“Sera,” Jessa whispers.
I turn before they can make a scene out of mercy.
A figure steps into the chamber entrance, blocking the thin spill of reflected light spilling from the corridor. For half a breath, every conversation dies. Not because of him. Because of what he wears. A City leader’s shoulder wrap, dark red and edged with pale thread.
Marut. Of course it is.
He’s tall, spare, and severe in the way City leaders often are, as if hunger carved away anything that might have softened him. His gaze moves over the room, over the newcomers, over the City-born, over the empty basket in my hand. Then it settles on me.
“Sera,” he says. “Council chamber. Now.”
My stomach drops.
“Lower distribution isn’t complete.”
“It is now.”
The newcomer with the scar straightens. “Is this about the ration dispute?”
Marut looks at him as if he’s a noise the City has not yet decided to tolerate.
“This is about all ration disputes.”
A murmur spreads through the room. I close one hand around the basket handle until the reed bites my palm. The Council chamber means City leaders. It means Rosalind’s people. It means arguments dressed in quieter voices. It means someone has decided the math is bad enough to need witnesses.
Marut turns, expecting me to follow.
I do, because in here you do not ask for what cannot be given. And you do not refuse when leaders start counting bodies.
2
SERA
Marut doesn’t slow. City leaders rarely do.
They expect people to follow because we’ve been trained to understand the cost of hesitation. He moves through the lower corridor with the clean, efficient stride of a man who has never carried a ration basket while dizzy. Or maybe he has. Maybe that’s the problem with all of us. None of us are innocent of survival.
I follow him past fever row, past a cluster of newcomers sitting with their backs against the old red wall, past two City guards posted at the entrance to the central passage. The guards lower their eyes as Marut passes. They glance at me only after. That tells me enough.
I’m not being summoned as a route-runner. I’m being summoned as evidence.
The thought sits badly in my stomach, though there is barely enough in it to hold the feeling.
The central passage slopes upward, narrow and uneven. It wasn’t built for humans. None of the City was. The steps are tooshallow in some places, too wide in others. The ceiling is carved in curves that make sound slide strangely. Pale veins of mineral thread through the stone, catching the angled daylight like old bone.
The deeper levels are cooler. The council level is not. That is how power works. It rises.
By the time we reach the arched entrance to the council chamber, sweat has gathered beneath the back of my tunic. I stop and pull in one measured breath, then another. Not enough to look weak. Just enough to keep the silver from creeping into my sight again.
Marut notices. His gaze flicks over me.
“Can you stand?”
“I walked here.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“It’s the answer I have.”
