Snow Like Ashes(91)

Now.

Spring soldiers file past me, stomping up the ramp to their posts. I count them, adding their numbers to the ones already above me. Twenty-four.

Now.

I swipe the knife through the final post one last time, deepening the gouge I’ve been making for the past three days.

NOW.

With a sharp bump, my shoulder connects to the post, snapping the weak thing in half. I keep walking, my eyes on the people ahead of me, the Winterians sipping water out of clay ladles. Not on the ramps, the other right-side posts breaking, one after another, all the way up.

Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.

Everything holds for one moment, the intake of breath before the agonizing wail of terror. Then, as if they all realized what was happening at the same time, every Spring soldier shouts, the planks disintegrating under their feet in one great crack of splintering wood.

The Winterians gape at the collapsing structure. Other Spring soldiers dash forward like they might be able to help, like they might be able to stop it. And I swing around on my heels to watch it fall, to watch it all crumble, unable to get rid of the wicked grin on my face.

I hope you feel them die, Angra, I think, my nose flaring in a growl. I hope you feel their bodies break.

“You!”

In the chaos of the structure falling, in the cloud of dust that explodes up around the shattered wood, a soldier looks at me. His face scrunches in a livid rage, one hand pointing toward me.

“You did this!” he snarls.

I don’t know how he knows. Maybe he saw me bump the post; maybe he saw my smile. However he knows, I confirm it by grinning and holding up the wonderful little knife. I don’t care anymore. I showed the Winterians that fighting back is still possible. I don’t need to look behind me to see what emotion cloaks them—wonder or relief or fear. Whatever it is, it’ll eventually turn to hope. It will eventually start their blizzard.

And I would have been able to go numb in that thought, to let whatever fate descend upon me like a deluge of rain, if not for the sudden cry that pierces the air.

“Don’t hurt her!”

The little boy. The one who got scolded for offering me water that first day, the one who has watched me every day since, his round blue eyes apologetic and curious and determined all at once. Every day he looks at me, his fingers tight on his ladle of water. And every day he twitches toward me half a step, like he wants to break the rules, wants to help me, but always gives in to his fear before he gets farther.

But today he casts off his fear, slamming his ladle on the ground in a shatter of clay. He races across the yard toward me, flying around the dozens of slack-jawed Winterians who stare at the still-settling mess of wood and dust and rocks, the debris interspersed with the bodies of Spring soldiers.

All attention sucks to the boy, his little legs pumping over the ground, shouting as he goes, “Don’t hurt her! I want her to live—don’t hurt her! STOP HURTING US!”

His voice rips into me, sharper than the knife in my hand, deadlier than the structure that just collapsed. I grip my chest, my fingers digging into the space over my heart.

He’s going to get himself killed. Because of me.

The soldier whirls as the boy stumbles to a halt in front of him. The boy’s round face pulses red in his anger, his hands in tight little fists, his eyes alive with fury. He snarls up at the soldier like that’s all it takes to stop an attack, and stands there, holding his ground.

The soldier blinks in surprise before he reacts. I see it all happen in a flash of terror and I scream, a single word bursting through my confidence, through my satisfaction at killing so many of Angra’s men all at once, through any excitement I had in coming up with this plan.

“STOP!”

Nothing stops, though. Not the soldier, not the men beyond him, scrambling to pick through the rubble, dragging out a few still-alive comrades. Not comprehension creeping over me, showing me what I just did, what’s happening around me.

I could have killed my own people. And now the boy will suffer for it.

“Winterian scum,” the soldier hisses, yanks a whip off of a hook on his belt, and unwinds it in a single crack that sends the boy crumbling to his knees, ripping flesh from his brittle bones.

“Stop!” I cry again, and lunge forward, but cold hands pull me back and the small knife flies from my grip, scattering into the dust. I yank on two Winterian men who hold me but they don’t relent, their faces set in determined glares.

“You’re making it worse,” one grunts, and shakes me back. Even farther from the boy, who screams again, the whip’s cracking the only other sound to break his pain.

“I can’t just stand here,” I bite back. “I can’t do nothing anymore.”