His anger sharpens. “We’re willing.”
“Willing doesn’t keep you alive when you step on a heat crust and drop through into boiling sand.”
The chamber stills. I should stop. I know I should stop. But hunger has eaten the soft parts of my restraint today.
“You want routes?” I say. “Fine. A route isn’t a line on a map. It’s knowing which wall holds night-cool until midmorning.It’s knowing when a shadow lies. It’s knowing the difference between sand shifted by wind and sand shifted because something moved beneath it. It’s knowing which old doorways breathe hot, which stones crack under weight, and how far a fevered child can walk before carrying her kills both of you.”
The scarred man says nothing. Good. I’m tired of words that think themselves useful. Rosalind is studying me with uncomfortable attention.
“Then you help us build mixed teams. City guides with our hunters.”
Dannel speaks before Marut can. “We already considered it.”
“And?”
“Every guide we send out is one less person maintaining interior routes. Every hunter we lose is food gone twice.”
Rosalind closes her eyes for half a second. When she opens them, the woman is still tired, but the leader has returned.
“Then tell me what keeps everyone alive,” she says.
No one answers because there is no answer. Not one that fits inside this room. Not one that doesn’t require someone to bleed, starve, or disappear into the heat with a spear and a prayer.
I look at the slate. Food isn’t the only problem. It’s only the one with teeth closest to our throats. Water can be stretched a little longer. Shade can be shared badly. But food requires movement, movement requires strength, and strength requires food.
“We need more than hunting,” I say.
The words leave me before I decide to offer them. Marut’s gaze snaps to mine. Ila goes very still. Rosalind leans forward.
“What do you mean?”
I wish I had kept quiet, but quiet does not make food either.
“It means we can hunt until the hunters fall. We can reduce portions until the children stop growing and the sick stop waking. We can argue about fair shares while the stores empty. None of that changes the structure of the problem.”
The bronze-eyed Zmaj warrior watches me, eyes even sharper.
“Structure,” Rosalind repeats.
I touch the slate, then draw three small marks in the dust beside the columns.
“Food. Heat. Strength.”
No one interrupts. Good. Even leaders can learn if the knife is close enough.
“We don’t lack only food,” I say. “We lack the strength to get more food. The newcomers made that worse because they arrived depleted. Our stores were already drained because we’ve endured too long at the edge of need.”
The words make my chest feel too tight, not because they are difficult, but because they are true.
“We need something that changes what a body can endure,” I say.
For one heartbeat, Rosalind’s face changes. Not much. Enough to indicate she has an idea or knows something. Marut sees it too.
“What?” he asks.
Rosalind doesn’t answer immediately. The Zmaj warrior beside her lowers his head slightly, eyes narrowing.
Dannel looks between them. “Councilor?”
