No.
Selma raised an eyebrow. “How do you know that?”
“We’ve got an informant.” Jorek retorted. ”There’s a promotion ceremony planned. High command’ll be there. All of them, celebrating.”
“And what—you're gonna hide in the cake?” Selma scoffed. “Sounds like bullshit to me.”
“Then… stay… home,” Eryx drawled.
“We leave at dawn,” Jorek continued. ”Two days from now.”
“Do we even have weapons?” someone asked from the back.
“Knives,” Jorek said. “And eighteen rifles. If you’ve got your own, bring them.”
“And what if we lose?” another voice asked. “What if we get caught?”
“Then they kill us,” Aran said, like it was painfully obvious.
“Then maybe we don’t go. Maybe we wait.”
“We’ve waited long enough.” Jorek stared coldly at all of us, like he was daring anyone to argue.
“But we’re not soldiers—” someone shot back.
“No,” Aran cut in. “But we’re not cowards either.”
Then the shouting blurred together, dozens of voices rising at once, too many to separate. Someone yelled they didn’t want to die. Someone else told them to grow up. A few started pushing, shoving, snapping at each other, like panic had finally reached its boiling point.
I couldn’t move.
The air was too thick, too hot, full of breath and sweat and fear. Bodies pressed in around me, loud and shifting, and I had nowhere to go.
“LISTEN TO ME.” Jorek roared.
Everyone jolted. He leaned in over the table, his voice razor-thin. “No one talks about this. Not to anyone. Not a hint, not a whisper. If this gets out—even by accident—we do not get warnings. Do you get that? No trials. No graves. We’ll just be gone.”
Then Idalie, of all people, cleared her throat. “So… are we all in? I mean—girls too?”
The question sucked the air right back out of the room.
Eryx snorted. “What, you want us to bring everyone’s little sisters?”
“We can fight,” Selma snapped.
“If we lose,” Eryx said, “You’ll have to be here to repopulate Novil.”
A few boys laughed.
Selma didn’t.
“Funny,” she said. “But I’m a better fighter than most of you. I even had a soldier by the throat last night.”
“Yeah,” Eryx snorted, “until he disarmed you and knocked you flat on your ass.”
“And you’re better? You just stood there and watched him choke Aran!”
Eryx opened his mouth, then shut it again. Selma was right. No one else had dared to intervene. Maybe we were all cowards after all.
