“All the more reason for you to stay. Help me rebuild this city. Help me scout above the Backbone and survey the water supply. If it is dwindling, there must be a reason why. Be a part of something bigger than yourself, Delta. After all, isn’t that what this has always been about? Returning to your pack. And not just to survive a new dawn together, but to live. Truly live.”

She’s right. This was always about saving my pack, securing a better future for Bay. And she might have it now. She could grow up in a world that is just, where hardships won’t outweigh comforts. She will know safety. She will still know loss, because it is truly as Zuly said—the cycle, souls dying, others being born. But we are standing on the cusp of a future where those deaths might only be from illness or old age. Bad luck. No more starvation. No more raids. No more living just to survive.

I want this for her—for everyone on the wastes. I’m just afraid of having a title, as the Prime proposes. I’m afraid of letting people down.

But I won’t be doing it alone.

“No, you won’t,” the Prime says, and I realize I’ve said the last bit out loud. “You’ll have me, the rest of my Trinity, Bay, Asher, your pack, even that Loyalist you’re attached to, if he makes it.”

“We’re blood,” I remind her.

“Yes, the strongest of all bonds.” She holds out a hand. “So what do you say, Goddess? Will you be my fourth pillar?”

It seems fitting in a way, the General and his Four falling so a new, more worthy ruler and tetrad can rise.

“On one condition,” I say finally. “I don’t want goddess or deity or anything divine in my title. I will stand for the people, for the truths they decide to believe. If they ask me about the gods, if they want to know why they truly abandoned us, I will not lie. But if they choose to keep their faith in the stars, I will not discourage them. Hope is important, but so is the truth. Amory never gave people a chance to choose.”

The Prime considers this a moment. “Delta the Verity,” she amends. “A protector of the truth. A champion of our history and beliefs.”

“Deal.” I clasp her forearm, she clasps mine, and we shake, forging a new future.