“This may be the only chance we have.”
“There it is,” I say. “The sentence that turns a person into a sacrifice.”
Rosalind flinches, just a little. Good. Let it hurt someone else. I know where this ends.
“You are not being sacrificed,” Adran says.
I laugh, and it comes out dry and ugly.
“Everyone says that before they start counting how useful your death would be.”
Silence crashes over the room. Too late, I realize what I’ve said. Not because it isn’t true. Because truth spoken in council chambers has consequences.
Marut’s face goes hard. Ila’s closes. Dannel looks away. Adran doesn’t. Neither does Kavor.
Rosalind’s expression changes in a way I don’t have the strength to name. Pity, maybe. Respect, maybe. I don’t want either.
Kavor steps forward. Only one step. The guards tense anyway, but he ignores them.
“You misunderstand,” he says.
My anger finds him because it needs somewhere to burn.
“Do I?”
“Yes.” His voice is calm. Damn him. He’s infuriating. “I do not need someone willing to die. There are too many of those. I need someone who refuses to waste a life.”
No one breathes for half a second. Neither do I. Kavor’s eyes do not leave mine.
“You count portions,” he says. “Steps. Heat. Breath. Risk. You hate waste.”
I swallow. It hurts.
“So do I.”
The terrible little space beneath my ribs opens wider. Not softer. Wider. Like the ground before it gives way. I look away first.
At the slate. At the columns. At the impossible numbers. At all the mouths attached to those marks.
Mira’s shaking hands. Tal’s narrow wrists. Jessa’s baby. Orin’s fever-bright skin. Anik’s bandaged feet.
Five portions. Six tokens.
Food. Heat. Strength.
Epis.
Zemlja.
I hate the shape of the answer before anyone says it. That’s how I know it’s already closing around me.
“When?” I ask.
My voice sounds as if it belongs to someone else.
Adran exhales. Rosalind closes her eyes. Marut mutters something under his breath. Syin’s gaze sharpens with satisfaction or suspicion. Maybe both. Kavor doesn’t move.
“Before first heat,” he says. “If we go.”
