Yassen turned. There was a stricken look in his eyes.
“They’ve already come for the ore,” she said.
“They still don’t know we’re here,” he said.
But she did not hear him. She could already see it, the metal lifted from the mountain. Heading to Jantar’s factories, where it would be melted lightning quick into zeemirs, long-range guns,Phoenix Above, into those damn metal tanks. Fear spidered down her throat, thick and hairy.
Have we already lost?she thought.Will Ravence ever be saved?
And then she heard Yassen, heard him repeat,They still don’t know we’re here.
“You’re right,” she said, and she felt the heat of her inferno, the weight of its burden sink into her chest. “They don’t know. So we still have a chance.”
“Elena.”
She hurried into the cabin. The holopod wasn’t on the kitchen counter. She rushed into the bathroom, the bedroom, found it on the bedside table.
“Summon the map,” she said as Yassen entered the room.
Yassen hesitated, standing in the doorway. “Press your thumb against it.”
She looked at him in confusion, but when she pressed her thumb to the pod, it opened. “How?”
“I programmed it for you,” Yassen said, and there was a tired acceptance in his voice. He looked at her. “I know you won’t sit still.”
She went to him. “I know it’s dangerous. But wemustdo something, Yassen.”
He did not say anything, but she saw the war on his face. The lines between his brows that appeared when he was thinking hard. The tightness of his lips. She saw him as well as he saw her.
He pushed past her, walking to the window. Beside it, two wooden shelves lined the wall. They were bare except for one holo, frozen in a crystal like a traditional photograph.
She had not noticed it last night, lost as she was in her grief. But now she approached the shelf and studied the image. There was a tall, burly man with straight, pale hair combed neatly to the side. Next to him stood a small woman with desert-black hair and kind brown eyes. She had a gentle smile, and that alone seemed to balance the man’s stern expression. Between them stood a small boy, perhaps six suns. He had the same pale hair and eyes as the father, but his smile was that of his mother: soft and easy, uninhibited by the demands of the world. The boy seemed to lean away from the man, as if to shirk his influence, but Elena recognized the similarities in their posture, the clarity in their eyes.
She lifted the crystal and brought it closer. Though the boy stood nearer to the woman, he was more of the father than the mother.
“I’d forgotten about that picture.”
Elena turned to see the boy in the crystal, watching her. Except he was older now, stronger, and more haggard.
“When was this taken?” she asked.
“The summer before my father died,” Yassen said.
“You have your mother’s smile.”
“Some would say so,” he said. “I wish she and Father were here now. A queen in their cabin! Me, bickering with her.” He gave her a small smile. “They would’ve been beside themselves.”
She glanced at him. “I think they would’ve been more excited to see you come home.”
She noticed a slight tremor in his hand as he took the crystal and set it back down. She touched his elbow.
“The mines,” she began.
“Elena,” he sighed. “It’s dangerous.”
“I know,” she said quietly. She felt the thrum of fire in her veins, heard its whisper. “And if we do it, we’d explode the mines. Start wildfires. Endanger the town. But,” she said, forcing her voice to stay steady and sound strong even though her stomach twisted into a knot, “if we don’t, if we simply pass beneath those tunnels and run, then hundreds, thousands of Ravani will die. Maybe not today, but in a week’s time. A month. A sun. Ravence will become the new Seshar, Yassen, and then where will we run?”
He said nothing, and she stepped closer.
