We were alone. The ragged breaths became easier to inhale until eventually we could talk.

  “She must’ve made changes that affected the range of the bomb,” panted Elian, “That’s why those monsters got her.”

  “Not monsters. People.” I drew in a deep breath, “That’s the worst part. They’re just stupid, angry, terrified, full-of-hate, no good, arrogant people.”

  I kicked a rock against a tree.

  Monsters made them sound like a nightmare, something you could wake up from, but people, they refused to be shaken off. They clung to the unknown from a distance, letting their fear turn into obsession and hatred, without trying to understand what they didn’t know.

  I should have stayed to help her, gone back to save her. But Elian told me not to and I was stupid enough to trust him.

  “This is your fault.” I pointed a finger at his chest. “If you hadn’t convinced me to leave, I could have been there. I could have helped. I could have done something!” I shouted.

  “And then what? They’d capture you too.” He stood calm and tall, despite being just a few inches taller than me. “Niva did what she did to save us, she knew the risks.”

  “But you said she’d be fine!”

  “I said she knew what she was doing.”

  I dropped my shoulders.

  “So what do we do now?”

  It came out quiet. Neither of us could answer for a while.

  “I’ll help you get back to the other participants, help you all get a place for the night, then I’ll look for her tomorrow when I do what I came here to do.”

  “Which is?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Fine.”

  Each step back through the woods was weighed down with effort, the balls of my feet dragging in the dirt.

  We turned the way we came from but the sun had been setting for a while, darkness making all the paths look the same. Night would fall any minute.

  Luckily the silhouette of the gallows rose in the clearing, illuminated by the budding moonlight.

  “The women have gone. They must’ve used the distraction to run away,” he said, running a hand over the wooden platform.

  “Shame Niva couldn’t do the same.”

  Yes, it was a low blow, but I was angry and sometimes when we’re angry we say things that aren’t very nice.

  “That was uncalled for. Look, I can’t control the choices made by the people I care about but I will damn well do all I can to save them from the consequences, and that means I would do anything to save Niva. Now, are you quite finished?”

  Finished? I had barely begun. What he’d done was worse than me spilling Ramya’s secret to Niva. We might never see her again. He had no guarantee he could save her, and how highly did he think of himself to believe he could take on pretty much everyone in this cursed, stupid era?

  “So, it’s ok to put your friends in danger as long as you get them out, is that it?”

  “If they’re going to be in it no matter what, then yes,” he hissed, exasperated. I snarled.

  “That’s an awful way of looking at the world.”

  “It’s the only way of looking at it and staying sane.”

  Huh. Well, that explained a lot.

  “We should make a camp for the night,” I suggested, not wanting to be exposed when the creatures of the dark came out.

  The chill between us thawed a little.

  “Good idea. We’ll find your friends in the morning.”

  What became of them? Did they find somewhere to stay in the town, in disguise? Or did they stay outside like us, sleeping at the mercy of the forest?

  And what of the other group that went the opposite direction?

  He surveyed the area, casting an approving glance at the distance between the trees. Short enough for lots of cover and shelter but not too close the campfire might catch.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  “This will do. I’ll build a shelter if you get a fire going.”

  It would be nice not to freeze to death. “Deal.”

  I collected firewood from branches lying nearby and piled them up in two separate piles not far away from where Elian set to work arranging bigger branches into some form of shelter.

  Niles dealt with fire often in his role as a blacksmith, and always told me everything he knew, but he never used sticks.

  I looked at the pile of sticks in front of me, wondering how I could get them to spark. It’s not like they taught wilderness survival at the institution. But if Niles caused a spark by banging flint and steel together, maybe I could do the same with wood.

  I scraped two sticks against each other, until they emitted smoke, but no fire.

  Elian glanced over.

  “Do you need any help?”

  “I’ve almost got it.” I replied, rubbing them faster and faster, still to no avail. Small tuffs of smoke emitted from the wood, and it was probably my imagination, but I could have sworn I saw them curl into the shape of Galton’s head.

  Come on Ayla, for once in your life do something useful. You couldn’t save Bruis, you couldn’t save Niva, you can at least save you and Elian from the cold.

  “If you need help –”

  “I can do it!” I shouted, then took in his face, taken aback. Guilt washed over me as I backpedalled. “Sorry I- Sorry.”

  We both returned to what we were doing.

  I tried three more times. Still nothing.

  In the end, I threw them to the ground in frustration, curling my knees towards my chest. Elian finished tying up the last remaining branches on the shelter before kneeling beside me.

  “May I?” He gestured to the pile of firewood.

  I nodded.

  “Do you still have Niva’s backpack? There should be matches in there somewhere.”

  I was so frustrated with myself I hadn’t even thought to check her bag. I dug them out and handed them to him, our hands brushing against each other, the sensation running straight down the pipeline to my heart, a little jolt that made it skip a beat.

  It meant nothing. I was tired.

  With practiced fingers he struck the match and lit the pile of wood on fire.

  “Sorry for yelling,” I apologised, “I don’t know why I did. I just hate feeling useless. I wish I was the person with all the answers, who always knew what they were doing. I –” My nails dug into my palms. “I hate that I’m not.”

  He settled next to me, the fire making his brown eyes dance. Despite everything, his movements were light, the way he sat casual. He made his misery weightless, and I envied him for it.

  “Don’t beat yourself up about it, I’ve learnt to ignore what people say when they’re stressed. And you’ve got more reason than most to be stressed. I saw it when we visited Vocafeum; people are stifled in the institutions. They’re never given the opportunity to grow, to do anything other than what they’re told. I mean what does that do to a person? You never get to prove yourself, always left feeling like you’re not good enough.” He leant forward on his knee, his dark eyes uncomfortably perceptive, like he could see straight through me. “Is that why you almost sacrificed yourself for Niles? To feel like you were worth something? Like you were useful?”

  “Yes.” I frowned. “That’s exactly it.”

  How on earth did he understand that?

  “You don’t need to sacrifice yourself to be useful, Ayla. I promise.”

  “It’s the only way I know how.”

  I looked at him, wondering how many people he’d seen on the warfront sacrifice themselves, believing it was for the greater good.

  “Anyway,” I shifted in my seat, “What about you? Did you have many opportunities to prove yourself growing up at the Estate?”

  “Too many. My father made sure of it. He wasn’t going to have his heir embarrass him in front of the Triumvirate.”

  “That couldn’t have been easy.”

  “It got worse when I joined the army. I… well to put it bluntly I fell in love. His name was Ryatt.”

  Huh, I hadn’t expected a love story to be buried in Elian’s past. I shuffled closer, listening with eager ears, but I sensed this particular story didn’t have a happy ending.

  “What happened?”

  “Ryatt was special. He didn’t treat me like some untouchable member of royalty. To him I was just another soldier. But he was a Typic, and as a Custom, my father wasn’t having that.”

  I imagined Elian on his first day, meeting Ryatt and feeling loved for the first time in his life. Feeling for the first time like he could truly be himself instead of putting up the front he showed everyone.

  “What did you do?”

  “I told him his opinion didn’t matter and I could love who I wanted. A few days later Ryatt left the barracks and was never seen again. I can’t prove anything but I know in my heart he had something to do with it.”

  I watched the fire, burning in full brightness now. His story called to one of my own, but this one was kept locked in a chest of guilt and pain. I buried the chest further. Besides, it was not the time.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Then again, Elian’s story didn’t have to be the one I thought I knew.

  “Actually, you know what? Maybe he’s fine, maybe your father sent him home or transferred him to another regiment and forbade him to contact you. He could still be out there, somewhere.”

  “What I would give for your optimism. No, my father’s not the kind of man to keep loose ends. If… If he did what I think he did, he would’ve finished the job.”

  He shook his head and took a swig of his water bottle. I took out Niva’s from her backpack.

  “A toast then. To Ryatt. And Niva”

  “To Ryatt and Niva.”

  Our bottles clinked together, and we stared into the fire a while, before looking up. The stars shone like bright pinpricks in a blanket of night.

  I often gazed out at them from my room in Vocafeum, but tonight there were more in the sky than I’d ever seen in my life.

  “Look at those stars,” I gasped, “They’re beautiful.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, “They are.”

  He wrapped a blanket around both of us, hugging us in closer to each other. Warm. Safe. A world away from the chaos and hell our lives had become, where death and grief were the norm. A moment of peace, where I didn’t have to fear for my life, or keep my guard up.

  Despite my heart racing I was comfortable and allowed myself to fantasise about staying like this forever. But there was too much to do. This couldn’t last.

  A yawn found its way to my face, and Elian soon copied, closing his eyes and slipping further and further down until his head rested on my shoulders.

  He’d fallen asleep.

  But again, it meant nothing, we were both tired.

  Figures seemed to dance in the flames, the smoke sending me back to another life, where Niles worked the forges and I worked at the infirmary, a life of blood, disease, needles and scalpels. A life balancing the need to help others with the desire to escape.

  Just like that, the feeling of safety was gone.

  My mind turned to Niva, captured, alone, being tortured in her cell. I could even hear the far away echo of her voice.

  Ayla… Ayla…

  “Ayla!”

  I jumped out of my skin.

  From behind a tree, Niva appeared. Twigs in her hair, a hole in her grass-stained coveralls, but otherwise unharmed.