How long did Mama work at the naphtha aqueducts? Years and years, and all the while it was slowly leaching the life out of her, taking her away from us in bits and pieces. They ate her sweat, her strength, her mind, her youth, and left her as nothing but loose meat and bones in a hollowed-out shell. And then the preachers and the chapel leaders looked us in the eye and told us she was fuckingblessed.
“They did it to us.” My voice is soft, but it fills the heavy silence. “The ground, the rain, the prophets—they did it to us. And we got on our knees and worshipped.”
We offer up our water, our food, our paper. We spread our hearts before them in prayer. We send our dead down to their embrace.
They consume it all. They pick their teeth with our rib bones. And they ask for more.
Orion’s eyes are shining with angry tears, and he wipes them away on his sleeve as he gets to the final page and clears his throat. “This is the last thing he wrote.”
He cannot be stopped. Cannot be argued from his position. Nearly all of Trinity has been transmuted, and all around us, peopleare losing their memories, convinced that our world has always been this way, calling us gods. And yet he will not hear reason or agree to shut down the diamond generator. He says it will cost even more lives if we do, that the people depend on us and we are the only ones qualified to safeguard Trinity and its resources now.
All the other Herald founders are dead or lost, and I am too frail to continue. I must hope that the seeds I have planted will bear the fruit of justice and redemption in time.
May the future forgive me.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
“AND WHEN TRINITY WAS COMPLETE, THE HERALDS FORMED US, MOLDING OUR APPEARANCE AFTER THEIR OWN, AND SET US HERE TO LIVE AND BREATHE AND SERVE THEIR GLORY.”
—THE DIVINE ORIGINS OF TRINITY, THE ARCHIVAL COUNCIL OF THE HERALDIC MINISTRY
Well, it doesn’t.” Dani’s voice is harsh and loud, shaking with barely contained rage. “The futuredoesn’tforgive him.Wedon’t forgive him.”
Orion wanders back over to us, flipping through pages without even really seeming to see them. “I wanted answers. Still not sure I was prepared for this.”
I drop into a crouch, slip off one of my gloves, and drag my fingers across the unfamiliar ground. The soft green blades tickling my bare palm. The give of the rich-brown dust—not dust,soil—that they’re growing out of. I’m trying to imagine what it would’ve been like to have been raised with this beneath my feet, and it’s difficult to wrap my mind around.
“He didn’t mention saints anywhere?” I ask Orion as he sinks down next to me.
There are already-drying tear tracks on his cheeks as he shakes his head. “I skimmed pretty quick, but I didn’t see that word anywhere. Or even anything that sounded like it might be a saint. Maybe there weren’t any around when he wrote this.”
I shiver. It’s so much cooler here than out on the Copper Plains. “Then where did we come from…”Where did I come from.
I don’t really say it like a question because it’s not. Not one he can answer anyway. But I feel it on the horizon just ahead, waiting for me.
Trinity’s song, sharp and bright and constant in my head, suddenly wavers and dims, and in its absence, I hear it. The heavy swish of sharp metal wings cutting through the air. The clanking of Archangel feet as they land.
I hiss a warning, and Dani and Orion immediately freeze, dropping low to the ground. Automatically, I reach for my goggles, only to remember that they were ripped away in the flooded tunnel. Cursing, I tug the glove back onto my bare hand and crawl forward on fingers and toes to where half the wall has crumbled away and raise my head just far enough up over the broken edge that I can get a clear angle on the open green space beyond.
An Archangel tromps over the ground, crushing plants and flowers beneath its enormous feet, its benevolent metal face scanning back and forth as it moves toward us. The sight of it makes my stomach churn with hate and disgust and pity, and it’s too mixed together for me to decide which one is strongest. I want to tear apart every angel I see for what they did to Halle, what theytook from me, but I also shudder at the idea of touching them now that I know what—who—is inside.
“We must’ve made enough noise to draw their attention,” Orion whispers, his breath a brush of air against the back of my neck.
“They might not know exactly where we are, though.” Dani’s soft murmur comes from right behind me. I didn’t even hear either of them move. They’re both a bit farther back in the shadows, but the half wall is low enough that they can see the automaton lurking not that far away.
I hold my breath, counting the seconds and willing her to be right, willing the Archangel to move on past the ruins.
No such luck.
The Archangel swings toward us, its glowing golden eyes shining like beams right on the partially intact room we’re crouching in. Its head spins completely around, revealing a second metal mask on the back. One that’s all twisted, righteous anger, with orange-yellow light streaming from its narrowed eyes and snarling mouth.
“Ah,” Dani sighs. “Shit.”
The Archangel raises its arm, its enraged mask bleeding golden light, and the hand at the end of it starts to change, the pieces twisting and shifting position until it looks less like a hand and more like a—
“Is that acannon?” Orion bursts out.
I don’t even stop to think about it. I just grab both of them, reach for Trinity’s song, and phase away before the Archangel’s weapon explodes with a blast of energy twice as big and twice as hot as a pulse pistol. We reappear in an ungainly tangle on the back side of the ruins. I’m splayed out on the ground, breathing hard, heart pounding and head ringing a little bit. The air around me tastes like the ozone of a magnastorm, and my whole body tingles with power.
