Page 34 of Deathless
"The metal is." She pulled the dead ingot from his tray and set it on the rim of the brazier.
Nicu stood there with his mouth half open on whatever grand finale he'd been building toward. One more look from Amparo and he closed it and sat down, crossing his arms.
Amparo pulled a fresh ingot from the coals. The glow lit up her face, and she held it there for a beat, letting everyone see it. Then she set it in my tray.
Heat came off it in waves. I stood up. The cold left my legs. The ingot sat there, pulsing like something alive.
"Nicu's right," I said.
The room shifted. Nicu's chin came up.
"Yeah, I left. That's on me. Brought people here too. Guilty." The ingot still glowed. "And if my tío was sitting in this chair instead of me, he'd say exactly what Nicu just said. Probably louder. Definitely with more creative insults."
I shifted my weight. My ribs were killing me from the mountain.
"But here's the thing. My tío's dead. Someone walked into his shop Tuesday morning and put two bullets in him. And I wasn't here." I tasted copper. "So those men? They didn't follow me here, hermano. They were already coming."
Nicu opened his mouth.
"I'm not done." I looked at him until he closed it. "The Pantheon didn't give a shit about this valley until they needed something from us. They came because Emilio was the spine. They came because they knew how to break the network before the exiles showed up."
I turned to the circle.
"Nicu's worried about exposing the network. I get it. But Zeus already knows we're here. He sent men into this valley and killed my tío in his own shop. The network Emilio built is already burning. We didn't light the fire, and we can't put it out by pretending it isn't there."
"Nicu says we survive by keeping our own house. Yeah? How'd that work out Tuesday morning? We can hide. We can hand this guy over and pray they leave us alone. And maybe they will." I pressed my fists against my knees. "Or maybe they'll do whatthey always do. Come down that mountain and take what they want because we don't have the power to stop them."
Beni tightened his jaw. Mateo gripped his knee.
"This man walked through their blockade to get here. He can't walk back through it. He brought us intel on a resistance. Luka Aleksandar's alive. Rafael Oliviera's alive. There's a fight building, and he just handed us a way in."
The ingot died. Mierda.
"So kill him if you want. Vote him dead. But those men on the ridge are coming either way." I sat down hard, and the cold shot back through my legs. "And I'd rather go down swinging than on my knees praying they'll be kind."
Amparo lifted my ingot from the tray and set it on the rim. The dead metal clicked against the coals. I pressed my knees together because they wanted to shake, and I wasn't letting them.
Nicu raised his hand. "I'd like to respond."
Of course he would.
Amparo pulled a fresh ingot with the tongs, held it up, and set it in his tray.
Nicu stood. He didn't bother buttoning his jacket this time. Whatever performance he'd been running before, he'd dropped it for something leaner.
"The Pantheon came because Hephaestus was in the wind and they knew exactly where he'd go. The war followed Diego here." He folded his hands. "When has fighting the gadje's war ever ended in anything but our blood on their ground?"
Beni spoke from his seat without standing. "The children we took in from that facility in Alaska are real, Nicu."
"The children are real," Nicu said. "How long before the next set of gadje decide we're useful, then decide we're not?"
Beni closed his mouth. The ingot cooled in Nicu's tray, and I gripped my knees and waited for it to die.
It went dark. Amparo pulled it.
The next ingot went to Beni. He stood slowly, the way big men stand when they're not in a hurry. Beni ran the metalworkers out of the southern valley. He had hands like dinner plates and a voice that filled rooms.
"My wife's been feeding those kids for a week. Knows their names. Knows which ones won't eat with their backs to a door. Which ones sleep with shoes on in case they need to run." He put his hands in his pockets. "I don't know this man. Don't trust him. But my wife trusts what she sees in those children. That's enough for me."
