In my tiny, cell-like room, I threw my few possessions into my rucksack as quickly as I could, stopping more than once and staring at it in doubt.

I shouldn’t do this. It’s impossible. But…but if I don’t…

If I didn’t leave now, my life would be forfeit. I had no other choice. Stay and die or leave and possibly live.

I tied up the rucksack and hurried out, keeping to the shadows as I made my way to the city gate, relieved to see a familiar figure already there waiting for me. As much as I wanted to keep him by my side, I wasn’t certain about bringing him with me.

“I don’t think you should come,” I told him, not for the first time. “You have a life here. You’re getting your promotion!”

Caius took my hands, shaking his head. “I am coming with you whether you want me or not. I will not let you do this alone. I told you that I’m only alive because of you.”

Tears burned my eyes. Of all the pain and horror in my life, at least I had found my one true person. Someone who made me feel like a human instead of a thing.

“Tell me again about this walking city you found.”

Caius grinned. “It’s a moving city, on some kind of mechanism that requires no horse to pull it, and it’s an entire city on top! It’s magnificent, you’ll see.”

I frowned as we started climbing the wall. I couldn’t imagine such a thing at all. What kind of a city could move? And it was in the Wastelands? I had always been taught that nothing survived out there.

But I suppose if I’m going to die, at least now I’ll die with hope.

I threw myself into the task at hand, ignoring the pain in my body as I scaled the wall, climbing over it and descending as quickly as I could. Caius reached the bottom first, though normally it would have been me waiting there for him. My injuries were slowing me down.

Reaching the bottom, I couldn’t help but look back at the wall of the citadel. Even if it was full of painful memories, it was the only home I had ever really known. And now…I would likely never see it again, not if our escape managed to prove successful.

“Nepha?” Caius asked. “Are you ready?”

I turned, and he held out his hand. Without hesitation, I placed my gloved one in his, letting him pull me away.

“Looks like there’s a rip in the seam,” Caius observed, running a finger along one side of the glove. “Maybe you don’t need to wear these anymore.”

I immediately gripped the glove with my other hand. I didn’t want to take them off, not yet. They felt like…like a shield, something to keep my true identity hidden. I had no idea what I would encounter out there in the wild, what sorts of people I might meet. If they recognized me, they might take me back to High Mortis Kato, to my death.

Caius seemed to sense this and changed the subject. “Come on,” he urged, pulling me along. “Let’s hurry before the sun comes up.”

We would have to climb the mountain the citadel sat on in order to get to the other side and the Wastelands. That was where Caius and his regiment ran into the moving city a year ago.

“They had so many foreign wares to trade, some even from the Sanguine capital!”

It was hard to believe it could be true, but Caius had no reason to lie. And if this moving city could get me away from Anima Mors and the Tricedium, I had to try.

The hike up the mountain was slow-going. I was pushing myself, pushing my body despite the pain I was still in, and I felt every single movement like a jarring pain.

Caius, seeming to sense my struggle, slowed his own pace and took to chatting about nothing. I knew it was an effort to distract me, and I loved him even more for it.

“I brought the bracelet my mother gave me before she passed,” he said. “It’s made of real silver, so I know we can trade it for passage on the moving city. It’s such a strange place, where they value money above all things. They don’t even pray to any gods—can you imagine that?”

I shook my head, breathless as I tried to imagine it. What could such a place be like? A city that was not beholden to any gods…

I glanced back, startled to see the sun rising on the horizon. From this angle, I could see the outline of giant ribs rising up from the land, the ribs of the fallen god, and the place where the capital city of Anima Mors was built, within the bones of the god, protected by them, powered by them.

With any luck, I would never have to step foot in that place. Because if I did, I was as good as dead.

***

By midday, we reached the other side of the mountain. Anima Mors was now blocked from view, and I felt a surge of energy that had me walking faster, as if the distance had weakened the threat of the Morti for me, giving me strength.

But we were also now walking down a decline instead of climbing, and it was far easier on my tired body.

“We’re getting close to the base of the mountain,” Caius said. “The Wastelands are just beyond that.”

My heart clenched. “Are you sure about this, Caius? Convicts are the only ones who chance it in the Wastelands, and they surely die. They never come back!”

“That’s because if they did, they would be shot on sight. We don’t know if they really die out there. Maybe they all survive.”

I frowned, because truthfully I had never really considered that. The Wastelands were a desolate place that I had never heard a single good thing about for the entirety of my life. It was a place I had never thought I would ever have a need to enter, and so I had kept it at a distance, something to fear and avoid.

“Don’t worry,” he said, patting my shoulder. “I will not let you die. We will find the moving city.”

I nodded. “I trust you.”

He grinned, opening his mouth and…whistling?

I blinked. “What was that—”

An arrow whizzed by, barely missing Caius’s shoulder.

I spun, my heart thumping wildly at the sight of soldiers coming toward us down the mountain.

“Halt! Deserters!”

“Run!” Caius shouted.

I took off, Caius right on my heels, weaving and jumping down the base of the mountain. The trees were becoming much thinner the closer we got to the bottom, and I could already feel the heat of the land on my skin, as if the Wastelands were welcoming me into its burning embrace.

I could see it stretching out before me, an endless expanse. The sight had me stopping for a moment, hesitant to go on. And just for a second, I was sorely tempted to turn back, toward the trees and the green that fostered life. What lay ahead was anything but that.

Another arrow whizzed past. The soldiers were gaining on us. They had come here, come after me. If they caught us, I would be dragged back to High Mortis Kato and taken to the capital and killed and torn apart like an animal. It would all be over.

“Go, Nepha!” Caius shouted. “Run!”

I did, kicking up sand as I took off. I was still slower than usual, mostly because I had never run on this sort of terrain before.

“Keep—” Caius broke off, grunting in pain as he fell, tumbling down the slope, an arrow sticking out of his back.

I ran after him, terrified and stumbling in the sand. I tripped and tumbled, my limbs everywhere, pain everywhere as I fell down the slope and into the Wastelands.

I finally caught up with him, climbing to my feet and racing to his side as he groaned.

“Caius!” I gripped the shaft of the arrow in my hands, feeling tears on my face. I tugged slightly, and Caius groaned again.

“No!” he said. “You go! I’ll hold them off!”

“I’m not leaving you!” Nothing would mean anything without him.

Caius reached into his pocket. Something flashed in his hand, and a moment later I felt the warm metal on my wrist as he latched the bracelet there. “Go!” he said. “Find the moving city.”

I could hardly see past the tears as I shook my head. “No, Caius, not without you!”

Caius pushed himself to his feet as the soldiers began to crest the dune behind us. I felt his hand on my face, the briefest touch before he pulled away.

“Be free, Nepha.”

And he charged the soldiers.