in the sky. Do you know when the ocean fog rolled off the icebergs, it appeared as if it floated above the clouds?”
“Sounds beautiful.”
“Was. It’s gone now.” She couldn’t stem the sadness in her words. “Everything is dead and gone. Soon we’ll be no more.”
“It’s not over yet.”
“It’s been twenty years.”
“How long did our ancestors wait after the Fall to walk the Earth again? If they’d given up, where would we be now?”
Her lips pressed tight. “I’m not giving up.” She was just tired.
“Good because there is a world outside of this kingdom. A life you can have that doesn’t involve the Enclave or dragons or even volcanoes.” He handed her some pants.
She pulled them on, pensive. She couldn’t imagine anything outside the mountain. And wasn’t that the problem? For years she knew they were dying penned in the Necropolis. Had kept them all there after her father died because she’d been too afraid. Afraid of the unknown.
But now what choice did she have?
“What about the others?” She went looking for something to put on her feet.
“We’ll bring them with us, of course.”
“Not all will make the journey.”
He agreed. “A good number of them might die.”
She liked that he never lied, even as she hated it. “I can’t make that decision. They’ll have to—”
He sliced a hand through the air. “Yes, you will, because you have to. You’re the one they look to.”
“I never asked to be a leader. It happened over time. More by accident than anything. I was too young when my father died. And those closest to him were gone, leaving a void in the command structure that let a bully step in.”
“How did that go over?”
She shook her head. “Not well. Hordan didn’t last long, given his first order was to try and have all the girls between fourteen and sixteen years presented for his enjoyment.” It was a mother who threw the first rock.
Once Hordan was gone, other bullies tried to push themselves into place. They lasted even less time.
“Eventually, the role fell to you.”
She sat on the bed, dressed and finger combing her hair. “By then we were decimated in numbers. With all the sorties my father and the other adults made, especially to the tower, we had no one left.”
“They were looking for the tunnels,” he mused aloud.
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “Then again, if he knew about tunnels, surely we wouldn’t have spent the first ten years of our apocalypse under the castles.”
“I don’t know why he delayed so long, but given what you see here”—he swept a hand—“now what do you think?”
She sighed. “I can tell you we all thought he was crazy when he became obsessed with it. At first, he sent scouts. The first group never returned. The second group was larger. and only one came back, grievously wounded.”
“Was he able to tell what attacked him?”
“A dragon, Kevlarr claimed. The biggest ever. They called him Old Red.” Her head ducked. “My father always had a knack with dragons. People used to say he talked to them.” Sometimes she felt as if she and Gellie spoke, too. Cave delusions. Dragons didn’t speak. “He decided to go see this drake.”
“And never returned,” Cam stated, his expression grim.
“Nope. This tower is where he died.” She ran her hand over the mattress. “Or so I was told. There was only one survivor. Zee. And he was traumatized at the loss of his daughter. A lot of good people died that day.” Their bravest and toughest.
A few years later, when they put her in charge—mostly because they’d run out of idiots who wanted the job—she’d chosen the path that led to the fewest casualties.
Hiding. Never leaving the mountain. Waiting to die…
“There you are looking grim again.”
She stood and paced. “Did you ever get to the point in your life where you just couldn’t see a future? Where everything seemed hopeless?”
“I was born in a cage and lived in one for seven years. During that time, they broke every bone in my body, sometimes more than once. Burned me. Beat me. Made me bleed. I couldn’t see past the pain most of the time.”
She sucked in a breath. “Who would do that to a child?”
“The Emerald Enclave. The queen was a sadistic despot with obedient sycophants.”
“How did you escape?”
“I fought. I decided I wasn’t going to be a prisoner anymore.” A flat statement and in it she could read the violence and death it entailed.
“At least you knew when to act. I waited too long.”
“Or you waited