Hero didn’t allow Rami to hesitate when they reached the point where stone translated to shimmering bridge. He dragged them over the threshold and kept walking. If he was going to pass this damn judgment, he was going to do it his way. Hero preferred having a choice in his dramatics, thank you very much.
They passed under a lacquered arch, and Hero didn’t allow himself to look down until his foot landed, solidly, against the shimmering glass-like substance of the bridge.
It held, souls continued to mill around him, and Hero let out a breath he’d been keeping stoppered in his chest.
Rami stopped at his shoulder, asking a silent question. Yes, Hero would be okay. He could do this. He nodded, still gazing at his feet, and pressed on.
The arch of the bridge was strenuous, and by the time they’d nearly crested the middle, every muscle in Hero’s legs burned, but his hope was rising. The bridge remained, stable and wide, under his feet. Though, nonetheless, Hero stuck precisely to the center of the crowd. The traffic on the bridge was brisk, now that it seemed stable, and if the gazes of the two giant gods shadowing the sky fell on him, he couldn’t feel it.
It was all going perfectly well, so when Rami’s chin jerked up, it was like a siren. “Hero.”
It took an extra second of scrutinizing for Hero to see it. To his right, past Rami’s shoulder and caught in glimpses between souls, the far edge of the bridge had begun to dissolve into sand.
“Maybe it’s someone else,” Rami whispered, and shoved Hero ahead at a faster pace, to place distance between them and the disturbance.
A shiver, like sand cascading over glass, told him the effect was keeping pace. Hero’s stomach dropped. “Or maybe not.”
A cry broke out near the disintegrating edge, and a murmur began to spread. Humans saw what they wanted to see, yes, but when presented with an immediate threat, crowds could turn like lightning. Souls began to jostle behind them, and Rami caught Hero by the arm as someone shoved past.
The disturbance spread. In a blink, Rami had drawn his sword. “We need to move.”
Hero nodded, and they dove through the crowd that had begun to cluster and back away from the edge. A scrabble of feet behind them said that the bridge was melting away from both sides now, and then there was a scream.
Hero looked back just in time to see a bramble of humans fighting near the ledge. “It’s her! It’s got to be her!” another woman shouted with a girl in her grasp. The next moment existed in only two things: a puff of displaced mist, a smothered scream.
“No,” Hero whispered.
“Holy light, she pushed her.” Rami’s voice was hoarse, then hard. “We need to get out of here.”
Hero saw what he meant. To either side of his section of the bridge, the edges hadn’t slowed with the sacrifice; if anything, they sped up. Sand spilled away beneath scrambling feet, and the voices turned accusatory. Anger snapped over the crowd like a waiting storm, and another figure slipped over the edge.
“Back! Get back!” Rami swung his sword in a short, controlled arc.
Hero winced. A furious man with a sword might have kept panicked souls at bay, but it also drew twice as many eyes. An undertow of accusation hardened through the crowd, until it was just Hero and Rami isolated on the swiftly shrinking section of bridge.
“Let us through!” Rami swung his sword again with increased desperation. Hero saw the embers of anger on Rami’s face, saw the sand and the bridge unraveling faster, faster. Hero was falling, but Rami—he wouldn’t let Rami fall again.
“Stop.” He gripped Rami’s elbow as he prepared to swing again. Muscles bunched and jumped under his fingers. The bridge had narrowed to the size of a narrow staircase now, forcing Hero into Rami’s space. “Just stop.”
“What?” Muscles jumped again as Rami stared at him in dismay. “We can’t give up.”
“I’m not giving up,” Hero said, and he took Rami’s confusion as an opportunity to step under his guard and shove. Rami stumbled—toward the crowd, toward the section of bridge that wasn’t disappearing. “I’ve just figured out how the game is rigged.”
The bridge shrunk to the width of a dinner plate. Mist churned, thickening and clinging to the evaporating edges like thorns in wool. Hero refused to calculate how far down it was. There was no wind, but something warm and decay sweet wafted up from the dark. Sweet, perhaps like anise. Gods, let it be anise.
“What game?” Rami cried. He had one foot on the narrowed plank of bridge, but the other hesitated, anchored on the stable section. He had enough sense to know that he shouldn’t give up the ground gained, probably believed he could pull Hero to safety. Still.
Heaven appeared to make angels as stupid as heroes. And Hero knew how to deal with those.
“The trolley problem!” The width of a dinner plate had narrowed to a single plank. Hero rearranged himself sideways and steely kept his eyes off the mists. “Claire told me there’s no real answer, but I think I figured out my own.”
The plank had become a bar and was headed toward a tightrope. How lucky that Hero had been written with excellent balance. How unlucky that he’d been written desperately afraid of heights. His breath was being slowly squeezed out of his chest. Rami reached out again but Hero held up his hand.
“The one or the many—it’s bullshit. The only way to play
