The Refuge Song Read Online Free PDF

pocket. “It’s all accelerating, isn’t it. The Council’s got everyone running scared. Alphas and Omegas both.”
    â€œThey don’t have the Confessor anymore,” he said. “Or her machine. Don’t forget what we’ve achieved.”
    I closed my eyes. The one thing I ought to have been grateful for—the fact that Zach no longer had the Confessor’s cruel brilliance at his disposal—I couldn’t even think of without losing my breath, the raw pain of it like a boot to the guts. Her death was Kip’s death.
    â€œHow much do you know about the General?” I asked them.
    â€œNot enough,” said Zoe. “We’ve been monitoring her since she came on the scene. But it’s been decades since infiltrators were able to penetrate the Council fort. It’s harder than ever to get into Wyndham, let alone close to the Council.”
    â€œWhat we do know is all bad news,” Piper said. “She’s militantly anti-Omega, just like the Ringmaster and the Reformer.”
    It still jarred, to hear Zach spoken of by his Council name. In the silo, the Confessor had said, I had another name once. I wondered if my twin ever thought of himself as Zach anymore. I suspected not—he would have wanted to leave it behind, along with the unsplit childhood that he’d been forced to share with me.
    â€œThe General’s better established than either of them,” Piper went on. “They all started young, not that it’s unusual in the Council. That place is a snake pit—plenty of Councilors don’t live long. But the General’s the sharpest of the lot, politically. She got her start working for the Commander. The rumor was that she got her place by poisoning him.”
    I remembered the Commander’s death being announced when I was still living in the settlement. Untimely , the Council’s bulletin had said. Timely enough for the General, it seemed.
    â€œThe General’s never disputed those stories,” Piper said. “True or not, it suits her to be feared. Every time she’s come up against opposition, it’s ended badly—and never for her. Scandals, disgrace, backstabbings—sometimes literally. One by one, everyone who’s opposed herhas been silenced, or driven out. The only reason the Judge lasted as long as he did was because he was useful to her and the other two—a popular figurehead for them to use.”
    â€œWhy her, as the new leader,” I said, “and not the Ringmaster, or Zach?”
    Piper was squatting, his elbow on his knee. “The Ringmaster came to the Council via the army,” he said. “He’s got a huge following among the soldiers, but he’s less of a political operator than the other two. They need him—he’s been there longer, and he’s got the common touch, and the loyalty of the soldiers, who see him as one of their own. But the word is that he’s less radical. Don’t get me wrong—he’s still notorious. He runs the army, for one thing, so when it comes to enforcing Council rule, he’s been the driving force for years. But although he’s brutal, he’s not the one driving the big reforms. Most of the worst changes—pushing the settlements farther and farther from decent land; the tithe increases—they seem to have originated with the General. And the tightening up of registrations came from the Reformer. Probably the Confessor, too, working behind the scenes with him.”
    â€œAnd what do you know about how Zach fits in to it all?”
    â€œLess than you, probably,” Piper said.
    Once, I would have agreed with him. I would have argued that I knew Zach better than anyone. Now, there was a distance between us that I couldn’t breach. Between us lay the Confessor’s body, and Kip’s. All the silent people floating in those round glass tanks.
    Piper continued. “The Reformer’s