Page 44

“No uniform?”

“No.”

“No claim color?”

Sera’s eyes narrowed. “Dreven did not claim your wardrobe.”

Kesta looked down at the plain gray cloth. “I’m beginning to like you.”

“That will pass.”

After washing as well as the basin allowed, Kesta followed Sera into the central yard.

The settlement looked different in full light.

The night before, exhaustion and smoke had reduced Ash Camp to walls, people, and the immediate relief of shelter. Now Kesta saw the machinery that made shelter possible. Pipes crossed overhead in patched networks. Heat channels disappeared beneath the stone walkways. Workers climbed ladders to scrape red mineral growth from air vents while children carried baskets of cloth filters toward the washing trough.

Nothing here happened automatically.

Someone had to keep every mechanism alive.

At the lower cistern, residents waited with numbered vessels while Kalla—the stern Kharovian woman Kesta had seen the previous night—checked allocations against a battered slate. Beside her stood the broad furred woman Kesta remembered from the gate crowd. She carried a second ledger and had the weary expression of someone who had been losing the same argument since before sunrise.

“Pela,” Sera said quietly. “Ration records.”

The furred woman looked up at the sound of her name.

Her gaze settled on Kesta.

Not hostile.

Not welcoming either.

Kesta stopped beside Sera rather than pretending not to notice.

Pela’s ears flattened slightly against her skull. “Softworld witness.”

“Kesta Frank.”

“I know.”

“Then we’re making progress.”

For a moment Pela merely studied her. One of the water vessels beside her bore a child’s painted handprint in faded yellow pigment.

“You have Dreven’s humor,” Pela said.

Kesta glanced across the yard. “I’ve known him less than a day. I would be very worried if it were contagious.”

Pela’s mouth almost curved, but the expression disappeared as she looked toward the upper condenser pipes.

“My concern is not you.”

Kesta waited.

Pela rested one broad hand against the child’s vessel. “Red Basin heard his claim horn. The eastern condenser dropped pressure the same night. Traders will raise their prices because they think a challenge is coming. The commander brought home another person to feed when the camp has begun cutting water.”

Kesta felt the accusation even though Pela had carefully avoided making one.