Snow Like Ashes(90)

“These tunnels offer their own type of escape.”

And I realize through all these flickers of desire, these pulses of what could be, that what the Winterians need above all is just what that cave offers, but on a grander scale: hope. Hope to make their lives brighter; hope to help them endure. I have to believe that Mather is still out there, rallying support and preparing an army to march on Spring, and that someday, he’ll tear down Abril’s walls. But whether or not I live to see that day, I will go down in a vicious swirl that will make Angra rue the moment he let Herod put me in here—and that will prove to the Winterians that hope still exists.

Excitement fills me up, makes me jittery and ready to put a plan, any plan, into action. I regret that I let myself wallow so long before I actually tried to do anything. I spent far too long being selfish.

And, one day, a plan forms in my mind. A plan to bring down more than just one or two soldiers—a plan to bring down enough of them that the Winterians have to take notice, have to feel the weight lift. Not freedom, but the first step in a longer journey. A boost in morale.

The city runs with the efficiency and order of a carefully controlled machine—every soldier in his place, every door tightly bolted. This means that schedules are the norm, and weeks of the same routine embed the soldiers’ routines into my mind as well. When they get us every morning; when they dismiss us every night; when they change shifts. The repetition makes them efficient, yes, but it also gives them a huge weakness: it makes them predictable.

I can predict, for instance, that the soldiers stationed on the ramps will change shift every day at noon and that the ramps will clear of Winterians, who gather around the children and their jars of water. For the briefest moment, not only are the ramps clear of Winterians, they’re also packed with double the number of Spring soldiers—those leaving and those taking up their new posts.

And though Herod stripped me of weapons long before we reached Abril, I still have the smallest piece of metal on me—the buckle holding my belt around my pants. So after another endless day working at the wall, I crawl into the cage with Nessa, Conall, and Garrigan, wait for the soldiers to lock us up, and carefully work the buckle out of the leather strap.

Nessa and her brothers eye me as I hunch in the corner, wiggling apart the buckle and using one piece to whittle the other. Scraping metal on metal, so focused I don’t know if Nessa tries to say anything to me before she falls asleep, and by morning, I have a beautiful little knife in my palm. As long as my index finger, one edge worn into a blade. I squeeze it so tightly that the edge bites into my skin as I join the rest bound for the wall.

The routine at the wall is unchanged. Holsters, rocks on our backs, trekking up and down, up and down the creaking wood. Before I head up the ramps, I eye the structure, a quick glance that goes unnoticed. The first plank of wood slopes up from the right side of the structure, connected to the ramps above with posts of wood at every corner. But if the other posts were weakened and the bottom one were to snap as the Spring soldiers changed their shift midday …

If it brings even the smallest blip of hope to the Winterians, it will be worth it.

I twist the makeshift blade in my hand, keeping it poised between my fingers, and with every back and forth, back and forth repetition up the wood planks, I reach out and slide the blade against the posts that hold us in the air. The posts are as thin as my wrist, the wood already warped and brittle under the sun, and it doesn’t take much effort to make small nicks. But only on all the right-side posts, and only enough to slowly, imperceptibly, break it down over the next few days.

Back and forth. Chip.

Back and forth. Chip.

Three days of this, and I’m making progress. I can see thin lines developing on the posts, inconspicuous enough that everyone else brushes right by, mistaking them for the wood’s natural wear. And as the sun stretches higher in the sky that third day, scooting closer and closer to noon, my heart thumps harder and harder in my chest. It’s nearly ready, nearly brittle enough. But what if I miscalculated, and the whole thing comes down too soon? What if I send dozens of Winterians tumbling to their deaths? I don’t have time to answer my own worries. I didn’t miscalculate. I won’t kill anyone but Spring soldiers, and the Winterians will see that fighting back is still possible.

This will work.

Noon comes with the creaking of the gate. Its echoes over the yard, a screeching wail that makes adrenaline burst within me. I take a deep breath and slow my pace on the ramps, falling to the back of the line of Winterians heading down for their noon water break.

I exhale, dragging my feet, watching the last Winterian trudge into the dirt.