“It’s for your own good, Mina,” Tess continued quickly. “I’m doing this tohelpyou.”
Something hardened in my chest. I thought of the friend I’d had back in our village, who hadn’t cared that I stumbled over words or that the other children shunned me. Who had shared her rations with me when she saw I was hungry. The friend who had comforted me when my father and my aunt died. WhoIhad comforted when Jacob, our friend, was banished.
She’d made me smile when the world made me want to break down, curl into a ball, and simply…melt away.
This wasn’t that friend anymore.
And I wondered if I just hadn’t noticed until now. I wondered when the changes had begun to happen. The first time that Benn struck me? The times Mo had mocked the way I spoke or told me that I wasn’t worth the food they spent on me?
She thought she washelpingme?
“I think you believe that,” I told Tess, stepping back from her, feeling the hurt seep intoeverythingI had until I wanted to cry and scream so that I lost my voice completely.
Tess’ lips pressed together. For a moment, she looked as if she wanted to snatch back her words…
But the damage was already done. I felt a piece of me break because of it.
She said, “If I have to be cruel to be kind, tosaveyou, then I will.”
So be it.
Chapter Fifteen
From across the room, I watched Emmi slide half his portion of food onto Kaila’s lap, where her own cloth was spread out. It was the following night. Mealtime.
The high of the huntresses’ kill had faded. Benn had only allowed the fresh meat the night before and decided the rest needed to be dried so it could be best preserved. Begrudgingly, I knew he’d made the right decision, but for now, it was back torikcrunmeat while we waited.
And our supply was getting dangerously low, now that the group of huntresses had returned.
Watching Kaila try to push back Emmi’s portion made something in my gut go hollow. Her belly was more rounded than it’d been the last time. She was farther along. She’d told everyone she could feel that it was a boy. Strong and wild as he moved inside her.
And he was hungry. He always was, as were we all.
A part of me wondered how they could bring a child into this life and feel happy and excited about the prospect. They only needed to look at Hassan, at his slumped shoulders, and hear the way his belly gurgled in the night, though his mother had given him nearly her entire portion at mealtime.
One only needed to look at the desperation in her eyes whenever she looked at her son.
We were capable of hunting large game. The women had proved that to us. The world was wide. We should not be sitting and rotting under the Dead Mountain. We should bemoving, like the hordes across the land. For that was the way oflifehere. That was the way to prosperity and a full belly.
We were past the point of fearing theVorakkar. We were all starving slowly.
And instead ofdoingsomething about it, we waited. Starving all the more. Because Benn told us to. Because most here believed that Dakkari witches would save us all. Most believed that once the fog was gone, life would miraculously get better, as if it hadn’t been just as hard before. They’d forgotten that.
Across the room, seated near Benn, Tess glanced over at me. Our eyes met and she stared, but it was I that looked away. We hadn’t spoken all day and I couldn’t remember the last time we’d gone as long as this.
My eyes landed on Hassan instead. He’d finished hisrikcrunand was refusing his mother’s portion. Like everyone else, the young boy had begun to notice the gauntness of his mother’s face. She’d collapsed yesterday morning, faint and dizzy, while she was hauling water from the well.
Looking down into my own lap, I saw the few strips ofrikcrununtouched. I picked off the end that had begun to mold. My belly had already soured. And though I should save the pieces for the horde king, I thought of his mercy that frost season in our village. He’d fed us though he’d been meant to punish us.
He was still strong when we were not and a part of me knew that he’d want the food to go to the boy.
Standing, I walked to Hassan. He stared down at therikcrunwhen I laid out my cloth neatly in his lap.
When he met my eyes, his were bewildered.
“Thank you, Mina,” he eventually murmured and I thought I caught a flash a shame, as if he knew he would not try to refuse the food. I didn’t want him to. I could have given the portion to Kaila but there was already a child amongst us who was suffering.
I didn’t say anything. Reaching down, I touched his dark hair, thick and surprisingly soft. His mother’s eyes were glistening but looking into them made discomfort slide into my chest. So, without meeting anyone’s gaze—though I knew many eyes were on me—I walked from the room, heading towards the well.
