Scavenger of Souls (36 page)

We reach the foot of the trail and begin our climb. If I thought Mercy's burden might slow her down, I was dead wrong. It seems to propel her even faster than usual, and the arm I've lent her becomes less a means of support and more a way for her to drag me along. For easily the thousandth time, I marvel at her energy, her life. I give thanks that this is the woman who chose me to father her child.

But I have to admit, I do worry who that child will be.
What
that child will be. I carry both human and Skaldi genes. What combination of traits will our child possess? The first time I watched a lumpy appendage roll across my wife's stomach, it really did look like an alien creature. Tyris assures us the pregnancy is progressing normally, but she has no way of seeing inside. No way of seeing ahead. And neither do I.

What will my child be? What choices will he or she make? Will our city stand or fall? Will we leave in search of
elsewhere, or stay right here? Will we live to see the world renewed, or spend our lives in the shadow of its final days?

We dwell in the past, it may be, because it holds so many fewer secrets than the future.

The sun breaks upon us as we exit the trail and stand on the canyon's upper rim. To the south and east, the impact zone—too far to see—rolls in black and undisturbed silence. The altar, if we could glimpse it, would glitter in the late-morning sun like a crown of darkness. But we face away from those icons, away from the sorrows they hold. This is not a memorial. Not a vigil. I could ask Mercy why we're here, but what answer would she give me?

We're here
, she would say, as she's said to me so many times before.
We have this moment
.
It's the only thing we do have, the only thing we're given.
We'll never be more alive than we are right now. Hold on to it, Querry. As long as you can, until you have to let it go
.

I stand behind Mercy, my arms wrapped around the life within her, while she lifts her head to the sunlight and laughs, fearless and free.

ALSO BY JOSHUA DAVID BELLIN

Survival Colony 9

MARGARET K. McELDERRY BOOKS

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2016 by Joshua David Bellin

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Jacket photograph copyright © 2016 by Sean Mosher-Smith

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ISBN 978-1-4814-6244-0 (hardcover)

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