If the attacks keep moving the way I saw them—if that pattern holds—then this isn’t just about my village. It’s about everything feeding into Orthani. Grain, livestock, labor. You cut enough of the outer supply, and eventually the center feels it.
Not immediately.
Not cleanly.
But it comes.
“Lyria.”
Maira again, closer this time.
I look up.
She’s watching me like she knows something’s wrong but doesn’t know what to call it.
“You’re still thinking about it,” she says quietly.
“Yes.”
She glances around, lowering her voice. “You shouldn’t.”
“I don’t get to choose that.”
“You do if you want to survive,” she says.
I let out a quiet breath, pushing back onto my heels.
“Surviving doesn’t mean anything if there’s nothing left to go back to,” I say.
Her expression tightens.
“That’s not how this works,” she replies. “You survive here. That’s it.”
“That’s not it,” I say, sharper than I mean to. “That’s just…what they want it to be.”
She doesn’t answer right away.
Because she knows I’m not wrong.
But knowing that doesn’t change anything for her.
“Just be careful,” she says finally. “You’re drawing attention.”
“I know.”
“Not the kind you can shake off.”
I nod once.
“I know.”
She hesitates, like she wants to say more, then doesn’t. Smart. There are too many ears even when it feels quiet.
She moves off, leaving me alone with the rows again, with the steady repetition of work that’s supposed to make everything else smaller.
It doesn’t.
Because now I can see the shape of it.
