He straightens his arms, putting distance between us. “Anyway, I worked with them for about four moons. You were the last job before I could cut loose, the last trade I owed them.” His throat bobs. “Gods, I wish it hadn’t been you.”

My face feels flush from being so close to him. I don’t like it, so I tell myself it’s from the heat of the day and not his nearness. “If it wasn’t me, we wouldn’t have reunited,” I say with a shrug.

“Yes, we would.”

“You don’t know that. I could have been taken when the Loyalists raided Dead River. Or we could have both wandered the wastes for the rest of our lives, never crossing paths.”

“I would have found you again,” he says surely, and I believe him. Asher has faith even when he shouldn’t. He believes wholeheartedly.

He turns and begins leading again. I watch where he steps, but I watch his back, too. Beneath that shirt, we are still alike, even if everything else has changed.

My mood sours quickly in the afternoon, and it’s not only because we won’t be out of Burning Ground by nightfall. Asher keeps trying to make conversation. By the way he steals glances over his shoulder, I can tell he’s trying to cheer me up, but nothing will help.

I remind myself that this was necessary. That staying wouldn’t have solved anything. That the only way to help them was to leave.

It doesn’t lessen the guilt.

Asher comes to a halt at dusk. There’s a pool to our rear and another one ahead, but enough dry land between that we’re not in danger of rolling into boiling water while sleeping. He sits on a small boulder and complains about his aching feet. I’ve had blisters on mine since morning, but the pain has been a welcome punishment. I deserve it, and more.

Asher hands me some jerky. I eat silently, barely looking at him.

“Did you swallow your tongue?” he teases.

“One of them is dead,” I snap. He couldn’t have known, and he was only trying to lighten the mood, but I can’t steady my voice. “At noon. Every third day at noon the General will execute another of my pack.”

Asher’s face pales. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

I stare straight ahead, chewing on my jerky.

“Who?” he asks.

“Alder or Vee. Whoever was oldest.”

“Vee,” Asher says, and of course he would remember more than I do about my own pack, despite being away from them for so long. Of course he has to make me feel even more like a failure than I already do.