“That didn’t even hurt at all!” Pyre exclaimed when they were much closer to home. They’d come across another village about an hour earlier, with Kudzu as the matriarch and then the pair had turned north. At this point, Minnow could see the edges of the closest docks and hear the discussions from the village. Despite the sinking feeling in her stomach that people weren’t happy and she’d have to deal with it, Minnow smiled and nudged Pyre into a faster pace to get home sooner.

No sooner had hooves hit the wood of the dock, Minnow and Pyre were met with equally loud, equally heavy footsteps from a group of uniformly dressed ker in Volcano gear and boots. They didn’t seem like the vaguely familiar faces of the refugees, but it was certainly a possibility that in the short time Minnow had been around the campers, she’d simply missed these ones. However, Pyre refuted that thought swiftly.

“They smell like burning sulfur,” she mumbled, trying to skirt around the troop. The men and women edged closer and Minnow could smell it too. Everyone who’d been living in the community smelled of mud and sweat and fish for the most part. These were new arrivals, and they didn’t look as desperate as the other refugees had when they’d arrived.

“What’ya got there, missy?” A larger man asked as Minnow shifted her weight to get as far from him as she could without falling off her aja.


“Probably food rations, I bet,” said a second, rat-faced ker with a single tail. “We’ll just be taking tho- OW! Son of a wolf.” The rat-man yelped and pulled his hand away bloody from Pyre’s bite. Cautious as she often was, Pyre cared as much for Minnow’s family as Minnow herself did, and she was certainly not going to let anyone who smelled of desolation and the pits of Xara near the ker. Rarely used, the aja had a gift for decay, and within seconds the flesh around the bite wounds was turning black and the Volcano officials were retreating from the pair, leaving room for Minnow to rush the medicine to Birch.

The matriarch had turned her own home into a temporary infirmary, and was standing outside when the jars arrived. Minnow passed the cure along before dismounting and shoving her way inside to see just how bad it was. The room was dark, with all the windows covered in some foreign cloth so the sick could sleep, but even in the dim light, Minnow recognized many of her family’s faces. Limpkin was curled under a heap of furs, shivering, and Snapper was sweating like he’d run to the Glades and back on the hottest day of the year. Every face was from the swamp. Or nearly every face.

In a corner, Minnow could see a man she recognized but not because of their relation. Flint was seated beside one of the sick, and it didn’t take Minnow two guesses to know who it was. Worried the secret would be out, she glanced to Birch, but in the crisis, it seemed that propriety had been pushed to the back of the matriarch’s mind.

“He’s taking good care of her,” Birch said, having noticed her daughter’s glance. “It seems he was, or is, a nurse in the Volcano, caring for the sick there, especially their tads.” Flint looked up at them, recognizing that they were talking about him, and though she couldn’t quite see the color, Minnow would have bet from the puffiness, that his eyes were blood shot from worry. A few healthier volunteers began to spoon feed the herbal remedy to the many patients. Each gagged at the bitter taste but eventually got the solution down their throats. Flint coaxed Fern to do the same, cradling her head to make swallowing easier.

Water was passed around the shelter to wash away the taste. With each sip, strength seemed to return until many were sitting up, though rather weakly. Ivy remained where she was, not swallowing anything and taking only the shallowest of breaths. As if it would give her niece more air, Minnow held her own breath, even as the world began to rush around her.

She didn’t hear as Pyre screamed for her from outside, and didn’t really hear the banging of the door as it was forced open. The thunderous stampede of feet through the infirmary made her turn, but she was in too much shock to do anything to change the wave that was crashing upon the community.

“No!”

Her sister’s scream broke through the fog, but Fern was too weak and Minnow was too slow to do anything but threaten as the burly man from before pulled Flint out of the cabin and away from the eyes of the village. Adrenaline was the only thing keeping Minnow on her feet as she rushed out the door in time to see ropes flying around and men and women fleeing from the uniformed officers. She didn’t see Flint anywhere, and what was more unsettling: she didn’t see Pyre anywhere either.

“Pyre!” she screamed, but the words were lost in the throng of people who were also yelling for their aja and other loved ones. Birch had left the infirmary to fight off the invaders, and, trying to prevent the shock of losing her aja from setting in, Minnow ran after her mother, knife drawn.

“Find more of the deserters,” she heard one uniform say to a group. “We’re losing men and we’re going to replenish the army if he have to draft every last ker on Xara. We’re not losing to the damn Rock.” His fist pounded into one of the wooden walls of a house with enough strength to shake the entire foundation and walkway surrounding him.

A woman standing near him barely moved a muscle as the footing swayed before offering her own directions to the drafters. “Recruit the Desert dwellers too. They work for us now anyway. We’ll put them to good-” she stopped when she noticed Minnow standing at the entrance to their little meeting, and smirked at the girl. The expression was lost on the swamp ker, however, until she was tapped on the shoulder. Too tired to make sense of anything that was happening in the moment, she turned around and her face, for the second time in less than a week, collided with a fist. This one stronger and harder than the one before.

Vision blackened and knees began to wobble before Minnow braced for the impact of her head on the hard wooden flooring of the community.