I’m not sure what does it. Maybe my tone, or the desperation that’s certainly showing on my face. Maybe it’s simply that the Prime is the type of ruler the General will never be—firm but kind, someone who truly cares about her people. Whatever it is, I watch her opinion shift, her face softening.

“Reaper,” she says, calling over her shoulder, “may we borrow a watchtower?”

“Whatever you need,” the woman replies.

Orders are shouted, and in a blink the Prime and I are ascending a ladder to relieve one of the guards. The watchtower is small, and with the Prime less than an arm’s length away, her annoyance with me is as obvious as an incoming dust storm. “What is it?” she asks bluntly.

“I need your help taking on Bedrock. My pack is dying. Everyone there is dying. The sleeping ilk keeps them slow and weak. The General works them until they fail.”

“And you think this is news to me? That I do not see it every moon when I bring him a shipment of powder?”

“Then why don’t you do something?”

“We are doing something,” the Prime says. “I take people in. I keep them safe. I bargain with the devil until I can do more than bargain.” Her eyes flit away from me, toward the Reaper below us.

“What’s the prototype? Is it something that can stop him?”

“Maybe. But not yet.”

“What do you need? I’ll do anything to help.”

“We need time, Delta. You can help by harvesting sulfur and letting me do my job.”

“But there isn’t any time. Don’t you get it?”

“It is you who does not get it,” the Prime snarls. “I have one shot at this. One. If I act before we are ready, if I take him on with even a sliver in my armor, he will find it and he will destroy us. That’s how perfect our execution has to be. I will attack only when that attack will be a success, because if I fail again, it will be more than an eye that I’ll lose.”

I shudder, recalling the moment the General’s falcon held his beak near my face, how a mere whistle would have cost me an eye. How my compliance saved it.

“What happened?” I ask the Prime.