s heedless of the feet crushing her hands, legs knocking her head. I crouch and grasp her hands. Hands she won’t have much longer.

  “I have friends who went through this,” I say, helping her up. “We’ll make it through.”

  “Noncompliant Conjurors,” a man calls from a platform. He wears red bars on the sleeves of his uniform. “As Constable of the Overburden, I order you processed according to your crimes,” he announces, his voice flat, like he’s said the words so often they no longer have meaning. “After your Tempering, you will be given the opportunity to serve Alara and earn remediation for your noncompliance.”

  My ears prick at the word earn. It is a lie. One the Congress has perfected.

  “How can we serve our city-state without glenting hands?” I say, loud enough that everyone around me turns. The constable looks stricken—he’s apparently not used to his listeners responding. A Strider winds through the line toward me.

  “Tempered Conjies perform a vital role,” the soldier says, his voice amplified behind his face shield. “They make up the squads that head into the cordon. Since you’re eager to know, I’ll move you to the front of the line.” His gloved hand clamps around my wrist and I’m towed forward.

  They are going to cut my hands off. They will shove tubes of cirium up my arms and cauterize the stumps. I am next in line. But somewhere between tearing off my bonding cuff and listening to the constable, my anger bubbled up past my fear. I’m so full of terror, there’s no room to contain my rage.

  We are close enough to the flash curtain that I sense its reach and pull. Even now, the flash curtain sends tendrils of energy snaking past its boundaries. And no one here has any idea.

  The Strider stands so close to me that his electrified armor lifts the hairs on my arms. And then, suddenly, it doesn’t. The low hum of his suit stutters, like a hover engine stalling out. I leap at him, and he falls back, taken off guard by my attack. He hits the ground hard as my weight slams into his chest. His eyes widen, and he gasps for air.

  “Not so tough without your suit,” I growl. He makes a wheezing sound, and I lean down into his whitening face. “I will stand at the front of your glenting formation, and lead them right out of the cordon.” His hands fist in my hair, but I’ve got my arm wedged across his windpipe. “With or without my hands!”

  I’m pulled off the Strider. Rough hands shove me forward, and the electrified armor hums to life once more. Now tackling a soldier like that would kill me. But it was enough. The curtain interfered with their tech just long enough for me to make a point.

  As I’m pushed toward the processing tent, white flowers float down, petals twirling on wind drafts like snow. Small white blossoms—Roran’s flowers—like the one I handed to Mere through the fence of Cordon Four. My Conjie family knows the story, and someone here used their last moments of conjuring to send a message.

  Hope.

  I search among the faces and find Roran. He nods once, his expression solemn. Whatever happens next for all of us, this isn’t the end. We will find a way.

  I’m swept toward a processing tent, my boots crunching over bloodstained sand.

  “Move, Conjie,” the Strider orders. He shoves me, the edge of his armored sleeve brushing me enough to shock. My breath stutters, and I lurch between the tent flaps.

  Blood. Heat.

  It’s a visceral wall of sensation. I can practically see remnant pain radiating from the instruments, the table, the bucket of vomit by my foot. The stench singes my nostrils, and I gag. Torment has a smell, and it is its own punishment.

  My courage flees, and terror takes hold.

  “I’m Physic Conrad,” a man says, as I’m steered toward the gleaming metal table. He offers me a brief explanation of the process, his tone gentle, like what he does here is not butchering. He works a cord over my right hand, tightening it so that my arm slides forward, wrist exposed.

  “I’m not—” My words catch in my throat. “Not a Conjuror,” I say louder. The assistant looks at me, but no one speaks. I suppose they’ve heard this before.

  My scout senses prickle, awakening to the presence of so much flash dust. The incinerator is an arm’s reach away, a smaller version of the one we used in Cordon Two to deposit bodies and gain access to Sanctuary. The thought makes my stomach heave. They are going to incinerate parts of my body right in front of me.

  The assistant pulls the cord, and my arm slides across the table. “I have pendants,” I gasp. “Memorial pendants. Only Subpars wear them!”

  The physic’s gaze slips to the blue and yellow pieces of glass that once held my mother’s and brother’s ashes. They look like Conjie adornment.

  “Proceed, Strider,” Conrad murmurs.

  The soldier makes a motion with his hand, some kind of salute, then steps to the table. “For the crime of sedition against our city-state,” he says, his voice hard as steel, “by the authority granted by the commissaries of Alara—”

  “She’s a Subpar!” a voice shouts. We all turn as a man breaks into the tent. “Don’t Temper her! She’s not a Conjie!” Dram shoves his way forward, and the Strider seizes him. “She’s an ore scout—the best there is. You can use her!”

  The Strider’s head swivels from Dram to me, like he’s assessing a foreign threat. One of the Ordinance soldiers—a Vigil—leaves her post and walks toward me.

  “She’s got a Radband!” Dram shouts, fighting the soldier holding him. He gets one arm free and tears his sleeve up, baring his forearm. “Look at her wrist!” He holds his toward the Vigil, the biotech that’s marked him from birth as the Congress’s miner.

  “Show me her other wrist,” the Vigil demands. The Strider draws up the sleeve of my left arm, working the fabric back to reveal my glowing yellow Radband.

  “Westfall tech,” she murmurs. Her eyes narrow on me. “Who are you?”

  My name sticks in my throat. What if Bade is right, and they’ve heard about me here? What will these people do to the Scout, who crossed the cordons with a cure?

  “Orion Denman,” I whisper.

  The impact of my admission ripples through the soldiers. They share glances with each other, but not the Vigil. Her eyes are locked on me.

  “We found these,” says a Strider, walking to her side. He holds our bonding cuffs. Dram’s gaze meets mine, then flicks away. If they discover we’re linked, it won’t take them long to figure out who we are.

  “Subpars with Conjie bonding cuffs,” the Vigil murmurs, examining our bands. She reads the words etched inside. “Step in my steps.” Her brows push together. “What is that?”

  “Cavers’ creed,” I say softly. “Something we say down the tunnels.”

  “He said you were a scout?”

  “Yes.”

  “Scout,” she muses, her fingernail scraping over the words on the cuffs. She strides to the waste bucket and drops them in. “Bring the boy here.” Two Striders bracket Dram and drag him forward. “Your name,” the Vigil demands.

  Dram stares at her like his eyes are weapons. If my name was bad, his is so much worse—son of the leader of the resistance. My name has the power to rally people to hope; his, the ability to tear the Congress apart.

  “I don’t ask twice,” the Vigil says. She grips my arm and pain riots through me. My cry seizes in my throat as I convulse.

  “Stop!” Dram shouts, lurching toward me. Blood trickles from my nostrils. I am in agony, my nerves raw, scorched—too much too much! Dimly, I’m aware of Dram shouting.

  “Fire, stop!” he cries. “It’s Berrends. I’m Dram Berrends.” The Vigil lifts her hand and I sag, swaying on my feet. Her eyes narrow on Dram as if she’s registering something the rest of us can’t see.

  “Secure them in a Delver’s pod,” she commands. “I need to alert the council.”

&n
bsp; The soldiers leap into action, hauling Dram and me away from the others, away from the scents and sounds of agony. I work to regain my footing, as I strain to see past the soldier’s shoulder, to see Roran. He’s no longer in line. Which means he’s facing a physic like Conrad, and a vat of cirium.

  “How can you do this?” I hiss at the Strider gripping my arm.

  “I don’t make the laws.”

  “You think that since you don’t wield the knife, you’re not responsible for that butchery?”

  “Orion.” Dram shoots me a warning look.

  “They brought this upon themselves,” the Strider answers. “The rules of compliance are clear.”

  “Where are you taking us?” Dram asks.

  “Delver’s pod,” he replies. “If I let you walk on your own, you going to give me trouble?”

  I shake my head, and he releases me, keeping one hand on his gun. “Quit dragging the boy, Nills.”

  If anything, the Strider’s grip on Dram tightens. “You know who he is?”

  “I heard the Vigil, same as you.”

  “This kid’s father blew up a squad of soldiers.”

  “So hurting him’s gonna make you feel better?”

  “Damn right it will.” He presses a sequence into his screencom, and his armor hums to life, buzzing with current. The Striders lift their rifles at the same time. I freeze when my escort steps in front of me.

  “Stand down.” He levels his rifle at Nills.

  The man gapes in shock. “I think you’re confused about who’s the enemy, Greash.”

  “Anyone noncompliant,” Greash answers. “And right now that’s you. The Congress wants these Subpars. Alive.” Time suspends itself as we all wait to see if reason will relax Nills’s trigger finger.

  “You’d kill me to protect this subhuman?”

  “I don’t have to kill you to stop you.”

  Nills swears and lowers his rifle. “Don’t give me a reason, Berrends,” he says to Dram. “Next time I’m not yielding.” His gaze shifts to me. “You’re the one they call Scout?” Dread tingles along my spine, worse than the cordon embers burning my exposed skin. “You’re a lot smaller than I imagined.” He makes a sound like a laugh and a sneer mixed. “I think people made up half the stories I’ve heard about you.” He leans in, so close I can smell his acrid breath. “You’re nothing here,” he says softly. “A girl in a cordon, and you’re going to die.”

  “You’ll need more than words to beat me down,” I murmur. Nills just shakes his head.

  “You’re already beaten, Subpar. You just don’t know it yet.”

  TEN

  7.1 km from flash curtain

  THEY DIRECT US to one of the domed pods that stick up out of the ground in rows. I lean onto the balls of my feet and peer down through the clear roof. I can’t make out more than a circular floor and a pair of cots.

  “Go on,” Greash says, ushering us toward a ladder built into the side.

  “What is this place?” Dram asks.

  “Safest quarters in the Overburden—other than Fortune. But that’s something altogether different.”

  I descend the ladder, and cool air envelops me.

  “Rest up,” Greash calls down to us. “Someone will come for you after the council decides what to do with you.”

  “What’s going to happen to us?” Dram asks.

  “Nothing good,” Nills answers. He tosses a bottle of water and a pair of nutri-pacs onto one of the cots. Then his camo-cloth shifts from shades of shadow to light as he climbs back up. The dome seals behind him.

  Light glows above us, steady and golden, spreading around the room in a narrow ring.

  “Halo,” I whisper.

  “What?” Dram asks.

  I collapse onto a cot. “Graham told me once about angels with glowing crowns of light.” I point to the pod lighting. “Halo.”

  “Fire, I think you need sleep even more than I do.”

  I laugh bleakly. “Or angels. Angels might be helpful right about now.”

  “No angels here,” he mutters, falling with a sigh onto the other bed.

  “None that we can see, anyway.” I toe my boots off and close my eyes.

  “He called this a Delver’s pod,” Dram says. “What do you think a Delver is?”

  “Someone who gets a bed,” I mumble.

  “Right. Let’s hope they make us Delvers, then.”

  I smile despite my exhaustion. “I think they’re already onto us, Subpar. You sort of announced it to everyone when you busted into my processing tent.”

  “Ah, right. Do you think Subpars get beds here?”

  I laugh. “Yes, and castles with cirium shields around them.” My cot shifts as Dram eases beside me and draws me into his arms.

  “Just in case,” he whispers. I close my eyes and sigh against his chest. I listen as the spaces between his breaths grow and wonder if I’ll ever get to listen to Dram fall asleep again. We have no idea what awaits Subpars found in the Overburden.

  I focus on Dram’s arms wrapped around me, the safety I feel in this moment.

  Just in case they don’t give us castles.

  * * *

  The flashfall wakes me. Streaks of green and yellow wave from the other side of the domed glass roof. All at once I’m reminded that I’m back in a place of death. Dram sleeps on, even after I slip from his arms and sit up. I study his features, my chest tight. It’s possible his fatigue is the first sign of radiation poisoning. Other than his Radband indicator. The amber light that is really—

  I don’t let myself finish the thought. Reeves was at red when we fought our way through the cordons, and his sickness was obvious. Maybe Dram’s indicator isn’t like mine.

  And maybe the Congress is fair.

  The latch on the pod lifts, and Dram jolts upright, his hair sticking up.

  “You’re smiling,” he says. His voice is different when he first wakes. Deeper. I hold on to the thought like a talisman. “You remember where we are, right?” he asks, raising a brow.

  “You didn’t take out the silver charm.” I saw it when he woke, tangled beneath the layers of his hair.

  “Told you—that one’s important.”

  “The flashfall is red,” I murmur.

  “I see that.” Red aural bands mean Radlevels are high. Today will not be easy. “You shouldn’t have followed me into this hell,” Dram says.

  “Step in my steps.” I touch his face, skim my fingers over the thin scars I know so well.

  “Let’s go,” a soldier calls. “Time for your commissioning.” It’s the same Strider from yesterday. Greash.

  We climb up out of the Delver’s pod and follow him through the camp. We pass Striders’ barracks, an infirmary, and a handful of other buildings lined up across from a massive fence with a corral tower and turnstiles. The seal of Alara waves from a pole beside a Radlevel indicator flag. Greash glances at it as we walk past.

  “Try not to breathe any more than you have to,” he says.

  “Tell me about Delvers,” I say. “How can we become one?” Only Delvers have access to Fortune, Aisla said. And Fortune is where the Congress has safeguarded the cure.

  Greash eyes me through his face shield. “Delvers are carefully selected, or commissioned in the Trades. They’re tested in a gorge at the boundaries of the Overburden for a chance to win Fortune. Delvers with Fortune live inside the compound.”

  “I thought Fortune was a place?”

  “More than that. It’s a designation, a ranking higher than Striders. Inside Fortune, the Delvers take orders directly from the council.”

  “So,” Dram says, “as far as commissioning goes, Delvers with Fortune are at the top. What else is there?”

  Greash lifts a gloved hand toward a cluster of people clothed in Radsuits and armor. “The squads are made up of Miners and the people who protect them. We call them Dodgers. There are also Brunts.”

  “What are Brunts?”

  His looks away, and I sense his hesitatio
n. “Their purpose is to draw the threats away from the Miners. They’re injected with transmitters that attract the creatures.”

  I stare at him, telling myself I couldn’t have heard him right.

  “They’re bait,” Dram says.

  “Just until the Dodgers can take down anything that attacks.”

  My eyes slide shut. I remind myself to breathe.

  “The system is necessary. Efficient. Without it, the Miners are unsuccessful.”

  “How many Brunts die in a day?” I ask, my voice hollow-sounding as I feel inside.

  “Many,” he says, looking toward the cordon. “But their sacrifice serves a greater good.”

  “What glenting good is another Subpar or Conjie death?” Dram asks.

  “Flash dust,” I answer. For the good of everyone in the city. For the good of humanity.

  “Flash me,” Dram mutters.

  “Exactly,” I murmur.

  Greash directs us toward a small crowd gathered before Gems in uniform. As we approach, he activates his suit.

  “Give me more space, Subpar,” he says. “Even this setting would do some damage.”

  “You didn’t have your armor charged?” I ask.

  Greash shrugs, a barely discernible movement under his ridges of armor. “I only activate it if there’s a threat.” He gives me a look. “Were you planning to attack a Strider bare-handed?”

  Wouldn’t be the first time. I have enough healthy fear of Striders to not speak the thought aloud. But the memory filters through my mind. The dust beneath Dad’s bed, where I crouched, hiding, as a Strider marched into the room. Glass crunching as we fought; his scream when an ore mite’s parasites dug into his skin.

  “What does that patch mean?” I ask, motioning toward the patch on his sleeve, beneath the seal of Alara. It’s round, with a cresting wave at its center.

  “It means I earned my commission in the Trades.”

  “The Trades?”

  “You Westfallers probably don’t know much about that.”

  What I know is it’s the last place Dram’s father was seen. “What kind of a place is it?”

  “It’s more than a place. It’s a phase of life. It’s where Alara’s youth are sent. Most of them, anyway. It’s three years of instruction and … challenges. Age sixteen to eighteen.”