Meaning this all happened last night, when I arrived at the Ark. I barely missed it.

“They’re alive, though? Marin? Pewter? Our pack?”

“Were when they were taken.”

The raiders couldn’t have stayed here, not after setting the huts ablaze. But to leave while last night’s storm approached . . . They must know something we don’t. Another settlement nearby. Somewhere with shelter.

Old Fang’s eyes roll, and he leans heavily into my arms. “I want to lie down, Delta. I want to see the stars.”

I pull my hand from behind him, lower him softly to the ground. He smiles up at the stars, those indifferent bastards, the gods who abandoned us. He looks at them as though they mean the world, when really they mean nothing. They have brought us loss and misfortune. They have sat idly by my whole life, watching our earth die, refusing to help us.

They’re not coming back. I realize this with a certainty I’ve never experienced before. It’s undeniable. The gods abandoned us eons ago, and they have no intention of returning. Curse what the stars say. Damn those stories of rebirth. It’s not coming.

“Where’s . . . Indie?” Old Fang manages.

“Dead.”

His brow wrinkles, and a tear breaks down his cheek.

I shake my head, worried that if I cry too, I’ll never stop. “Her girl lived, though. Here.” I lift Baby from the sling and lower her onto Old Fang’s chest.

Baby squirms and fusses.

Old Fang manages a smile.

I think about what Zuly said, about one life leaving and another taking its place. But that’s not what happened here. Three people are dead, four if I count Indie. Everything is dying, even the cursed cycle of life. Death outweighs birth.

“I don’t know what to do,” I tell Old Fang. “What am I supposed to do?”

He wheezes, struggling to raise his arm. He puts a pinkie beside Baby’s flailing fists. Lets her fingers curl around his.

“Fang, where am I supposed to go? There’s nothing here. I can’t take care of Baby. I need to know what to—”

His hand falls away, hitting the lakebed with a muted thump.

“Fang?”

His blank eyes still stare at the stars.

“Fang!”

Baby starts crying. This time I cry with her, and the stars watch.

I make a pyre for the deceased and send them back to the sky.

Even after everything, I can’t bring myself to surrender our traditions. Rotting beneath the sun feels incredibly cruel—more suffering after a life of it—so I send their souls to the stars.

Standing upwind to avoid the worst of the smell, I watch the flames devour the corpses. When they are nothing but ash, I finally speak.

“Rest easy.”

It is what we say to all our deceased. One final prayer that, in the afterlife, they will suffer less than they did in the wastes.