troops had to straggle their way, single file, along the few strips of land that emerged from the icy pits. The horses were led, one by one, along the narrow, tussocked paths; they kept their heads low and their nostrils wide, sniffing at the edges of the trail. Only once we reached the forest could the troops mass properly. Now they waited, row upon row. A few wore the blue uniforms of the island’s guards, but more were wrapped in their own winter clothes, ragged and patched. Their faces were muffled against the snow. Nobody spoke. I looked away from them to the frozen trees around us. The icicles, stiff as the fingers of corpses. Everything seemed sharpened, as if I were seeing it for the first time.
I thought of the Ark papers that were hidden somewhere within the walls. And I thought again of those small hands clinging to the boards of the nailed-shut wagon. We were already too late to keep the children from the tanks. I thought, too, of Elsa and Nina, waiting within the walls. What we were about to do might make no difference to their fate—my dreams had shown me too much blood for me to have any faith that tonight’s attack could free the town. Perhaps that was the only difference we could make: that if the people in New Hobart went to the tanks, they would at least go knowing that we had fought for them.
I’d felt the troops staring at me as I walked to my place with Piper and Zoe. My whole body was a trap, to lure these people into a battle that could not be won.
I turned to Piper.
“I’m lying to them,” I whispered haltingly, my breath uneven.
He shook his head, keeping his voice low. “You’re giving them hope.”
“It’s the same thing,” I said. It was the first time I’d spoken so bluntly about what I’d seen. “There isn’t any hope. There’re too many Council soldiers. In my visions, there’s too much blood.”
“No,” he said. He bent slightly, so that his face was close to mine. In the night air, the steam of his breath hung white. “You’re fighting, even though you’ve seen us lose. You’ve known all along, and you’re still standing here, ready to fight. That’s hope, right there.”
There was no time to say anything else. The troops were gathered in the expectant dark. They were watching Simon, waiting for him to step forward and address them. But Simon turned to Piper.
“You were always better at this than me,” he said.
“You’re their leader now,” Piper said quietly.
The older man shook his head. “I’m in charge of them. That’s not the same thing. They’ll do what I tell them to, sure enough. But I haven’t led them. Not since I brought you out to the island, all those years ago. You lead them, Piper.”
He put a hand on Piper’s arm. They exchanged a long look. Then Simon raised his arm to his head, in a small salute. The troops whispered, and shifted to see more clearly, as Simon stepped back.
When Piper moved forward to address them, the whispers stopped.
“Our Omega brothers and sisters are waiting for us, in New Hobart,” he said, his voice cutting through the dark air. “I can’t promise you that we will free them. But the alternative is to wait, while the Council steals from us more and more lives. They’ll see us all tanked, if we don’t stand against them. After centuries of Alpha oppression, there is no place, anymore, for Omegas in this world, except the one we begin to build here, tonight. It may be that we build it with our own blood—but the tanks are worse than death.”
He turned his head, unhurried, to survey the entire mass of troops before him. “The Council underestimated us,” he announced, his voice loud and clear, “just as they always have done. They thought we would be crushed—that year after year of tithes and beatings and hunger would leave us broken, and ready to submit to new horrors. To go meekly to the tanks. They were wrong.
“Because they don’t allow us to marry, they think we don’t weep when our wives or husbands are beaten, or killed. Because we can’t bear children, they think we don’t mourn when they take the children we have raised. Because they see no value in our lives, they don’t believe that we will fight for those lives, and for one another. Tonight we show them that our