Dead and Buryd

by Chele Cooke

  ***

 

  Sitting in front of a patient from the camps who had come in after a robbery, Georgianna had finished stitching the wound closed and smeared the yellow paste of the lutiner flower sparingly over it to speed recovery.

  Unfortunately, robberies and attacks were more common now than they used to be, especially in the camps, where the Adveni presence was less pronounced. It wasn’t as easy to hunt while in one place with so many others. The trail had been much easier for hunting, and by the time the different tribes reached Adlai for the heat, they had enough stores to keep most families relatively comfortable. There had always been robberies of course, by those who moved alone instead of with a tribe, or those who had been banished for committing a crime, but these days they seemed to happen every other day—more often in fact. As times became harder, more people began only looking out for themselves.

  “I hope it’s okay that I came down,” Kael said quietly.

  Georgianna glanced up from the bandage as she wound it tightly around his arm.

  “Of course it is.”

  “I wouldn’t normally. Keep to myself, you know? Don’t like a lot of trouble, but this wouldn’t stop bleeding and…”

  Tying one end of the bandage to the other, Georgianna patted him lightly on the shoulder.

  “There’s no need to explain,” she smiled. “You needed help.”

  Kael nodded as she turned away to note down his visit.

  Georgianna had left Lacie in the end car with a collection of hyliha leaves while she treated him. While the leaves weren’t useful for much more than easing a heat rash, Georgianna had given them to the young girl to practise making paste out of the herbs that could be collected. Hyliha trees grew everywhere, having adapted to the planet’s altered seasons, so the leaves were ideal for practising on before moving on to some of the rarer, more useful substances.

  “I don’t have much,” he mumbled shyly as Georgianna scribbled her notes.

  Looking up, Georgianna glanced over her shoulder at the man and finally turned around to face him:

  “Kael, don’t…”

  “I will make good!” he interjected before Georgianna could speak further. “I have some pelts drying. I’ll bring one down!”

  “That is far too much for a simple cut, especially when you already lost so much in gaining the wound.”

  Kael stared down at his knees, dragging his teeth over his lip worriedly. She sighed. She hated taking from people who couldn’t afford it. However, it wasn’t her supplies that she was using up down here. While she was happy to do the work for a bowl of stew or some other kindness that families could afford, the Belsa needed things they could use.

  “Look,” she blurted quickly. “I’m going to have to see you in a couple days anyway, to make sure that’s healing the way it should, and take out the stitches. So, how about we trade then?”

  Kael looked up, finally meeting her gaze. He nodded gratefully.

  Georgianna returned to the last car once Kael had said his goodbyes and set off along the tunnel. She looked in to find Lacie keeping watch over Jacob, making her own notes in a small book. Either Lacie hadn’t realised, or the two were keeping an easy silence, but Jacob was awake.

  “How’re you feeling?” Georgianna asked, moving further inside.

  Lacie lifted her head, her gaze shifting to Georgianna before she looked at Jacob. He was curled in the corner of his bed, looking far younger than he was. The moment Georgianna had spoken, however, his expression contorted in panic. His wide brown eyes darted around the car, and he quickly pushed himself up. Pressing his back against the end of the bed, he hunched over his knees, pulling them tight to his chest.

  She took a step back, chewing on her bottom lip. Even Lacie, who had been the closest to Jacob since his arrival, moved away from him, giving the terrified young man as much space as she could.

  “I’m sorry, Jacob. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  Jacob shook his head violently, but didn’t say a word.

  With a single glance from Lacie, she took another step back.

  “I’ll… I’ll be in the other car if you need me.”

  Lacie placed her notes next to her knee, but she didn’t even look at Jacob or Georgianna again. She stared at her feet, hands clasped in her lap, perfectly still.

  Georgianna climbed down from the car, wishing that every injury was as easily cured as Kael’s.

  5 Freed-Up Time

  Jaid took over on Medics’ Way again in the late evening, having had no luck in locating her husband, Si. Georgianna could see the worry on her face and had offered to cover the next shift, but Jaid would have none of it. She claimed working on the Way would keep her mind busy, but Georgianna was sure that the moment Jaid was alone she would be imagining all the worst things that could possibly have happened to him. Then again, Keinah, the only other regular medic, wasn’t in any state to go very far, with her pregnancy so far along. No doubt, if Jaid needed, she would be able to call on the mother-to-be.

  Once all the notes had been handed over and the current states of patients explained, Georgianna walked with Lacie back into Belsa territory, leaving the girl a couple of hundred yards from the car she shared with Marshall Casey. She didn’t need to walk the girl back; enough Belsa knew exactly who Lacie was that she would get help if she ever needed it, but she enjoyed the walk. The young girl was sweet and quiet, but always had interesting opinions on things when you got her talking.

  Turning away from the tunnel leading to the marshall’s car, Georgianna headed west through a smaller tunnel off the main encampment, away from the main bustle of people coming and going. It wasn’t a long walk, which, after being out and about all day, was a relief. Georgianna had always been active, but some days it became a bit much, running all over the place.

  Despite her work as a medic, helping people didn’t pay much more than trade and favours. Most nights, once she’d finished whatever she happened to have on that day, she headed over to the Rion, an Adveni district filled with bars and restaurants. The Adveni were more accustomed to having purpose-built places to eat and drink, so they allowed a few Veniche to work in their establishments, pouring drinks and delivering food. Today, however, Georgianna wasn’t expected to be at Crisco so she headed through the Belsa tunnels to one of the other places where she spent some of her evenings.

  The shack, made of sheet metal stolen from an Adveni construction site, was held together with rope and strategically placed bricks. Despite its ramshackle appearance, it was surprisingly sturdy, something Georgianna had found out by accident when she tripped and fell into one of the walls.

  Approaching the side where a thick canvas sheet covered the opening, Georgianna reached out and smacked her hand against the nearest section of metal.

  “Are you decent?” she asked, shifting her weight. “Or alone?”

  There was silence for a moment, in which Georgianna considered peeking inside. There was always a chance that he wasn’t there. It wouldn’t have been the first time she’d found the shack empty. Though before she had the chance to peer inside, or turn and walk away, the canvas was pulled back at an angle and a cheeky grin appeared in the opening.

  “Have you ever known me to be either?” it asked.

  A large hand came out through the gap and tangled itself in amongst the hair at the nape of her neck, pulling her in.

  Georgianna barely had time to look around to confirm the answer to either of her questions before soft, warm lips found her own, drawing her up to meet them. She smiled against the kiss, her own hands seeking out the gentle slope of his waist before she carefully pulled herself back.

  The lamp was lit, and it sent flickering light over Keiran’s stubbled jaw and smooth skin. He looked down at her, grinning that charming, cocky smirk that had first made her notice him. He was so self-assured, with such easy going charm, that it was almost impossible not to like him.

  “You’re dressed, I’m disappointed,” Georgian
na chuckled.

  A raised eyebrow met her comment, his smirk broadening as he teased his fingers through her long hair.

  “Easily solvable!” he answered.

  Leaning forward, Keiran placed a kiss gently against Georgianna’s temple before he released her and turned around, retreating the couple of steps over to his bed and falling down onto it. Picking up a piece of paper from the upturned crate by his bed, he folded it a couple times and slotted it into his pocket before reaching out for her to join him. Georgianna indulged him happily, placing her bag down on the bed as she eased her boots from her feet and clambered over him to the other side of the bed. Placing herself against the wall, her legs resting over Keiran’s, Georgianna reached out and tugged her bag toward her.

  “Save any lives today, Med?” Keiran asked, resting his arms over her shins, one hand sliding her trousers up a little so that his thumb could gently stroke her ankle.

  Georgianna shook her head.

  “I was called to the compound,” she explained. “Vtensu left it so long that by the time I got there, it was too late.”

  Keiran frowned a little, but shrugged.

  “Better dead than buryd!” he answered.

  Lifting her head, Georgianna glanced at him. His grey-blue eyes and tanned face, worn with work and age, still held the amusement and cheer that so many Belsa had lost somewhere along the way. He looked relaxed, as if he didn’t have a care in the world, as if maybe the Adveni hadn’t invaded and they were just two people in the mid-heat of Adlai. Looking at him like this, it was hard to believe that their world had changed so much, that Keiran had once been a hunter with the Nerrin tribe, that she’d nearly finished her training. Back then, she’d not even thought about Keiran Zanetti; she’d barely known him.

  Keiran, four years older than she was, was thirty. Had things been like they were before, he could have expected to have been joined by now. He didn’t talk much about the old days though, except to regale her with stories of hunting with Eli Talassi, the Belsa everyone now knew as Wrench. She was sure that Keiran didn’t like what had happened to their world any more than anybody else did. Yet he wasn’t secretive that he was glad their joining traditions had fallen by the wayside in all the turmoil.

  Thinking about it, Georgianna had to admit that she wasn’t upset either at not being hounded to find a partner to continue the Kahle lines. She felt happy with the way things were between her and Keiran, something that would not have been looked on kindly if she were expected to join.

  “You saying you wouldn’t come break down Lyndbury if I were caught?” she asked, smirking at him.

  “Oh, I’d come to Lyndbury,” he answered, pushing himself up to lean forward and kiss her again. “I’d be first in line to purchase myself a George drysta.”

  Georgianna reached out and smacked him as he fell back against the cushion, laughing.

  “That’s not funny, Zanetti!” she chastised.

  Georgianna suddenly wasn’t sure that they should be joking about the compound, not after her trip over there and her conversation with Taye. Glancing at her bag, she thought about the packet of Adveni drugs Taye had given her. It felt wrong to have them. She’d not even agreed to make the delivery, and the drugs came with too many strings attached.

  “I’d treat you well!” Keiran smirked. “You’d hardly have to get out of bed in the morning.”

  She gave him a disapproving glare, but Keiran grinned back at her and gave her ankle a squeeze.

  “In fact, I think I’d demand that you never got out of bed.”

  “I’m sure you would,” she answered.

  Silence stretched out between them. Georgianna watched as he turned his gaze onto the ceiling, tucking his hand beneath his head.

  “I saw Taye today,” she said finally, slumping onto her side next to him and propping herself up on her elbow.

  “Taye…” he murmured. “He’s Carae, right?”

  Georgianna nodded, reaching between them and picking at a loose thread in the blanket.

  “We knew each other as kids.”

  “Oh yeah, he’s the one with the girl in the compound.”

  Georgianna glanced over at him. She didn’t remember telling Keiran about Nyah. They didn’t generally share their lives much. He had his friends and she had hers. Apart from the people they both knew within the Belsa, she wasn’t even sure how much their lives intersected. Though, with the Carae supplying the Belsa pretty regularly, it wasn’t surprising that Keiran might know Taye. Maybe he’d even known Nyah before she was arrested.

  “So, what did he ask for? A way to turn back time? A mass breakout of Lyndbury for his little girlfriend?”

  Staring down at the blanket, Georgianna grazed her teeth across her bottom lip. Keiran frowned, his pale blue eyes narrowing.

  “George, you’ve got to be kidding!” he chastised. “What is it?”

  “Just a delivery,” she answered. “He wants me to take a packet in for Nyah.”

  Keiran’s expression said it all. His lips pursed into a thin line and a crease formed above his straight nose as his brow knitted together.

  “He’s worried about her,” Georgianna lamented. “It’s been months.”

  “It could be years for all he can do about it,” Keiran answered dismissively. “He should let it go.”

  “You don’t think I’ve told him that? He loves her.”

  Keiran scoffed, but didn’t answer. Georgianna pushed herself up further and looked down at him. She shouldn’t be angry at Keiran. She knew it was who he was. He didn’t want love and joining the way Taye did, but in Georgianna’s opinion, he didn’t have to be so cavalier about it.

  “I’m worried about him, Keiran,” she explained. “He’s becoming more erratic. He wants Nyah out, and I think… I think if things don’t change soon, he’ll do something without thinking.”

  Turning his head to look at her, Keiran’s eyes narrowed.

  “What do you expect me to do about it?”

  Georgianna shook her head. She didn’t expect anything from Keiran. He’d never been close to Taye, and it wasn’t like he owed her anything. The two of them were having fun, they both agreed that.

  “Nothing, I’m just… I’m just worried about him doing something stupid.”

  Keiran frowned and went back to staring at the ceiling. He reached up, running his hand over his short, dark hair.

  “As long as you don’t do anything stupid, like getting caught sneaking stuff into Lyndbury,” he agreed. “I do prefer you being a free woman. You getting yourself buryd would free up far too much of my time.”

  Georgianna laughed and leaned closer to him, resting her arm across his waist and tangling her fingers in his shirt. She felt silly, being upset that he wasn’t taking it seriously. They’d both been perfectly clear about what they wanted, and serious didn’t come into it.

  “I’m sure you’d find someone to keep you busy soon enough.”

  “You’re right, I would, but that doesn’t mean I’d like it.”

  Giggling, Georgianna rolled herself onto her front and rested her head on her arms. She didn’t exactly know what to say to that. He was clearly still under the belief that if she made this delivery, she would be making a mistake. Truthfully, Georgianna thought making the delivery was a mistake too, but she also didn’t want her friend getting himself into trouble.

  Georgianna tried to wriggle herself further into the mattress, one of the luxuries of staying so long in one place to live out the mid-heat. When the thought came to her, however, Georgianna suddenly pushed herself up. She’d only known Keiran for a month or so; they’d never talked about what they would do for the freeze.

  “Will you be travelling?” she asked, looking down at him.

  Their traditions, their survival from the days before had become unreliable of late. Some wanted to escape the Adveni and the freeze and move south, but others believed that their work in Adlai was too important. Not to mention that the Adveni were rather particular about
the Veniche to whom they gave travel permits.

  “Nah,” he answered. “I’ll stay here. No use in travelling anymore.”

  Georgianna raised an eyebrow.

  “I’ll tell that to the snow when it’s covered every entrance to the tunnels.”

  Keiran, chuckling a little, reached out and slid one arm under Georgianna’s waist, tugging her towards him until she laid against his chest. Georgianna squeaked in amusement, but didn’t try to fight him off.

  “Which means I get to hibernate in here,” he said.

  Georgianna frowned and placed her hands against Keiran’s chest, pushing herself up.

  She’d not made the trip in six years, and she missed it. Every year she planned to go, she thought about going to get a permit, but each year something came up. Braedon’s mother had been pregnant with him, Braedon was too young to travel if they didn’t have help. Something came up every year. But Georgianna didn’t want to miss the journey again.

  “I’m going to try travelling,” she answered.

  For a moment, Keiran looked up at her, his pale eyes narrowed thoughtfully as he watched her face, perhaps waiting for a smirk to part her lips or a laugh to echo through the shack. In the light, his eyes were a cool blue, but here, with nothing but the lamp, they looked more grey than anything. When no answer came from Georgianna, he licked across his bottom lip.

  “They won’t let you go,” he answered plainly. “Not many medics are willing to go into Lyndbury. Plus, it isn’t as if any Belsa can go. It’s not like we can go and request passes from the Adveni. You imagine Casey going up there?”

  Any hope left in Georgianna’s face slipped away. She’d thought she would go because people would need help on the trail. They always got injured one way or another, but what about in Adlai? With the Adveni around they weren’t going to let every Veniche just waltz on off down south. The people left behind would need care too, perhaps more so than those on the trail because they’d be suffering out the freeze.

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” she said finally, lowering herself back down onto his chest.

  “Wow, George, don’t sound so happy about it!” Keiran scoffed.

  Georgianna shook her head and glanced up at him.

  “I didn’t mean…”

  Keiran pulled his hands back from her body and wedged them underneath his head as he stared up at the ceiling. Even if it hadn’t been his plan to convince Georgianna to stay, he seemed a little angry that she wasn’t more enthusiastic about it.

  Georgianna frowned and rested her cheek against his shoulder, staring blankly down his chest. Her fingers, caught in his shirt, pushed the material up just enough that her thumb could slide effortlessly back and forth across his skin.

  “I was only thinking about it,” Georgianna murmured.

  Keiran’s chest rose and fell with slow, deep breaths, but Georgianna didn’t dare move. She didn’t want to get them into an even more awkward conversation than they were already in. His hand came out from underneath his head and wound into her hair, tugging her head gently back until she could look up at him. Shifting his body a little further down the bed, Keiran smiled.

  “Well, I suppose I should make the most of now, just in case,” he answered.

  Then, without another awkward word between them, his lips were on hers, and all thoughts of travelling south were forgotten.

  6 The Kahle in the West

  Leaving the tunnels, the morning sun was already high, radiating constant, sticky heat. Despite the fact that Georgianna knew she would be more comfortable in a short-sleeved shirt, one which allowed her skin to breathe, she had pulled on a thin smock that covered her from neck to wrists to protect her from the sun’s rays. The walk from the last tunnel exit over to the camps was long, and she couldn’t risk too much exposure, not in the mid-heat sun.

  On either side of the beaten path leading out of the city and into the camps, buildings were being erected under Adveni supervision. Veniche of every race and tribe queued for hours in the early morning to get a place on one of the construction crews. Construction was high-paying work and places were limited and heavily controlled. Anyone with even the slightest mark against their registration was turned away, regardless of their skill.

  Crossing her arms over her chest, Georgianna continued down the beaten path to the camps. They built up slowly: first the odd, outlying building, before these became more frequent until you were in the middle of a sea of houses and other small buildings.

  While they were officially called “The Veniche Camps”, they were actually split into a number of smaller encampments that bled into each other as space became sparse. The Kahle, one of the largest tribes that used Adlai as a settling ground, were in the north and spread out towards the west, furthest from the city.

  The Nerrin had taken over the south-west, and while the east held relatively neutral grounds to allow safe passage between the camps for all, there were a number of smaller tribes and nomad settlers who had taken up their own private space.

  Near the main road through the camps, a woman was hanging out laundry while five children played in front of the house. From the fact that the children were all the same age yet looked absolutely nothing alike, Georgianna could only assume that this woman had been asked to look after children by other families while they went to work.

  Further in, back from the path, a man was skinning a kill, the thick hairs of the pelt still dirty from the hunt. Beside him, a large dog lay chewing on one of the deer’s leg bones, paying no attention to the large amount of meat only a few feet away. Georgianna chewed on her bottom lip, watching out of the corner of her eye and taking note of the surrounding buildings. Having not been home in a few days, she didn’t want to take a large amount of meat if her family were stocked already, but it was useful to know who had meat in, just in case. Most people probably wouldn’t trade such a large kill so easily, but her medical supplies could prove a worthy trade if they didn’t know someone within their own tribe. Unfortunately, medics had been one of the hardest hit during the invasion, going in to help those injured and then being killed or captured by the Adveni. Luckily for Georgianna, she had been young and inexperienced, mostly kept back to treat the smaller wounds of those who managed to return from the fighting.

  Georgianna walked through the neutral safety area and, passing between the buildings, into the Kahle encampments. With every home she passed, and every person outside who greeted her as if she were their own child or sibling, Georgianna felt the familiarity of home. Even before the Adveni had arrived and pushed the Veniche further out of the city by raising prices for land, the Kahle had camped in these spots. Their homes had been destroyed in the first attacks, but that sense of place could not be broken. So when the Kahle moved north to Adlai to resettle during the heat, they returned to the same area they always had. Georgianna was sure that her bed at home was still in the same place it had been when she was a child.

  “Gianna!” a voice called, little feet rushing forward until a small body collided with her legs, wrapping its thin arms tight around them.

  Georgianna almost lost her balance from the impact. Looking down, she smiled broadly at the ruffled brown mop of hair and the thin, smiling face hidden beneath it. She bent down and wrapped both arms around Braedon’s waist to lift him up against her body.

  The young boy immediately wrapped his arms around her neck. Curling his short legs as far around her body as he could reach.

  “You’re not meant to be learning, are you?” Georgianna asked, glancing at the boy suspiciously through the corner of her eye.

  Braedon lifted his head and shook it vehemently.

  “No, Grandda’ was tradin’, Miss Kadey lookin’ after me!”

  “Well, alright,” Georgianna answered, glancing off to see Kadey Lane standing in her doorway.

  Lifting a hand and waving to Kadey, Georgianna began walking back towards their home, Braedon in her arms.

  “Where’s your da’?” Georgianna
asked.

  Braedon shrugged, which only meant one thing: her brother had a job from an Adveni. The only reason Halden wouldn’t share something with his son was because it involved things Halden thought Braedon was too young to know.

  It was a short walk from where Braedon had collided with her to their house. On the front doorstep, Georgianna’s father sat with a hide across his lap, a thin knife in his hand which he was using to cut away the extra patches of fat and muscle.

  Braedon, having grown up around such things, showed no disgust or queasiness at the sight, but instead began wriggling in Georgianna’s grasp until she finally put him down and the young boy could go running a little lopsidedly back towards his grandfather.

  “Aren’t you meant to be with Kadey?” her father asked as the young boy ran into his eye line.

  “Gianna got me!” Braedon exclaimed, pointing back at her.

  Georgianna’s father lifted his head, smiling brightly at the sight of his youngest. Putting the hide aside, he got to his feet. Quickening her step, Georgianna moved over towards her father who placed his hands on either side of her face and kissed her forehead gently.

  “My girl,” he murmured, smiling down at her for a moment before the hand from one cheek was gone and quickly came back with a light smack upside the head.

  “Ow!” Georgianna complained, stepping back and reaching up to rub her head. “What was that…”

  “You come home far too little!” he claimed, pointing at her. “Anyone would think I have no daughter, just sons!”

  “Son, Da’, you only have one!”

  “Sons run off and sleep in odd places, not daughters!” he claimed, narrowing his eyes at her.

  Georgianna had received this talk many times before, and even though she was twenty-six years old, more than capable of looking after herself, she still frowned and chewed her lip at her father’s disapproval.

  “You sorry?” he asked.

  “Yes, Da’,” Georgianna mumbled.

  Her father nodded slowly.

  “Good!” he answered. “Now, help with the stew, will you?”

  Georgianna rolled her eyes as soon as her father wasn’t looking, a motion that made Braedon giggle and cover his mouth. Georgianna smirked and winked at him, ruffling his hair as she dumped her bag on the ground and climbed past her father, who was taking his seat in the doorway again.

  The house was cooler than it was outside. All the windows and doors were flung open to let what little breeze could be found circulate through the small rooms. In the back of the house, two large doors stood open, leading out onto a small patch of dried grass. Just past the doors, vapour swirling up into the air, a large pot stood above a small fire holding the stew her father had been talking about. Georgianna watched the boiling bubbles for a moment and moved over to the trunk in the corner of the kitchen. She lifted the lid and took one of the spoons from its place in the trunk. The lid dropped with a snap, and Georgianna dipped the spoon into the stew and sucked the juice from the back of the metal. It was decent enough, but the quality of the Lennox family cooking had definitely dropped off since her mother’s death.

  Lifting the lid and removing the tray that lay across the top of the trunk, she placed it on the rough-hewn wooden table that took up most of the simple kitchen. The kitchen wasn’t used much anymore, the different pots and utensils that her mother had made such good use of during her life, abandoned. Her father preferred to make simple meals in large quantity so that they would last for a number of days.

  She dug through the contents of the trunk, finally finding what she was looking for. Down near the bottom, clearly not used all that often by her father and brother, a small cloth satchel held a number of paper packets filled with spices. Her mother had been obsessed with collecting spices. Whenever the Kahle camped near another tribe, she would insist on going over with some trade in the hopes of finding something the Kahle couldn’t find on their trail.

  Georgianna took each packet out in turn, carefully opening each one and sniffing it tentatively. She had never had the flare for cooking her mother had, no matter how much her mother had tried teaching her. Georgianna wasn’t good at automatically knowing which kind of spice a dish needed to really bring out the flavour, nor did she know how to counteract things when they went wrong. While Georgianna was a good medic, she was not good at reviving injured food.

  She tested a number of spices and herbs, sprinkling them over the stew in turn. She closed each packet just as carefully as she’d opened it and placed them back in the satchel, going to the stew and stirring it carefully. Lifting the spoon, she sucked on the back thoughtfully, wondering what it was her mother would have done. There was something wrong with it: it was full and tasted of the meat, but there was something missing, some flavour that, as a child, would have had Georgianna initially wrinkling her nose.

  Blinking for a moment, she wondered if it could really be that easy? She reached into the trunk and pulled out a dark green cantina. Opening it, she sniffed and immediately wrinkled her nose. Dark berry wine. That was it. She liked the taste of the wine, and she had certainly become more accustomed to it as she got older, but there was still that slightly acidic smell that she had never fully gotten used to.

  She stood over the stew for a moment, wondering how much she was supposed to put in: too much and it would overpower everything; too little and what was the point? Grimacing as she tipped the cantina, she waited for three healthy glugs to spill from the mouth before she brought it away, replacing the cap and returning it to the trunk.

  Her third tasting yielded better results. While it still didn’t taste like her mother’s—she was pretty sure nothing ever would—at least it tasted of more than meat and root vegetables. She stirred the concoction once more before placing the spoon to the side and returning to the front porch, leaning over her father’s shoulders and kissing his cheek.

  “You smell like your mother,” her father commented with a fond smile.

  “Of dark berry wine?” Georgianna asked.

  For a moment, her father pondered the idea, before he slowly nodded.

  “I think that may have been part of it.”

  Georgianna climbed past her father and slumped down onto the dry earth near his feet. Braedon, who had been playing with a couple of carved wooden horses from Halden’s childhood, picked up his toys and rushed over, wriggling himself into Georgianna’s lap so that she could wrap her arms around his waist and rest her chin on top of his head.

  “How’ve you been Da’?” she asked.

  Her father shrugged. He looked older than he used to, far older than he should have looked. Georgianna could remember her father scooping both her and Halden up under his arms, carrying them through camp when they misbehaved. He wasn’t a giant, but he had seemed that way, the way he held command. His dark hair, the same as her brother’s, was now heavily sprinkled with grey, his beard going the same way. Yet his bright green eyes still sparkled with the energy of a much younger man. Despite his strength and skill with a weapon, Lyle Lennox had become a carver, taking wood and whittling it away to create useful objects. For his joining present to Georgianna’s mother, he’d made an entire cooking set, large enough for a family of six.

  Taking one of the small wooden horses from Braedon, Georgianna galloped it across the boy’s knees and up his arm until she nuzzled it into his neck, neighing playfully. Braedon giggled and tried to wriggle away until Georgianna handed him back the toy.

  Georgianna turned back to her father and frowned.

  “Beck says hi,” she told him with a careful smile.

  It was odd to think that her father had been friends with Beck, knowing the man now as the marshall of the Belsa. But apparently, when they were young, Beck Casey and Lyle Lennox had been thick as thieves. Beck had trained as a hunter and scout, Lyle as a carver and carpenter, but the two remained close whenever they were in camps. Now, however, the two barely saw each other.

  “Of course he does, lazy bastard can�
��t get over here himself,” her father chuckled. “How’s that girl of his doing?”

  “Lacie is great,” Georgianna nodded enthusiastically. “She’s a really fast learner.”

  “Good. It’s about time you had an apprentice,” he claimed, pointing the knife he was using to clean the hide at her. “No good letting those talents go to waste.”

  Nodding, Georgianna reached out and pulled her bag towards her. While her father hadn’t originally been happy to know she was visiting the Belsa to help out, knowing how badly the Adveni wanted them eradicated, he had slowly come around to the idea as long as Beck was looking after her. When Georgianna had brought back news that Beck had a young girl living with him, a girl the marshall was treating like his own daughter, Lyle Lennox had been over the moon. He wouldn’t tell Georgianna why, of course. He said it was none of her business unless Beck decided to tell her on his own, and that she was not to ask him about it.

  “I still need to meet that girl,” her father announced thoughtfully, scratching the edge of his knife against his jaw. “Beck’s a good man, a loyal Kahle, but those tunnels are no place for a young girl.”

  He looked pointedly at Georgianna and nodded very suddenly:

  “You’ll bring her here! Lots of people to help out this way, you could call it work!”

  “She’s wanted, Da’,” Georgianna lamented. “A drysta runaway.”

  Her father tilted his head to the side and dug the knife a little further into the hide as he tried to think up a reasonable solution. After a minute, he finally huffed, which Georgianna knew to take that he’d not been able to think of one. No doubt it was annoying him. He wanted to meet his friend’s daughter.

  “You know, you could always come down to the tunnels with me,” she suggested. Glancing beneath her eyelashes at her father, Georgianna quickly occupied herself with opening her bag, like her suggestion had been perfectly innocent.

  “And risk being hauled off as a Belsa?” he asked. “Who will look after your nephew when I’m buryd, huh?”

  Georgianna opened her mouth to argue but quickly closed it again, knowing it wouldn’t do any good. It wasn’t the first time she’d tried to convince her father to visit the tunnels and Beck. Scooping Braedon off her lap and onto the dried grass, she carefully got to her feet.

  “I’m going to check on the stew.”

  7 Love and Loss

  Braedon was sprawled on Georgianna’s lap asleep by the time his father returned home from work. Splattered with paint, Halden flopped straight onto the floor next to his sister and son. He rolled to the side, kissed Georgianna’s cheek in greeting, and immediately slumped onto his back again. Georgianna didn’t blame him.While she had spent a relatively relaxed afternoon with Braedon and her father, Halden had been working for the Adveni, probably ordered to work faster and harder every step of the way.

  Georgianna carefully prised herself out from underneath Braedon, adjusting the boy to sleep on his father before she slipped out to the kitchen and ladled Halden a generous portion of stew. It was a little cold, her father having put out the fire beneath it an hour or so before, but Halden was grateful when Georgianna handed it to him and he took his first mouthful. As Georgianna curled up at her father’s side, Halden told them that he’d been working on one of the new buildings.

  The older Lennox continued to whittle, refusing to tell them what he was making.

  “Wood is a living thing, my little Gianna,” he used to tell her. “And like all living things, you can’t tell them what they should be. You can only help them find what suits them best.”

  She had never really known what he had meant when she was a child, but it sounded very profound, so she’d never questioned him. Now, she thought she understood a little better. Just as she had decided for herself that she wanted to be a medic, and her parents had used their skills to help her along, Halden had decided that he wanted to work with horses. It had also been their parents’ acceptance of not forcing other living beings into what they might want that had stopped them from questioning the news that their eldest son would not join with a woman. Instead, at the age of nineteen, Halden Lennox had claimed that he was in love. Nobody had even known he had dated before.

  His name was Nequiel. He was a nomad who had come to the Kahle to sell a foal. As Halden was working with the tribe’s horses, it had been Halden who had to look over the foal to see whether it was bred well enough to bring into the Kahle stock.

  It had been Georgianna who first knew of Halden’s infatuation with the nomad, who had stuck around longer than had probably been considered necessary after the foal had been given the clearance to be bought. Halden told his younger sister while travelling south towards Nyvalau. Georgianna, admittedly, didn’t understand. She knew there were men who joined with other men, but at the age of thirteen, she wasn’t entirely sure why. Watching her brother with Nequiel, however, she quickly learned that it wasn’t about finding someone suitable to join with, someone you could live with. It was about joining with the person you couldn’t live without.

  Watching Halden with Braedon now, Georgianna knew that this was why she hadn’t joined, why she couldn’t see herself joining any time soon, because she had not found that person she could not bear to be parted from. There was a sadness every time Halden looked at his son because, by blood, Braedon wasn’t actually his, and looked far more like his biological father. The boy’s mop of brown hair was blacker than Halden’s, the olive hue of his skin darker than her brother’s, and his eyes were the bright reddish brown that had been so distinctive in his father. The boy, almost five years old, was actually Nequiel’s son by blood. Nequiel had been asked to father a child when he officially joined the Kahle. The Adveni had wiped out a lot of the Kahle, and the elders wanted to ensure that their blood continued.

  A woman named Heather, widowed by the war, begged the elders to let her be the one chosen. Her husband had always wanted children, and they’d simply never had the good fortune to conceive a child. It had been decided that, should the coupling be successful, the child would remain predominantly with their mother, but both Nequiel, and Halden, who by this time was joined with Nequiel for all under the sun and moon, would also be parents to the child.

  The baby boy was brought into the world in the middle of the freeze. While Georgianna did everything she could, Heather succumbed to cold and, having lost so much blood, did not survive the birth.

  Braedon, named for the wild flowers that grew within the heather, came into the Lennox home, and was immediately accepted as family despite not being any blood relation. As a gesture to his place with them, he was given the name Lennox instead of Yinah, Nequiel’s family name.

  It had been almost three years since Nequiel was captured by the Adveni, a trade with an Adveni that went wrong. When Nequiel could not deliver the items promised, the Adveni claimed he was a criminal and a traitor, and he was executed in the square for all to see. Halden had stood among the crowd, held back by three Kahle men who kept tight hold on him the entire time.

  As the last of the sun disappeared behind the horizon, the lengthening shadows melted into the night’s darkness, held at bay only by the oil lamp’s flickering glow. Halden finally peeled himself from the thick woollen blanket on the floor and lifted Braedon into his arms.

  “I’m going to put him to bed,” he explained, carrying Braedon from the small family space.

  Her father lifted his head and gave a brief nod before returning to his whittling. A low, melodic hum slipped past his lips into the air. Georgianna leaned against him, her cheek against his shoulder as she watched the knife’s progression over the surface of the wood.

  Her father’s humming was threatening to send Georgianna off to sleep herself, so she sat up straight, shaking out the cloudy tendrils of sleep, and clambered up. Placing her hand on his shoulder, she gave it a brief squeeze before following her brother.

  The house was built of thick beams of wood that held the structure while a sandstone mix made up
the walls. The family space stood at the front of the house on the right-hand side, her father’s room on the left. Behind those were two rooms once occupied by Georgianna and Halden, and now by Braedon as well. Mostly, Halden shared a room with Braedon, though Georgianna had often told her brother that she would share with the young boy, seeing as she wasn’t home every night. Whether it was through convenience, or because he didn’t want to be separated from his son, Halden had refused her offer, meaning that mostly, the last room stood empty, waiting for her return.

  Even after all the work gone into making the house, the sandstone was still rough in places, and tickled her fingers when she ran them across the surface. The thin corridor out towards the kitchen was dark except for the light flickering through the doorway to the family room. Through the open front door, the continued bustle of activity from nearby houses filtered in. A little way away, she could hear a group of men playing musical instruments, singing an old song she had heard as a child. Despite the fire having been put out, the breeze from the back doors out of the kitchen wafted the smell of stew through the thin corridor, making Georgianna’s stomach rumble appreciatively. Wrapping her arms around her stomach, as if the sound would be enough to rouse her young nephew, she rested her shoulder against the doorframe, watching in fond silence as Halden tucked Braedon into his bed.

  “I should take advantage of you being here,” Halden teased as he came back to the doorway and slipped past her into the corridor. “Make you do it.”

  Georgianna’s whisper of a giggle still sounded far too loud so close to the slumbering child, and so she reached in, hooking her finger around the door and pulling it towards the frame.

  “I entertained him all afternoon, thank you very much,” Georgianna defended. “Including stopping him from putting a whole host of new spices into the stew, namely dirt.”

  Halden snorted, his green eyes lit like gemstones pressed in his tanned skin. Instead of returning to sit with their father, he pushed open the door to Georgianna’s room, ducking his head to get through the low doorway. Slumping heavily down onto the bed, he rested against the wall, patting the mattress next to him. It was a thin bed, just wide enough for one person to sleep comfortably, but Georgianna made her way around to the other side and perched on the edge next to him, shoulder to shoulder. She rested back against the wall.

  “You’ve been alright?” he asked.

  She glanced at him. His eyes were closed. Even knowing that he wouldn’t see it, she nodded.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Doesn’t sound it.”

  Turning her head, Georgianna was surprised to find Halden’s eyes narrowed at her, a curious suspicion etched into his face. Lifting her feet from the floor, she laid her legs down the mattress next to his.

  “It’s nothing,” she answered.

  Halden reached out, taking Georgianna’s hand and turning it palm up to face him. Pressing his index finger into the centre of her palm, he moved swiftly on to each of her fingers in turn, pressing them down with his own. He moved idly back and forth between her fingers, quick patterns that made little sense. Georgianna narrowed her eyes, but before she could pull her hand away, or even protest, he pushed her little finger back until a spasm of pain shot up her arm.

  Georgianna squeaked, tugging on her arm to free it from his grasp, but Halden kept a tight hold, returning to his pattern of gentle taps. He used to do this as a child. Older than Georgianna, and much stronger, when she wouldn’t tell him something, he would play the game. She never knew when a strong push was coming, and waiting for it with each gentle tap only made the pain worse when it came.

  “Alright, alright!”

  Halden glanced at her, a devilish smirk across his lips as his finger hovered above her own. He raised an eyebrow, waiting.

  “Let go then,” Georgianna said.

  “Not until you tell me.”

  “Vtensu.”

  Halden beamed at her despite the Adveni insult.

  “A friend wants a favour,” Georgianna admitted. “Taye, he wants something delivered to Nyah.”

  “I thought Nyah was…”

  “Buryd, yeah.”

  Halden’s smirk promptly vanished to be replaced with a worried frown. He knew Taye and Nyah. While Taye was closer to Georgianna’s age, and Nyah a good few years younger than them both, it was impossible not to know them within the tribe, especially when Taye and Georgianna had been close friends as children.

  “What’s he expecting?” Halden asked.

  Georgianna paused, her gaze set on her hand, still clasped within her brother’s. She sighed and shrugged.

  “I don’t think it’s much, just a note, but… but it’s still risky.”

  “I doubt risk is factoring much to him right now, is it?”

  She shook her head. She didn’t want to upset Halden by bringing up Nequiel, but having never been in their position, she couldn’t imagine how it felt to be separated from someone you felt so completely bound to.

  “Did you ever try?” she asked. “To get messages to Nequiel?”

  Georgianna could see the tightening in her brother’s jaw immediately, the way his face hardened into a mask she saw so rarely.

  “Once,” Halden answered. “A few days before he was brought to the square.”

  Shifting her position, Georgianna sat up a little straighter, watching Halden.

  “You never asked me to…”

  “And risk you being caught?” he asked. “No, I couldn’t put you in that position.”

  “Then how?”

  “A cook. He promised to pass it to one of the men who collected the food each day.”

  “Did he get it?”

  “I don’t know. The cook passed it on, but whether it got to Nequiel, I’ll never know.”

  “You don’t think I should try?”

  Halden sat up straight, turning to look properly at her. Keeping hold of her hand, he enclosed it in both of his own, resting them in his lap.

  “I’m not saying that, Gianna,” he murmured. “To hear from Nyah, for Taye, would be worth more than anything else in the world. I would have given anything to hear from Quiel in those last few days. But remember that it is your risk. I didn’t understand just how much I had asked, and Taye does not realise either. We become blinded by a connection like that. This must be your decision. You are a smart girl; you will make the correct choice.”

  Georgianna turned towards him and rested her temple against her brother’s chest. Keeping a tight hold on her hand with one of his own, the other came up to rest on the back of her neck, holding her against him as he dipped his head and kissed her scalp.

  “No matter what you decide, little sister,” he whispered. “You must do one thing for me.”

  Georgianna didn’t move, her breath whispering across the hairs on her arm.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  Halden grinned against her hair.

  “Don’t tell Da’.”

  8 The Friend in the South

  Despite the lack of windows in Georgianna’s bedroom, the morning light streamed through the open door. She rolled onto her front, burying her face into her pillow in the hopes of blocking out the offensive rays, but movement throughout the house and even outside chased her dreams further and further away. From the kitchen, she could hear Braedon asking Halden what he would be doing while her brother tried to get ready to leave.

  In the tunnels, when she stayed below, it was easier to keep consciousness at bay despite the bustle of movement and everyday business. While the murk of the constant shadows remained, it was easier to push distractions aside, but not here. Sure enough, Georgianna had only just set her feet on the floor when Braedon ran past her bedroom with a racket disproportionate to his small size.

  “Grandda’, grandda’!” he called. “Da’ says you take me tradin’!”

  Her father’s low rumbling laugh echoed through the small home as Georgianna pushed herself from her bed and padding over to the trunk that h
eld the majority of her belongings.

  “Did he really?” her father’s voice echoed. “Well, I guess if your da’ says so, it must be so.”

  Lifting the trunk lid, Georgianna rummaged through her clothes, pulling out a dress. Tugging her shirt from her body and over her head, she tossed it onto the mattress and swung the dress around her, slipping her arms into the long sleeves and wrapping the material around her body, buttoning the inside together before pulling the leather belt around her waist to tie at the side.

  By the time she emerged from her room with a change of clothes already tucked under her arm, her brother was almost out the door, turning back to give her a quick pat on the cheek and a thoughtful gaze. Georgianna returned a weak smile, clapping her hand on top of Halden’s for a moment before he left.

  “Gianna, you coming tradin’ with us?” Braedon asked, already dressed in clothes that were a little too big for him.

  Georgianna pouted back at him, crouching down in the light of the open doorway.

  “Afraid not, Brae. I have to go do my own work.”

  “Med’cines,” Braedon nodded knowledgeably.

  “That’s it,” she said.

  Glancing up from Braedon’s shining face, Georgianna smiled sadly at her father. He smiled back, though it wasn’t a true smile. His green eyes remained distant, and there was a forced look to his expression.

  “You’ll return soon, my Gianna?” he asked.

  Georgianna leaned closer and kissed her father on the cheek.

  “Soon as I can.”

  He held her face in his hands.

  “Soon as the sun allows,” he told her before the moment was over and he lightly swatted the back of her arm to get her moving.

  Georgianna collected her bag from the front room, stuffing in the change of clothes, and stepped out into the glaring morning sun. Heading south through the camps, she wove a winding path through the houses. Even though the camps of the different tribes bled into each other in an uneven pattern, Georgianna had walked the path so many times that she knew immediately when she had stepped into Nerrin territory. She didn’t feel fear at the different tribe, not like she used to, but her father had always told her that it was best to tread with caution when dealing outside your own. These days, Georgianna supposed that related more to the Adveni than it did to the other tribes, but unlike the Kahle, the Nerrin had no reason to protect her should anything happen while she was on their ground.

  Still, despite the difference, people were cheerful and friendly when they recognised her. A decade of treating their wounds and helping when none of their own medics were available had given her a good reputation. Her father also had a good reputation. Since before the Adveni arrival, her father had been known as an expert craftsman, and trading in Adlai amongst the other tribes had been good for as long as Georgianna could remember.

  “Georgianna!”

  Georgianna glanced around to see her friend, Liliah, seated against the wall of her home, a leather hide across her lap. Across the hide, balanced precariously on her legs, a number of small paper packets lay open, each one holding a small mound of coloured powder. Careful not to knock any of them, Georgianna approached Liliah and sat down beside her.

  “Hi,” she said. “How are you?”

  “Can’t complain,” Liliah chimed. “I missed you yesterday.”

  Georgianna frowned. For a moment, the worry that perhaps she had missed a shift at the bar fluttered through her stomach. She’d been sure she was free, otherwise she would have chosen another day to come home.

  “Yesterday?” Georgianna repeated. “I wasn’t working.”

  Liliah laughed; a bright, cheerful laugh that suited her face perfectly. The girl was one of the prettiest women Georgianna had ever known. With a beautiful figure, dark ringlets fell over her shoulders as naturally as water slipped from a cliff. Bright blue eyes sparkled with mischief in her olive skin.

  “Yes, I know,” she answered. “Doesn’t mean I didn’t miss you.”

  Patting Georgianna’s knee affectionately, Liliah collected up one of the packets in her lap. She shook the paper gently to smooth out the mound of lilac powder, and began folding the paper around it in quick, intricate motions.

  “You worried me for a second there,” Georgianna scolded.

  “You? Worry? Like that’s even possible.”

  Georgianna let out a breath of laughter as she reached out and carefully picked up one of the papers. Copying Liliah’s motion, she shook the paper, grimacing when a small sprinkling slipped over the edge and dusted her dress. She quickly tipped it the other way a little, gathering the powder in the centre of the paper and began folding it carefully, without any of the skill or speed at which Liliah’s hands worked.

  “I was with my family.”

  “Oh, so you weren’t with…”

  Georgianna narrowed her eyes as she looked back at Liliah. The brunette had a keen ear for gossip. Georgianna often had no idea where she’d heard it.

  “Was I with who?” Georgianna asked suspiciously.

  Liliah bent the last fold in the paper, tucking the pointed corner under one of the other edges. She leaned forward a little, glancing both ways past Georgianna. Georgianna followed her gaze, wondering why she was being so secretive about it. Possibly her family didn’t approve of the Belsa. It wouldn’t be surprising. There were those who felt that things would go a lot more smoothly with the Adveni if people stopped fighting them.

  “Keiran!”

  “How do you kno…” Georgianna cut herself off a moment too late. She’d given herself away, and Liliah squeaked in happiness and wriggled where she sat, her corkscrew curls bouncing on her slim shoulders.

  “I knew it,” she trilled triumphantly, settling back against the wall again and collecting up another powder-covered paper.

  Georgianna frowned and turned her own paper, making another fold.

  “How do you know about that?”

  Liliah quickly waved her hand dismissively, turning the paper around and around in her fingers.

  “Oh, no matter about that, I just can’t believe you didn’t tell me!” Liliah lamented. “Nerrin and a Belsa, you are doing well, George!”

  Georgianna glared at her as soon as the word Belsa slipped from the other girl’s lips. They were safer out here than they would have been at the bar they worked in together in the Rion district, an area almost exclusively Adveni. Though that still didn’t mean they were safe discussing the Belsa so openly, not when the Adveni paid good money for information. Some people were desperate enough to sell over lifelong friends.

  “It’s not serious,” Georgianna assured her. “We’re just…”

  “Joining!” Liliah interrupted with a laugh. “In the way your parents don’t approve of!”

  Georgianna tried to look indignant at the suggestion, but failed miserably.

  “Yes, alright!”

  Liliah looked like her head was going to explode from giddiness. Or maybe her smile would simply get too wide for her face and the top half of her head would fall off with a wet slap onto the warm ground.

  “We’re having fun, okay? It’s not… It’s not anything. He’s still seeing other girls.”

  The chances of Liliah’s head splitting into two promptly disappeared as her smile faltered and she looked at Georgianna in surprise and suspicion. Georgianna had known Liliah for a few years. The girl was about as traditional as they came. She had been with her partner Qiyan for almost five years and the only reason they hadn’t joined was because… well, Georgianna wasn’t sure of the reason, but she knew it was the plan, as Liliah had told her many times.

  “Why do you let him?” Liliah asked finally.

  Georgianna shrugged.

  “Because, well, he’s great and all, but… I dunno. I’m not ready to be all serious about it. I’d rather enjoy spending time with him when I can, than not see him at all because he chooses someone else.”

  “That is the most stupid thing I’ve ever heard!”
Liliah exclaimed. “If I was you, I’d tell him to choose and choose fast! He can’t be so selfish! Life’s too short, George, you know that better than anyone!”

  Georgianna stared as Liliah went back to her packets as if that was the end of the conversation, folding papers with rapid precision. She knew Liliah was traditional, but those were her own beliefs, not Georgianna’s, and certainly not Keiran’s. It actually hadn’t really occurred to Georgianna until now that Liliah would know Keiran. They were both Nerrin, and Georgianna wondered whether perhaps she should have asked Liliah about him earlier. No. There was no point in asking because there was nothing she needed to know. She didn’t need to know about Keiran’s past because they were just having fun.

  Having seen the effect that losing Nyah was having on Taye, and what losing Nequiel had done to her brother, Georgianna was more certain than ever that she wasn’t ready to settle into a relationship. The pain Taye was feeling seemed unbearable, his desolation at being able to do nothing sending him into a frenzy. Georgianna hadn’t stopped worrying about what Taye would do if something didn’t change soon, and right now it wasn’t something she wanted to open herself up to by trying to make things more serious with Keiran.

  “Anyway,” Georgianna breathed after a minute of awkward silence. “I was hoping to get some herbs from you. I used up my last batch.”

  Liliah’s accommodating smile slid onto her lips as if the conversation had never happened. She placed the newly folded packet in amongst the open papers and grasped the edges of the hide, holding it taut and lifting it carefully from her lap. She got to her feet.

  “What do you need?” she asked.

  Georgianna held the half-folded packet in her lap, chewing on her bottom lip and staring blankly at the dry earth.

  “Same as last time, if you have it.”

  “Lijiam, Gwetua, and Goas, right?”

  Thinking about it for a moment, Georgianna finally nodded.

  “Yeah, I think that was it,” she agreed. “Though, if you have more of the Gwetua, I use it quite a lot.”

  Liliah nodded and pushed open the door into the house, already taking a step inside before Georgianna looked up.

  “Oh, if you have any unground, could you grab me some hyliha?”

  Liliah looked at her curiously. Hyliha wasn’t all that useful, not when you had better remedies.

  “Lacie is practising.”

  She nodded and disappeared into the house. Georgianna watched two children at the house across from them playing, drawing symbols in the earth with sticks. Folding the paper absently, trapping the powder within the folds, Georgianna smiled. She supposed it might be nice, being settled. Not until she was older, and not while things were so dangerous, but maybe someday.

  “I don’t have much Goas,” Liliah said, appearing at her side. “But Qiyan is out hunting today and he usually brings me back things, so can I bring some in a few days?”

  Dropping the packet she’d been folding down with the rest, Georgianna nodded gratefully as she opened her bag and tugged out a small leather purse. Pulling open the strings, she tipped out the coins and counted them out, swapping them with Liliah for the packets of herbs, one much larger than the rest, the hyliha.

  “Whenever is fine,” she agreed.

  Settling down into her position against the wall, Liliah lifted the hide and draped it across her legs again, careful not to spill any of the loose powder. Georgianna stashed the packets into a pocket in her bag so that they wouldn’t pierce and spill herbs through her supplies.

  “I’ll catch up with you later,” she said. “Got to see if anyone needs anything before I head back into the city.”

  “Stay safe, George,” Liliah said.

  Georgianna nodded. Liliah waved Georgianna off before returning to her packets of herb powders, leaving Georgianna to wander through the camps, checking to see if anyone needed any treatment as she made her way back into the city.

  9 Deal on Delivery

  The overnight shift in Medics’ Way had been quiet, which Georgianna had been grateful for. After spending the day out in the camps, and the evening serving drinks at Crisco, Georgianna had been exhausted. Being a medic had been her dream since she was a child, but after the arrival of the Adveni, it had not been enough to live on. While the Veniche often dealt in trade, the Adveni system revolved around money, and not many Veniche had enough money to afford medical treatment when they most needed it.

  She had taken the bar job during the freeze a few years before. After a large number of Veniche had moved south to escape the worst of the blizzards, there had not been enough people for Georgianna to make her way in trade. Greunn, the owner of the bar, had been sceptical at first, but settled on giving her a shot, believing that her pretty face (for a Veniche, anyway) would help sell his drinks. She hadn’t been sure how she felt about being looked on in that way by Adveni, but had decided that as long as they kept their hands to themselves, she could deal with their eyes and lewd comments well enough.

  Georgianna took over from Keinah in the early morning hours. Keinah was huge, her stomach swollen with the coming birth of her second child. She didn’t take many shifts on the Way anymore because the child could arrive any day, but she’d explained that Jaid had been getting increasingly frantic as, after three days’ missing, they had still been unable to locate her husband, Si. While Georgianna had wanted to ask more, it was clear that Keinah was desperate for some sleep, so she’d let her go.

  Jaid showed up mid-morning, looking like she had not slept a wink in days. Georgianna asked her about Si, but with no news on her missing husband, the older woman didn’t seem up to talking about it. While packing her things into her bag, Georgianna offered to stay, though Jaid would hear none of it. There were a couple of Belsa out looking for Si, and Jaid wanted to ensure that she was in a place where people knew how to find her if he showed up.

  Unfortunately, Georgianna partly knew how Jaid felt. While she’d never had a husband go missing, the days before they discovered her mother’s fate had been much the same. There was nothing to do but to keep looking and hoping. Her father had been unwilling to accept that anything had happened to his beloved wife, and so it had been Georgianna, eighteen years old at the time, who went to the Adveni registration buildings after the fifth day.

  She’d been killed in a fight in the Oprust district, among Veniche fighting to keep their trade lands. She’d not been involved. Georgianna knew her mother didn’t have a fighting bone in her body, but she’d been killed none the less, caught by an Adveni Agrah’s stray bullet. Her body had been disposed of before Georgianna made the trip to the registration buildings, so nothing was left but the possessions she’d had on her. There were a few dresses, finished for trade, a bag filled with cloth for new designs, and her joining ring, slipped from her cold finger. Georgianna still had that ring, buried in the trunk at their family home, but she didn’t dare put it on for fear of losing it.

  However, a mother lost almost a decade before would hold no comfort for Jaid, so Georgianna slipped away, heading out of the Way and south through the tunnels to the Carae. From the things her brother had told her about Nequiel’s last days, to Jaid’s current desolation over her lost husband, Georgianna knew that she had to tell Taye her decision sooner rather than later.

  Taye had managed to secure himself a spot deep in the Carae tunnels, furthest away from the main lines. There weren’t many of the old tunnel cars down this way since most of the tunnels were far too narrow to have held them. Instead, members of the Carae used whatever they could salvage and scavenge to create their homes, much like Keiran had done for his shack in Belsa territory.

  Taye had built a place for himself and Nyah at the end of a narrow tunnel, using the walls of the tunnel and attaching heavy sacking across the front. Georgianna let out a whistle as she neared the entrance to Taye’s home, covering her eyes in mock worry as she pulled the canvas to the side, making a show of groping along the wall. Taye groaned out a laugh, and G
eorgianna could hear him moving on a mattress. Peeking through her fingers, she let out a sigh of relief to see that he was, thankfully, fully dressed.

  “Nothing you haven’t seen before, Gianna,” Taye said, shifting the lamp from its precarious stance on the mattress and onto the floor.

  “We were nine!” Georgianna exclaimed, shaking her head.

  Stepping further in and letting the canvas fall back into place behind her, Georgianna stood in the centre of the makeshift room, ignoring Taye’s laughter as she clutched her bag in front of her, her fingers absently tracing the medic symbol stitched into the front.

  Taye looked up at her, his smile faltering. He let out a sigh and looked away from her.

  “You won’t do it, will you?” he asked.

  “I will.”

  It took a moment for the words to sink in, and Georgianna wondered if Taye had been preparing himself for the worst since he’d asked her about it. He stared at her, but once he grasped her answer properly, he leapt up, gathering Georgianna in a tight hug that lifted her off her feet.

  “Alright, alright,” Georgianna complained, batting her hands against his shoulders.

  Taye set her back down. He had one of the biggest smiles Georgianna had seen on her friend in a long time.

  “Really?”

  Georgianna nodded. She couldn’t deny him this, not when she knew how much it would mean.

  “I can’t promise when it will be, Taye. I go as often as I can, but with the Way, and Crisco, it’s mainly when they send me an alert.”

  Taye waved his hand. It was clear he wasn’t worried about when the packet would be delivered, just that it would be.

  “It is small, right?” Georgianna asked.

  “Yes, I promise, you’ll have no problems, I’m sure of it,” Taye said, grasping her shoulders.

  As he released her and turned away, a small shudder of happiness ran visibly through him. Kneeling on the edge of the mattress, he leaned over and dug his hand in behind it, finally tugging out a cloth bag, seemingly from inside the stuffing. Opening the bag in his lap, he searched through it, pulling out a paper packet.

  He was right: it was small, no bigger than one of the packets of herbs Liliah had given her. Should she want to, she could keep it in her bag with the herb packets. From the look of it, there would be no difference to the Adveni. It would only be if they chose to open each packet to check the contents that she would have a problem.

  Taye held it up, letting Georgianna take it and tuck it away while he pulled some coins out and closed up the cloth bag, stuffing it back into the hiding space.

  Pushing himself to his feet, he picked up the oil lamp and snuffed it out, plunging them into darkness.

  “Come on,” he said cheerfully, tugging back the canvas. “I’m going to buy you lunch.”