˚₊‧✩ ˚₊‧꒰ა ʚིᵋº̣̥͙̣̥͙ᵌɞྀ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ✩‧₊˚
News travelled fast in the settlement.
By the time Coem had shown Kostas to the east quarters and come back, half the community already knew a Nephorian was sleeping in the storage room. By the time the morning meal was being served in the common hall, the other half knew too, along with several versions of how he had arrived, none of which were entirely accurate and one of which involved Arashi fighting him on the hillside for three hours before being impressed enough to bring him in.
Arashi had heard this version by the sixth bell.
His expression had communicated, with considerable economy, that he found it both factually incorrect and personally offensive.
Aasha Tonitru had heard it too and had laughed for considerably longer than the situation warranted, which was her natural response to most situations.
"It was not three hours," she told the woman who had told her, wiping her eyes. "Arashi does not take three hours with anything."
"That is what I heard."
"You heard wrong," Aasha said cheerfully. "It was probably thirty seconds and eye contact. Maybe less."
She was still smiling when she found Evren outside the common hall, sitting on the low wall with a cup of tea going cold in her hands and the particular expression that meant she had been thinking hard about something since before the sun came up.
Aasha sat beside her. Not too close. The distance they had worked out between them over years without ever discussing it.
"You have the face," Aasha said.
"I have a face," Evren said. "It is the one I always have."
"You have the other one."
Evren looked at her tea. "A Nephorian council member is sleeping in our east quarters."
"I know."
"Dilwyn let him stay."
"I know that too."
"Does that not concern you?"
Aasha thought about it honestly, which was the only way she knew how to think. "A little," she said. "But Dilwyn does not make decisions like that without reason. And Arashi brought him in." She paused. "Arashi has never been wrong about a person."
Evren was quiet for a moment. "He said the invasion four centuries ago looked like people trying to come home."
Aasha went very still.
"He said that."
"Yes."
"A Nephorian council member said that to us. To us?"
"I know what I heard, Aasha."
Aasha looked out at the settlement. The morning was fully arrived, the community moving through its routines with the ease of people who had grown up knowing every stone of the place. An old man was arguing cheerfully with a younger one over the arrangement of market stalls. Somewhere toward the training ground the rhythmic sound of practice drifted over the rooftops.
Four hundred years of survival looked like this. Like an argument about market stalls. Like children cutting across the square.
"My grandmother used to say," Aasha said slowly, "that Astrapi never stopped looking up. Even after decades here. Even after he built a life and had children and grew old." She paused. "She always said it like it was sad."
Evren looked at her.
"Maybe it was not only grief," Aasha said. "Maybe he was watching for something."
Evren followed her gaze up at the overcast sky.
"Or someone," she said.
They sat with that.
Then raised voices came from the direction of the east quarters and both of them stood up at the same time in confusion and alertness.
˚₊‧✩ ˚₊‧꒰ა ʚིᵋº̣̥͙̣̥͙ᵌɞྀ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ✩‧₊˚
It was not a large crowd. Six or seven people gathered outside the east quarters with the tense collective energy of people who had agreed on something and were working out how to act on it.
Coem was already there, standing between the crowd and the door with his arms crossed and his eyes gone full amber. Holding the line and very much hoping nobody was going to make him do anything about it.
Kostas was in the doorway, leaning against the frame with his arms crossed as he looked at the crowd with the expression of a man who had woken up just to find people outside his door and had decided the most interesting response was to do nothing yet.
At the back of the square, half in the shadow of the storehouse wall, Dilwyn stood and watched. He had not moved toward the crowd. He was not going to, not yet. He wanted to see how the Nephorian would take it.
The man doing most of the talking was broad-shouldered and somewhere in his forties, sun-weathered, with the particular edge of someone who had a specific grievance and had been waiting for the right moment.
"You have no right to be here," he said. "Whatever story you came with, you are Nephorian. Your people cast us out. Your people have been planning to finish what they started for four hundred years and now one of you walks in and we are supposed to do what, offer him breakfast?"
A murmur from the people behind him.
Kostas looked at the man. Then at the people behind him.
"You are right," he said.
The man blinked. He had prepared for several responses. That was not one of them.
"I have no right to be here," Kostas said. "I was sent by a queen who wants to destroy your settlement. I spent three weeks watching you without your knowledge." He paused. "Throwing me out would be completely reasonable."
The crowd had gone quiet.
"But before you do," Kostas said, "I want to ask something."
The man looked at him warily. "... What?"
"How many of you have ever looked up at the sky and wondered what it looks like from the other side?"
Silence.
Nobody answered. But several people looked up, briefly, automatically, the reflex of people who had grown up knowing there was something above the clouds that had belonged to their ancestors once.
Evren, who had arrived in time to see it, felt something tighten in her chest.
"I am not asking you to forgive anything," Kostas said. "I am not asking you to forget four hundred years." He looked at the broad-shouldered man. "But consider that there are people up there right now who are looking down and asking the same question in the other direction."
He said it lightly. Almost casually. Like it was an observation rather than an argument, which somehow made it land harder than an argument would have.
The man looked at him for a long moment. And then, he turned and walked away. The crowd dispersed. Not warmly. But it dispersed.
Coem exhaled. His eyes faded slowly back to hazel.
At the back of the square, Dilwyn watched the Nephorian straighten up in the doorway and look around at the empty space where the crowd had been, and thought: he is not what I expected either.
He did not move from the shadow of the storehouse wall, not ready for the Nephorian to know he had been watching.
He would be ready for that later.
˚₊‧✩ ˚₊‧꒰ა ʚིᵋº̣̥͙̣̥͙ᵌɞྀ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ✩‧₊˚
Aasha was looking at Kostas with an expression she had not entirely sorted out yet.
"That was well handled," she said.
"It was." Kostas agreed.
"I am not sure it will last."
"No," he agreed again, sounding rather pleased even if just a bit, "Neither am I. But it worked for this morning, which is all I needed it to do."
Evren was watching him from beside Aasha with the sharp careful attention she gave things she had not yet decided about. He had said the right things to the crowd. He had said the right things last night. He was either exactly what he appeared to be or he was very good at appearing to be it, and she did not yet know which.
"You watched us for three weeks," she said.
"I've said that many times now, yes."
"Without us knowing."
"I'm certain that you knew someone was watching," Kostas said. "You are too careful not to have felt it. You just did not know who." He looked at her steadily. "I know that does not make it better."
Evren looked at him. It was a more honest answer than she had expected. She hated that.
"You know our names," she said. "Our abilities. Our routines."
"That comes from watching, yes."
"That is uncomfortable."
"I imagine it is," Kostas said. "I know Aasha carries water for one Mira girl on Tuesday afternoons because the child's hands are not what they used to be. I know Coem sleeps on the roof when he cannot settle. I know Dilwyn walks the eastern boundary alone every morning before the patrol goes out." He paused. "I also know that none of you have done a single thing in the three weeks that I have watched you that looked like what one does to prepare for war."
The morning settled around them.
Evren turned her cup over in her hands. The static in the air around her was low this morning, which meant she was not agitated, which she noted with mild surprise because she probably should have been.
"You slept under a tree," she said. "For three weeks. Watching us."
"It was a very good tree," Kostas said.
"It really was not," Coem countered, from behind him. "I know that tree. There is a branch that goes directly into your back if you lean wrong."
"That, I became aware of too late," Kostas said. "But it was a good tree. Emphasis on the past tense."
Evren looked at Coem. Coem looked at Evren. Something passed between them that was not quite amusement and was definitely not the wariness they had walked in with.
Aasha had already made her decision. Aasha always made her decisions quickly and then committed to them entirely, which was occasionally alarming and generally correct.
"Have you eaten?" she said to Kostas.
He blinked. "No."
"Common hall is that way." She pointed. "Breakfast ends at the eighth bell. You have twenty minutes."
She walked away toward the common hall with the easy confidence of someone who had extended an invitation and was not particularly worried about whether it would be accepted.
Coem looked at Kostas. "That means you are invited," he said. "In case that was not clear."
"I gathered that much," Kostas said.
"She does not invite people she does not mean to invite."
"I gathered that as well."
Kostas looked at Evren. She was still watching him with those sharp blue eyes, still turning the cup over in her hands, still sitting with whatever conclusion she had not yet reached.
"Do not push yourself to decide on anything today," he said to her. Not pushing. Just saying.
Evren looked at him for a moment longer.
"I know that," she said finally as she stood up, setting the cold tea down on the wall before walking toward the common hall.
Not beside him. Not inviting him. Just walking in the same direction, which was its own kind of thing.
Kostas looked at Coem, expecting some sort of explanation or evaluation on such a reaction.
Coem shrugged. "That is basically a welcome," he said. "For Evren."
Kostas considered this. Then he followed.
Behind them, in the shadow of the storehouse wall, Dilwyn watched them go.
He looked at the empty square for a moment. At the space where the crowd had been.
Then he looked up at the overcast sky.
He stayed there for a long time.
˚₊‧✩ ˚₊‧꒰ა ʚིᵋº̣̥͙̣̥͙ᵌɞྀ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ✩‧₊˚