“We pay it.”
“We may not have it.”
“We have less if the ground swallows us.”
She looks back at the map, but the argument has left her mouth if not her body. Her body keeps a reserve of defiance tucked somewhere deeper than hunger. I respect it while I also fear what it has cost her.
Another voice enters the passage outside. Marut. I know the rhythm of his steps now. Quick. Irritated. He places his heels too hard for a man living above zemlja sign. City-born, but not careful enough. Or perhaps he has lived too long believing walls make him safe.
He appears in the arch with a bundle under one arm and displeasure cut into his face. I dislike how easily his expression fits there.
“Gear,” he says.
Sera straightens too quickly. She wavers, subtle, there and gone. I see it. Marut does not. Of course he does not.
He drops the bundle onto the end of the table. Wrapped cloth, water skins, cord, bone hooks, a small knife, dried food, signal dust, two folded shade veils, and a coil of thin rope spill across the table.
Sera reaches for the bundle, but I reach first. Her glare finds me immediately. Good. Let it. I separate the items without looking at her.
“Two water skins,” Marut says. “One for each of you.”
“Three,” I say.
Marut’s brows rise. “Three?”
“She requires more.”
“I require what the route requires,” Sera says.
“Yes,” I say. “Three.”
Marut looks between us, lips thinning.
“Water is not conjured from stone because you decide a woman looks pale.”
The room stills. Sera’s face goes blank, not calm, empty.
I understand violence then. Not the kind that strikes first. The kind that rises old and red from some place below thought. The kind the bijass feeds on if a male gives it a name and lets it breathe.
I press my claws into the table. Not far enough to scar, but almost. Sera notices. Her hand moves. Not much. Only a small lift from the map, as if she might stop me. As if she thinks she can. As if she would try anyway.
The anger changes shape. Dangerous. Sweet. Unacceptable. I loosen my claws one by one.
“She does not look pale,” I say.
My voice is quiet enough that Marut takes one step back.
“She looks starved because your City has made self-erasure into duty and called it discipline.”
Sera’s breath catches. Marut’s face darkens.
“You overstep,” he says.
“Yes.”
That stops him. I lift the first water skin and weigh it. Too light.
“I will overstep again if needed.”
