Kelda cried herself to sleep, curled up tight on the armchair in the bedroom behind me, with the yellow quilt from the bed tucked around her. I’d carried her back to the row house on my back. I couldn’t think of anything else to do after…
I can’t sleep. I can’t even cry. Every inch of me feels scooped out and raw, every movement of my body feels impossible, agonizingly painful. I just see that moment playing in a loop in front of my eyes.
Halle, rolling across the alloy. Halle, falling into the darkness.
The dead of night in a mirage town is still stuffy and warm, sweat beading down my neck even without the sunlight hammering down on us and so few buildings to break up the wind cutting across the Plains. I recross my arms around my body, feeling the dried scabs from the cuts all over my skin pull and split at the movement, bringing beads of fresh blood to the surface. Liren would probably want to clean and bandage them, but I don’t want the cuts to heal. I don’t want them to get better.
I’m bleeding on the inside; might as well bleed on the outside, too.
The window behind me opens with a soft swish, and a moment later, Atlas climbs out onto the roof.
“Mind if I sit?” When I don’t say anything, when I just keep staring out at the night sky, he sits anyway, carefully arranging his tall frame cross-legged beside me. “Thought you’d want to know that Garian and Mira are keeping an eye on the dailies and on the sky. No sign of any other Archangels so far. Not really sure how long that’s gonna last, though.”
He’s right. We should already be on the move. The thought is dull and distant, and even as I know that it’s the logical next step, the lancing, aching grief inside me screams against leaving.
It’s like the wounds on my arms. I need them to stay exactly as they are, painful and oozing blood. If they heal and fade, it’llsomehow be like today never happened. And if we climb on those mounts and put our backs to the last place where Halle lived and walked and breathed… where she died…
We’ll be losing her all over again. And I don’t know if I’ll survive that. I’m webbed with cracks as it is.
Atlas holds a canteen out to me, apparently willing to let the subject drop for the moment, but I shake my head, ignoring how inviting the little slosh of water inside sounds.
“How long has she been asleep?” he asks.
I don’t have to see his glance back at the bedroom to know who he’s talking about. “An hour or two? I don’t know. I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting out here.”
He hums thoughtfully, playing with the preacher medallion that hangs from a cord around his neck, the etchings on the copper disc depicting the Gate of Heaven worn from years of him messing with it. He still wears it, even though the Ministry declared him an enemy years ago. Even though he disagrees so strongly with what the chapels declare from their pedestals.
“After our father was taken by the wardens,” he says after a moment, “I remember putting Orion to bed and just sitting up for hours and hours, watching him sleep. It was like the only thing that kept me together was seeing him breathe in and out, and if I took my eyes away, even for a moment, I would”—he makes a little explosion motion with his fingers—“just scatter apart.”
I tilt my head back over my shoulder. Kelda’s barely visible through the glass and shadows of the room, only the contrast of her dark hair against the bright quilt giving her away. “She’s eleven years old. She’s seen way, way too much. She’s lost too much. And I can’t decide whether that actually makes it worse…or if it’ll somehow be better, because she already knows how to cope with shit.”
“I can’t answer that,” Atlas says softly.
I turn away, closing my eyes and pressing my fingertips hard against my eyelids, trying to fight back the despair creeping up my throat. “The one thing—theone thing—that kept me going all this time was that I was keeping my sisters safe. It didn’t matter what I did, it didn’t matter what I became, because they were safe. But it was all for nothing. I got her killed. I didn’t move fast enough, I didn’t fight hard enough, and I got her killed.”
“Now, see, that’s not giving Halle near enough credit.” Atlas leans a little farther forward, ducking his head to get a better look at my face. “She loved you. She ran at that Archangel foryou. Don’t take that choice away from her.”
I shake my head. “That Archangel would’ve never been anywhere near her if it wasn’t for me. I should’ve taken off the second they were safe, gone far away from all of you. But I was selfish. I…” The words almost choke me, more painful to say than any stab wound, and I have to force them out, my voice hoarse and ragged. “I didn’t want to be alone.”
He puts a hand on my shoulder. “Well, that sounds incredibly human of you, Saint Valene.”
He’s way gentler than I deserve. I look over at him for the first time since he sat down, at the starlight painting the edges of him in dim silver. “Did you know before? About me being a saint?”
“Not until yesterday, when I saw you fighting.” He puts his hands on the slanted roof behind him and leans into them. “I know some people in Covenant who thought that the Butcher was storm-touched, but I never gave it much heed.”
I smirk, harsh and bitter. “Because of the things the Butcher did. Not very holy or saintlike, am I?”
“I’m sure there are some preachers out there who would say as much,” he responds lightly, not rising to the argument in the slightest. “But you’re never gonna hear that from me.”
“But you don’t even like me.”
He huffs a soft, breathy laugh. “I told you before. I care about Valene the person, even if I don’t love what you do.”
I glance at him again, at that preacher medallion gleaming on his chest. “How can you believe? Not just in religion, but inanything? What is out there worth believing in?”
Atlas takes a deep, slow breath, gathering his words piece by piece in that careful way he has. “I never was a very good Heraldic preacher, even before I met Liren. When they showed me how they and their family believed, how they found spirit and meaning outside of the Heralds, it rewrote everything for me.”
He puts a hand flat on his chest, over his heart. “My faith now—it’s not about the Heralds or the Ministry or any kind of omnipotent, all-powerful higher being. My faith is about people. That inside each human being is something divine and worthy of light. That we can evolve—both individually and collectively—into something greater than what we are now.”
