“Fine! Go!” I scream into the darkness. “It’s not like I want you around anyway, you coward. I’ll find it on my own. I’ll save them on my own. And since I have supplies, I’ll be just fine, and you’ll be the one picked apart by vultures.”

My words echo back to me, and I stand there a moment, feeling like a toddler throwing a tantrum. Still, I expect him to emerge from the shadows, drawn back by logic. He won’t even make it to West Tower without water. But he doesn’t return, and I’m left alone with the darkness, the guilt.

I face north.

It’s like Ma said all those years ago. Asher’s his own person, free to make his own choices. I didn’t mean to get him cast from Powder Town, but it happened, and I can’t change it, and I certainly can’t beat myself up over his choosing to walk to certain death instead of staying with the rucksack filled with provisions.

That’s his call.

He’s choosing himself. I’m choosing my pack.

That’s all there is to it.

Despite the late hour, I’m wide-awake, high-strung and focused. Might as well take advantage of my energy and the coolness of night.

I follow Powder Town’s wall as it ropes around the settlement. Where it butts up to the foothills, I continue north. For a while I can see the Serpent to my left, winking in the moonlight, but it flows down the hills from the west and is soon behind me. I wonder if it’s the last free-flowing water I’ll see between here and the Verdant.

I walk well into the night, until the foothills start to fade out. There, I curl against one of the last boulders and sleep briefly. Just enough to feel rested. When I wake, dawn’s first light is spilling over the wastes.

I fish the binos from my rucksack—the same pair Asher and I lifted off the Loyalists after escaping from the Barrel. As I scan the horizon, my heart beats rapidly at the prospect of the Verdant in the distance, a swatch of brilliant, fertile green. Instead, all I can see is sand-colored earth stretching on forever. Of course. The map wasn’t to scale, and at minimum, I probably have fifty clicks to go.

I glance over my shoulder.

Asher’s trailing me, his hair brilliant in the morning sun.

I don’t slow down, but I don’t try to lose him either.