“I don’t mean trouble,” he says.
That is always the sort of thing people say when trouble has already arrived with them and is waiting politely outside. I tuck the basket against my side.
“Then don’t make any.”
His mouth tightens. “We have injured too.”
“I know.”
“We lost almost everything getting here.”
“I know that too.”
“Rosalind said the City had stores.”
There it is again. That word. Stores. Like food sits somewhere in generous piles, guarded by selfish hands. I meet his eyes.
“Rosalind had not seen the ledgers.”
His face hardens at her name in my mouth. Interesting. Loyal, then. Loyalty is expensive.
“We fought to reach this place. We buried people in the sand. We carried children until our feet bled. We did not come here to watch your leaders decide who deserves to live.”
Something inside me goes very still. Not calm. Still.
The chamber is quiet. The way it goes when anger enters hungry space. I hear Tal stop chewing. I hear Jessa’s baby make a soft, thin sound. I hear my stomach cramp hard enough to make my fingers tighten around the basket handle.
“Our leaders,” I say, “have spent years deciding how everyone might live one more day.”
His nostrils flare. “And yours always eat?”
A dangerous question because the answer is no. And also because sometimes the answer is yes. And also because the real answer is that power finds food even when food cannot find children.
The City isn’t noble because it’s desperate. No one is.
Before I can answer, Anik’s voice rasps from the mat behind him.
“Leave her alone.”
The newcomer turns.
Anik pushes himself up on one elbow, face gray with pain, both bandaged feet stretched in front of him. Two toes gone. Maybe more if rot finds the wound. He came from their camp, not the City. That makes his defense of me unexpected enough to cut the tension sideways.
“She gave me her water yesterday,” Anik says.
I did not want him to say that. The newcomer looks back at me. So does half the room. Heat crawls up the back of my neck. Ugly. Useless. I take the last cave root from the basket and hold it out to Anik.
“Eat,” I say.
His gaze drops to it. Then to the empty basket. Damn him. Damn all of them.
“Where’s yours?” he asks.
I am going to throw myself into the nearest sand pit.
“Lost in the paperwork.”
No one laughs. The newcomer’s expression changes first. Anger loosens into something worse. Understanding. I don’t want it. Understanding has teeth.
