Ashes and Rain: Sequel to Khe (The Ahsenthe Cycle Book 2) (2 page)

I repeated Home’s words aloud for Nez.

Azlii was out the door the minute Kelroosh settled. I hauled myself to my feet to follow her, but Nez grabbed my hand. I looked down at her, where she sat on the bright-blue pillow.

“Pradat?” she asked, meaning what was the chance of the treatment working, of my living out my natural lifespan.

I held my breath, thinking of what to say. Nez’s neck glowed with the dark-gray of worry and the muddy-brown of fear. I exhaled — all the emotion that didn’t show on my throat plain in the sound of my breath. “She doesn’t know.”

Azlii turned her head, glancing around the nearly full communiteria. “Quiet in here today.”

Usually the doumanas of Kelroosh were boisterous after a landing. There was still talk, and sudden laughter, but it fell away, leaving empty spots that yearned to be filled.

“Tense.” Nez’s shoulders hiked up as she said the word.

“Mm,” Azlii said. “But not tense enough to raise color on anyone’s neck.”

“Annoyed,” I said, my mind partly on the unusual occurrence but mostly on this morning’s treatment, the desperate hope that it would work.

The meal line wasn’t long by the time we took bowls and spoons and joined the quickly moving queue. The plant-like scents of vero, the spice of morning stew, and the woody smell of bejong boiling on the cooker filled the air. I wasn’t hungry, of course. I came to the communiteria at mealtimes because I liked the company — being commune-raised,
alone
was not something I ever wanted — and I still liked the scents of freshly prepared food. Odd that food smelled good to me when I didn’t need to eat it — another change the lumani had made in me.

I was ahead of Azlii and Nez in the queue. Lon, the doumana serving that morning, ladled half-a-bowlful of vero into my dish. These doumanas finally must have noticed that I rarely ate more than a spoonful. I took the bowl and went to find three open chairs together.

Azlii sat down hard in the seat beside me and clunked her bowl on the table.

“I asked for more,” she said, keeping her voice quiet, “and was told there wasn’t more. We always run a little low at beginning of First Warmth, but we’ve never been on halves.” She scowled at her dish. “After morning meal, a talk with Binley will be in order. Perhaps the First of supplies has an explanation.”

I stared down at my white bowl and the few scoops of dark-green vero.

“I can’t eat a bite this morning,” I said. “Here.” I split my meal in two, pouring half into Nez’s bowl, half in Azlii’s.

Nez took hers with the yellow-orange of gratitude flaring quickly on her neck, then winking off. Azlii’s neck showed the brown-yellow of annoyance, and it stayed.

Kroot
kroot
, Home sent, to get our attention.
Binley
is
coming
.

And
? Azlii sent back without glancing away from what she was doing.

She
looks
worried
, Home sent.

Azlii cleared her throat, got up from the pillow where she’d been going over some figures on a small, black textbox, and took a few steps toward the door. Binley was in charge of supplies for Kelroosh. I didn’t remember her ever coming to our dwelling before.

Home swung open the front door and Binley came inside. It hadn’t been a stretch for Home to say she looked worried. The blue-red of anxiety was lit on most of her emotion spots, making her neck look bruised.

“Welcome,” Azlii said, but her stance was anything but that — legs apart, her hands lightly fisted and resting near the top of her hipwrap.

Nez and I started to rise from the pillows where we sat, intending to leave the room, but Azlii said, “Stay.”

At Lunge, all praise and condemnation were given publicly, all information shared among the commune sisters equally. Or so I’d believed until I discovered that Simanca, Lunge’s leader, shared what she wanted and held back the rest. Corentans shared some things publicly and some in private. Maybe Nez and I were coming to the corentan view, since neither of us wanted, or felt the right, to hear the conversation between Azlii and Binley.

“Please,” Azlii said, her eyes on Binley, her voice chill for the word. “Sit. I have some questions.”

Binley didn’t wait a breath. She burst into speech before she’d even settled onto the orange-red sitting-pillow.

“I’m glad you’ve called me here, Azlii. Things are getting serious. Something has to be done or we will be rationing more than the morning meal in ten days’ time.” The First of supplies wrapped her arms around her knees, hugging them toward her chest. “We’re running out of food.”

Azlii glared at her a moment. “And you’ve waited this long to tell me?”

Binley shrugged, and I saw she was a bit afraid of Azlii. But that wasn’t what had kept her from speaking out. Her silence had some other root.

“How did this happen?” Azlii asked, her voice softening. “We’ve never run this short before.”

“We have extra mouths to feed.” Binley glanced our way. “Not that you two make that much difference. Khe doesn’t make any difference at all.” She turned back to Azlii. “But last year we were rewarded nearly half again the number of hatchlings we usually get. And…” Three of her emotion spots lit with the brown-green of shame. Her words rushed out. “My predecessor made some mistakes.”

I expected anger from Azlii. Commune doumanas would never blame a sister for anything. Not to a leader. But these doumanas were corentans, and so much was different about them.

Azlii nodded once slowly. ”You didn’t tell me because you didn’t want to throw dirt at your sister’s memory.”

“Yes.”

A small silence set in. Nothing showed on Azlii’s neck, but everyone in the room could see that she was thinking.

“Our next stop is the spice growers’ commune,” she said. “No extra food for us there. And then we’re scheduled for a weavers’ commune. Nothing to eat there, either. But Lunge isn’t far. We could detour. Trade with them for supplies.”

A finger of heat raced through my chest. I hadn’t been near Lunge commune since the day I crossed its borders and left my life and my sisters behind.

“Will they trade for food?” Binley asked. “It’s still First Warmth. They’ll have only their own storage from last year left.”

“They’ll have enough,” I said, wondering if it was my place to speak. Lunge had the extra that I had provided for them, when Simanca had sent me, season after season, to the fields. It seemed fitting that Simanca now share that with my new sisters.

Azlii and Nez looked at me. They knew what Simanca had done — how she’d discovered my ability to make crops grow, and how she had used me even when she knew that pushing the crops was aging me. Simanca was the reason that any day could be my last, and that I would never see another Commemoration Day. Sometimes I hated her for that. Most times.

Azlii turned back to Binley. “We’ll go and we’ll ask. If the doumanas at Lunge won’t help us, we’ll try Grunewald. Someone has extra that they’ll be glad to profit by.”

Azlii’s neck was clear, but I sensed worry in her, worry that was cool and unemotional, and so didn’t show on her throat.

Binley rubbed her stomach once, then stood to go. Home swung open the front door before it was asked. Outside, a light, misty rain was falling. Binley pulled up the hood on her cloak, touched Azlii’s neck, and left.

Azlii stared at the door after it closed, her bottom lip sucked in, thinking. She turned to Nez.

“I’d like you to join the trading group at the spice commune.”

“Me?” The greenish-orange of amazement flickered on Nez’s throat.

“Why not? Make yourself useful.”

“And do what?”

“Listen,” Azlii said. “Observe. Feel.”

“I’m not an empath,” Nez said. “Not like Inra was.”

Azlii nodded. “You are diluted, but you’re the best we’ve got for now.” She glanced at me, her eyes narrowed. “Except for Khe, of course, when she feels up to helping. Hard for a kler or commune doumana to keep a secret from her — she sees them too clearly. Still, it never hurts during trade to have two doumanas poking around, looking for the truth of things.”

“I’m honored,” Nez said.

Azlii scratched her knee idly. “You can help Khe with the chair, if she needs it.”

I didn’t like mention of the chair. It reminded me that for what I’d gained when the lumani changed me, there was much I’d lost. Some days I felt strong enough to walk on my own, and on those days I was happy to join the trading crew; it made me feel useful, a contributing sister in the corenta. If I felt weak, Nez would have to push me in the special chair that glided a hand’s breadth above the ground, like a transportation vehicle, but needed a helper to steer it. Azlii had procured it somewhere — she wouldn’t say how it came into her possession, just laughed when I asked and said, “If your spots could light, Khe, I would hope they would be bright with the brown-green of shame at your rude behavior. A gift is to be accepted, not questioned.”

I’d kept my thoughts about that to myself. The lumani had given me gifts too.

Nez stared out the window and shivered. “Looks cold.”

In the late afternoon, Nez, Azlii and I were warm and comfortable inside Home. I stood next to Nez, sharing view through the clearstone. The sky was grayish and the air had the shimmery look of chill. Home had a firecave set into the wall of the receiving room but we rarely used it, even through Barren Season. I fastened on a new hipwrap Azlii had given me, and asked Home,
How
do
you
keep
us
so
warm
?

Home chuckled low.
That’s
why
I
like
you
,
Khe
.
You
are
not
corentan
,
and
yet
are
wise
enough
to
know
it
is
I
who
keeps
you
warm
when
snow
is
on
the
ground
and
cool
when
the
sun
batters
the
world
.
I
do
it
with
my
stones
,
transferring
heat
and
cold
back
and
forth
,
inside
to
outside
,
so
that
all
are
comfortable
,
myself
included
.

I’m
impressed
, I sent.

Rightfully
so
, Home sent.

Azlii handed Nez and I each an intermediary’s cloak, with one brown and two green stripes running down the front. Nez tried to hide her smile, but we both saw it. She wrapped the cloak over her shoulders and seemed to grow a little taller. Intermediaries carried information from every commune and kler in their heads — who made what, what it was worth last year and the year before and the year before. To wear the cloak was an honor. Nez didn’t have that information, nor did I, but we didn’t need it. Azlii only wanted us to observe. She handed us thick, white neck collars as well, to hide our emotion spots during trade, though it was unnecessary for me.

“Walking or riding, Khe?” Azlii asked.