But what I don’t tell him is that I have seen a horde. I press my palms into my eyes until it hurts, trying to erase the memory, trying to push it down but still it comes.

I was a kid, lost in the Forest with Elias after leaving my sister. I remember how much my feet hurt, how sore my legs were and how proud Elias kept saying he was of me because I was still walking, because I was trying so hard to be a big girl. I remember him holding my hand, helping me up the mountain path, and the fences on either side, always the fences that went on and on and on.

I remember when we got to the top. How Elias froze, holding me behind him. It made me angry. He’d told me I was a big girl so I peeked my head around him until I saw what he did. It was beautiful, mountains stretching out in front of us for as far as you could see.

But that wasn’t why Elias stopped. He was looking down. Into the valley. I followed his gaze and saw the path winding into the trees, the hint of a road wrapping around the mountain partway down. He tried to turn me away before I saw the rest. He even grabbed me, pushing his hand over my eyes, but it was too late. I’d seen them in the valley. The people strewn like wilted flowers. There were so many that a line from a song we’d been taught came to mind, about the lilies in the valley.

“How are there so many?” I’d asked Elias. I’d never known that such a massive number of people could have ever existed in the world.

His face was white, his fingers cold and shaking. “We have to turn around, Annah. We have to go back. Now.” His voice was low.

I swallow as I remember that feeling, that shock as I realized the scope of the Unconsecrated. Until that moment I’d never comprehended that many in one place. I’d seen them against the fences, pawing against the metal links trying to get into the village. They’d followed us along the path, always moaning and reaching.

But never had there been so many. There were more bodies in that valley than stars in the night sky.

Elias had grabbed my hand, but to comfort me or him I still don’t know. “They’re downed. We can’t let them sense us or they’ll wake up and then I don’t know if we’ll be able to get away.”

I sat, refusing to move. “We can’t go back, Elias,” I had whined. I was tired and hungry and sad and upset. So disappointed. I’d felt like we were close but here was another obstacle that meant we’d be trapped in the Forest forever. My lip began to shake. “We already tried all those other paths. They were locked and you said this was the only way.” I began crying, I couldn’t help it.