Revenant Slaves Chapter 47: Chapter 46: Ash

Read chapter 47 of Revenant Slaves by Zee on NovelPedia.

Chapter 46: Ash If the worst came to pass, and the rebellion demanded too much; if Maya or the others decided his people were acceptable losses for some greater objective, then Ash knew he could still sway and protect his people, but caught between the rebellion and the sovereigns, he really didn’t have much of a choice of company. He trusted himself to know the difference when the time came. The rebels called them allies. Ash was not stupid enough to mistake that for equality. That was the part that still sat badly with him. The rebels seemed proud whenever they explained how much had already been planned before the first open rising. Their routes, their stockpiles, their hidden cells, their fallback lines, their timings, their contacts in the cities, all of it had been prepared months or years in advance. They seemed to think that would reassure him. It only proved that they, too, had counted people like him as part of the cost. The sovereigns counted slaves as numbers. The rebels did it more kindly. Ash walked deeper into Cinderwake, his people around him, and took in what the city had become. He saw families gathered in the streets, unwilling to trust the damaged buildings around them. He saw women sitting against walls with children crowded around them. He saw men staring at collapsed roofs and dead lights, as if they no longer knew what to do with their own hands. He saw children wrapped in cloth and industrial blankets, huddled close to their mothers or older siblings. The fear in their faces struck too close to home. That did not soften him. If anything, it made him angrier. There were children everywhere. For one bitter moment, he stood there and counted what he could see on the first street alone. There were more than twenty children there, in one stretch of Cinderwake. His own settlement had raised twenty-three children in all the years of his life. Twenty-three. That was all his people had managed under slavery, punishment, hunger, and the constant terror of being denied the right to family. And now only thirteen of those children were still alive. Thirteen. Of those, several were badly injured, leaving the future of his people uncertain. These people had lived with streets full of children while Ash’s people had worked the mines and calderas with almost none of their own. That knowledge sat in his chest like poison. The civilians of Cinderwake looked frightened now. They looked hungry, exhausted, and desperate, too much like his own people. But where had all that pain been when slaves suffered? Had any of them lifted a hand to help? Had any of them hidden a child, fed a family, or spoken out against what kept their lives comfortable? Or had they simply watched, accepted, and enjoyed what slavery bought them? Ash looked away before the question could become anything softer. He did not want to hear what Zain would say if he were awake enough to argue with him. Something self-righteous, probably. Something about helping because they could, or about not becoming the kind of people they hated. Ash continued toward the train station. The splinter team had already secured the area with almost no resistance. That surprised him less and less the further they moved into the city. Cinderwake had lost most of its will to fight. Whatever remained of its defenders seemed beaten long before Ash, and the others had arrived. The remains of the sovereigns' forces looked dejected, and that gave him a grim satisfaction he did not bother hiding. The sovereigns had abandoned them, and it showed in how quickly they surrendered, in how little fight remained in them, and in how enraged they looked now that Bentlix stood before them in chains. Good, Ash thought. Let them feel what abandonment tasted like. Still, even as the thought came, he was already thinking ahead. The surrendered soldiers could be used. If they truly bent the knee, then they could be sent ahead when it came time to push inland. If someone had to hold the exposed positi