I fall asleep repeating this vendetta and wake only once, shivering. Something tightens near my stomach. I look for Bay, the sling, but of course she’s not there. It’s Asher’s arm. He’s moved beside me in the night, curled his body around mine. I almost elbow him off, but he’s warm, a comfort.

I nuzzle nearer, soaking up his heat, and in the morning I shift away before he wakes and can see that I needed him.

Chapter Twenty

A shadow falls over us by midmorning. I put a hand to my forehead, shielding my eyes, and tip my head back.

“Vulture?” I suggest. The bird is a dark silhouette against the sky. It doesn’t look big enough to be a vulture, but I don’t know why any other animal would waste energy following us.

“Looks more like a falcon,” Asher answers. “Maybe one of the General’s.”

“Well, that would be unfortunate.”

We’re trying to make light of things, but we both search the horizon as we pause to drink from our waterskins. There’s no sign of anyone following us. Perhaps it’s a wild falcon, scavenging like every living thing in the wastes. We finished the last of the jerky this morning and my lips are now blistered and raw. If we don’t make it to Powder Town today, the bird might be rewarded with two corpses to pick at.

I stuff my hands into my jacket pockets, protecting them from the sun. “How much longer?”

“Hard to say. Soon, I think.” Asher pauses at a tributary. It’s wide, deep even. I peer through the rust-colored water and feel like I’m looking into a crevice. The strange coloring plays tricks on the eye.

As we start looking for a place to cross, a gust of hot air hits my sunburned cheeks. The bird screeches overhead and peels away. I’m wondering what’s spooked the creature, when the ground erupts. Water shoots from the crevice and into the sky, roaring like a beast.

“Geyser!” I scream. I grab Asher at the wrist and haul him back. The water erupts like a wall, pushing up through the crevice. A droplet scalds the back of my hand, but I don’t dare take another step away. A hot pool waits right behind us.

Still gripping Asher’s arm, I watch the cascading wall of water peter out as it moves through the crevice. When it’s not trying to kill you, it’s almost pretty.

“That bird nearly got his meal early,” Asher says once things are quiet.

I twist, searching the skies, but the bird has vanished. Scared off by the geyser, I think, but then I spot the truth to the east: dust. Not a true storm, from the width of it, but a decent squall. It’s bearing down on us fast.