“Vee, then. Vee’s dead. Because I couldn’t read the map.” I knead my hands together—my useless, worthless hands. Hands that did nothing. Suddenly I’m furious. “Dammit, Asher. If you hadn’t conned me, none of this would have happened.”

“This is on the General, Delta, and you know it.” Asher’s mouth is a thin line. There’s a crease in his brow to match it. “And Bain and Cree conned me first.”

“I know, but you should have fought back. You should have killed them.”

“You say that like killing is easy.”

I don’t tell him that it is, shockingly so. Instead, I look away. The Gods’ Star glints to the north.

“Oh gods, Delta,” Asher says. “When? Why?”

“I had to. I wouldn’t have gotten away if I didn’t.” I risk a glance at him, afraid he’ll be looking at me like I’m a stranger, like he’s terrified of me. But it’s the opposite. He’s looking at me like he wants to take away the hurt, like what I’ve said has cracked him open.

“There was a cart of corpses,” I explain. “Two Loyalists were taking it out of Bedrock to a pyre. I hid under the blanket. The only way out is with the dead.”

“Or with the sewage.”

Despite everything, I feel the corner of my lip twitch into a smile. “One of the Loyalists left early. I killed the other once he was alone, and I took his horse.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“You’re a rotten liar.”

“No, really. He was a Loyalist. He worked for the General. I didn’t like the blood, how easy it was, or the rush I felt in the moment. But it’s not like he didn’t deserve it.”

“He was just trying to get by,” Asher says, taking a swig from his waterskin. “We all are.”

“So we’re just supposed to forgive them? Pretend they don’t have blood on their hands? No, they chose to fall in line with the General, Asher. That Loyalist chose his path.”

“Maybe only because it was the better of two terrible options. Maybe, if there was a way he could pay for his crimes, he could be forgiven, earn his place beneath the stars again. Not right now. Nothing is in place for such practices. But maybe someday.”

I stare at him long and hard. He means it. He believes that no one is too damned to be redeemed. He has hope that some future version of this world exists, where the right people will rule, where the guilty can pay for their crimes and maybe even start over.

“You’re a better person than me.”