“I don’t want it. I don’t know how to lead.”

“I think you underestimate yourself.”

I lick my lips and glance out over the balcony. Powder Town’s forces are combing the fields, separating the injured from the dead. I can make out several water wagons, too, which I’m sure are filled with clean water for the ilked-up workers. Beyond the wall, crumbling where the blast barrels did damage, the wastes beckon. The horizon is a shimmering wall, rippling in the heat. A dark trail in the dry earth shows where the spilled water had begun snaking toward the Barrel. If we open the upper dam, just above the General’s quarters, will that water reach the Serpent and in turn Dead River?

“You’re considering going home,” the Prime realizes aloud.

“No. I was thinking about home, but all the things that made it home are gone. I won’t return there.”

“Selfishly, I’m glad. We need you. The people believe in you.”

“They believe in the gods, and that the gods have blessed me somehow, neither of which is true.”

The Prime exhales. “You may not be gods touched, but you have a godly power on your side, Delta. You have inspired my people, given the wastes hope. I’d like to offer you a place in my Trinity.”

“Not much of a Trinity with four pillars.”

“A Tetrad then,” she amends. “You would be a trusted adviser. Delta the Goddess. A beacon of hope. A pillar of faith.”

I frown. “You ask me to be the symbol of something that isn’t real. Something I haven’t believed in for years. It’s deceitful.”

“Hope is important. And the people will need hope now more than ever as we rebuild this haven, as it becomes our paradise.”

She sounds just like Amory, and I can’t decide if that is dangerous or necessary.

I glance at the General’s body, the patch on his chest. He is so fair-skinned, I doubt he was a direct descendent of Amory. More likely Amory gave the patch to someone he trusted before passing, and it continued to be traded that way until leadership fell to the unworthy man at my feet.

“Just because someone dreamed something long ago,” the Prime says, “does not mean that the dream isn’t real. The gods are real to these people, Delta. They’ve given them a reason to keep going. We cannot take that away.”

She’s asking me to never speak of Amory again. To swallow the truth. To let the people believe that the Verdant has always been here, in Bedrock. That after years of prayer and servitude, the gods saw fit to deliver this paradise to the deserving people.

“The General said the waterfall was running dry,” I tell the Prime. “I don’t know how many years it has left, how long this Verdant will last.”