The next few days slide into something like a pattern.

  Haul water. Scrub dishes. Sweep. Help Alkek unload whatever he’s dragged in from the lane. Evenings, the tap fills, people drink, I pretend mugs are heavy. Nights, I collapse onto a complaining mattress and tell myself I’ll move on soon… but a “night or two” quietly turns into more.

  Alkek jokes, I snap back, and he grins like I’ve handed him something valuable. It reminds me of Reid in the old days—the easy, stupid back-and-forth before everything broke. Flirting, I think. Something normal people do.

  Valicar keeps flicking little readouts into the corner of my vision until I clamp my hand over the core and mutter, “Unless something’s trying to kill me, be quiet.”

  [VALICAR: NON-CRITICAL OUTPUT MUTED]

  Good. One less voice.

  On the fourth morning, Maro cracks open a flour barrel, looks inside, and swears like the sky fell.

  “Rot,” he snaps, digging in. “And weevils. Bastard sold me sweepings.”

  He slams the lid, flour puffing around his fist, then jabs a finger at me and toward the door.

  “You and Alkek, to the square,” Maro says, stabbing a flour-dusty finger toward the door. “Get fresh flour, onions, and soap from Ressa’s stall. This is an errand, not a courting walk—be back before the supper rush. I’m not serving stew without bread.”

  Alkek appears in the doorway, hair damp from chopping wood. “You keep sending me to market with the pretty one and still say it’s not a date,” he says. “Thought you wanted grandkids someday, Da.”

  My cheeks flush, annoyingly, at that. “Not helping,” I mutter.

  Maro snorts. “I want flour more. Move.”

  We end up side by side in the lane, list tucked into his belt.

  “First market run,” he says. “If anyone tries to sell you ‘blessed grain’ or magic beans, walk away unless the beans are made of gold.”

  “Understood,” I say. “No miracle beans.”

  The square is a rough circle of stalls and awnings, carts jammed in every gap. Smells hit first—herbs, meat, wool, fried something—then the noise: kids, vendors, someone trying to tune a fiddle and losing.

  We’re halfway to the grain stalls when a shout cuts across the flow.

  “Alkek! You brought the girl with you, eh?”

  I know that voice. One of the regulars who likes to ogle me whenever I get near his table.

  Bren’s standing on a crate like it’s a stage, mug already in his hand. His cousin Tomas is beside him, boots on the ground, posture wary in a way that says he spends half his life apologizing for Bren with his eyes.

  “Morning, Bren,” Alkek says, not slowing.

  Bren’s gaze lands on me and sticks. “Damn,” he says, low and appreciative. “You’re an even better sight in daylight.”

  Tomas elbows him. “Quit staring,” he mutters. “You’ve been looking for reasons to drink at Maro’s every night since she showed up.”

  “I’m admiring,” Bren says. “That’s different.”

  Heat crawls under my skin. My fingers flex around empty air on reflex, itching for a grip that isn’t there.

  Before I can decide how much trouble different deserves, Alkek shifts just half a step closer. Nothing dramatic—he doesn’t puff up or snarl—but the angle changes. Bren’s view hits Alkek’s shoulder instead of the front of me.

  “Knock it off,” Alkek says, voice cheerful and flat at the same time. “We’re here for flour, not your review of Da’s staff.”

  “I was just talking,” Bren says, grin widening. “She doesn’t mind, do you—”

  “Bren,” Tomas cuts in, nodding past us. “We’ll be late for the mill if you keep flapping.”

  Bren grumbles, but he lets Tomas pull him away.

  I let out a breath I hadn’t noticed I was holding.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” I say quietly.

  “Do what?” Alkek asks, all innocence. “Use my legs?”

  “Forget it,” I mutter, shaking my head as I push past him toward the stalls.

  We reach Ressa’s stall—a small fortress of sacks and barrels. She slices a flour bag open and jerks her chin for me to check it.

  I pinch a bit, rub it between my fingers. Clean. No wriggle. Smells like warm stone.

  “It’s good,” I say.

  “Course it is,” Ressa sniffs. “Maro finally remembered where to buy.” Her eyes flick over me. “You his new girl?”

  “Temporary,” I say.

  “Aren’t we all,” she mutters, and starts weighing out what we need.

  Ressa wraps the flour and onions, tying the sack off with a quick jerk of twine.

  My stomach chooses that moment to roar, loud enough that all three of us hear it.

  The smell hits a second later—iron and fat and something sweet. I glance sideways.

  At the next stall over, a butcher is halfway through carving up… something. Not from Earth, nowhere close. The carcass hangs from a hook, six narrow legs gone slack, hide peeled back to show meat so dark it’s almost black. The thing in my blood pricks up, curious. New genome. Native stock that survived Dad’s sweeps.

  Alkek follows my line of sight. “Pax rat,” he says. “Never my favorite, but it’s cheap. Not everyone gets to be picky about protein.” He nods at a fresh ham hanging behind Ressa. “Hungry?”

  “I’ve noticed Da doesn’t feed you enough,” he adds, mouth twitching.

  “I… could eat,” I admit. The pang in my gut makes the words easy.

  “Ressa, wrap us a few slices,” he says. “Do it like you did that one time for me and Ma—with the honey.”

  Ressa snorts, but she’s already reaching for the knife. “Two iron crowns more.”

  “Add it to Da’s tab,” Alkek says, winking.

  She hands over a small paper-wrapped bundle. I mean to wait until we’re clear of the stall.

  I don’t.

  By the time we’ve taken ten steps, I’ve torn it open and shoved a piece into my mouth. The meat is smoky and gamey, the honey sticky on my fingers. Phoenix purrs along my bones like someone just threw a log on the fire.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  Alkek watches me demolish a second slice, eyebrows up but not mocking. “You really from out west?” he asks after a few steps. “You don’t talk like village folk.”

  “My father read too much,” I say around the last bite. “It rubs off.”

  “Must’ve been nice,” he says. “Someone chasing letters instead of making you chase goats.”

  Nice, I think. Sure. Let’s call it that.

  We haul the sacks and soap back the way we came. The square swallows us and spits us out into the lane; by the time we reach the tap’s back door, the bundle in my hand is down to a smear of honey on crumpled paper and Phoenix is a little less rabid under my skin.

  Maro eyes the load as we come in. “About time,” he mutters, but his hands are already on the flour sack, testing the weight like he doesn’t quite trust his eyes.

  “Good grain,” Alkek says. “Ressa even pretended to give you a discount.”

  Maro grunts, which I’m starting to learn means fine, thanks in his dialect, then squints at the empty paper in my hand.

  “Already eating the profits?” he asks.

  “Quality control,” Alkek says, deadpan.

  Maro snorts and waves us away. “Put the onions by the stove. Then back to work. Daylight’s not for standing around.”

  The day folds in on itself—chopping, wiping, ferrying plates. The new flour becomes dough, the dough becomes bread, and the first loaves come out of the oven with their crusts cracked and golden, the room filling with the smell.

  In the kitchen I steal what I can without thinking—a heel of bread, a spoon scraped through the stew, a scrap of chicken from the bird I plucked earlier. It was hard not to eat the little bastard whole.

  Phoenix throws it all into the same furnace. The ache in my ribs dulls for a breath, then sharpens again, meaner for being teased.

  By supper, the tap is packed again—farmers in from the fields, the smith shaking off the day’s hammering, Jorren easing himself into his usual corner with a sigh loud enough to hear across the room.

  I lose track of how many times I circle from pot to table to counter and back. Bowls vanish from my hands as fast as I can set them down. Mugs thump, coins clink, someone starts a song and gives up halfway when they forget the words.

  At some point, I realize I still haven’t actually sat with a full bowl. Just scraps and steam and the smell of meat that never quite makes it to my own table.

  You’ll be fine, I tell myself. Fuck you, Phoenix.

  By the time the rush crests, the room has gone slightly sideways. Not much—just enough that the space between tables feels a little narrower, the floor a little less certain under my feet. The noise climbs; my heart tries to match it. Every tray seems to weigh more than it should.

  The smells sharpen until they’re almost violent—meat, gravy, spilled ale, sweat. My stomach twists on itself, hollow and mean. Phoenix paces along my bones, counting ribs and throats and warm bodies like it’s making a list. Bread and stolen scraps were never going to be enough.

  You idiot.

  I drop off another line of bowls and turn back toward the counter. The path feels longer than it did an hour ago.

  “Sol,” someone says close by, voice coming in like it’s underwater. “You’re paler than normal.”

  Alkek leans his hip against the counter nearby, tray balanced in one hand.

  “You sick?” he asks quietly, once Maro’s turned away. “For a second out there, you looked like you were about to climb over the table at Bren.”

  I was, a small, horrified part of me thinks. Not to hit him. To eat him. Phoenix still hums under my skin, pleased—fresh meat is fresh meat; it doesn’t care whose.

  “No,” I say, staring into the last smear of gravy. “Just… if I ignore it too long, I get lightheaded. Been like that as long as I remember. Healers back home always said it was nothing.”

  He nods immediately, like that fits into a story he already knows. “Ma was like that,” he says. “Had to shove bread at her between customers or she’d go grey and start snapping at folk. Keeper said some people’s humors run too fast.” He shrugs. “Doesn’t mean you’re cursed. Just means you eat first, argue later.”

  Something in my chest loosens at that—at how easily he slots me into people he’s known instead of monsters he hasn’t.

  “I’ll try,” I say.

  “I’ll make you something after we close,” he adds, almost offhand. “Know a spot up the hill where you can actually see the stars. You can eat where Bren’s eyes can’t reach you.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I know,” he cuts in lightly. “Humor me. Next time it starts to feel like that, you tell me before you start looking ready to take a chunk out of someone. Cheaper than breaking anyone’s nose. Or yours.”

  Despite myself, my mouth twitches. “Very demanding medical plan.”

  “Best in Angel’s ass-end,” he says. “Includes bread.”

  Maro snorts. “Includes getting back to work. Go on. Both of you.”

  “On it,” Alkek says. He snags a slice of cheese from the cutting board and presses it into my hand. “To hold you over. We’ve only got another hour.”

  He flashes me a quick half-grin, then peels off toward a table cluttered with empty cups.

  I stand. The room stays put this time. The throbbing, frantic edge in my veins has dulled to something manageable. Out on the floor, Bren is already laughing at his own joke, Tomas rolling his eyes. Jorren lifts his mug in my direction without really looking, the way he does for anyone who keeps his cup full.

  To them it’s just another busy night. To me it’s a narrow miss.

  I take up a tray with steady hands and let the noise close over me.

  By closing, the worst of the tired is the normal kind—the kind you get from walking in circles for hours with your hands full. The last of the farmers drift out; Bren stumbles after Tomas, already half-asleep on his feet. Hano stacks chairs with the resigned clatter of someone who’s made bad life choices.

  Maro claps Alkek on the shoulder, waves me toward the back with his rag. “Enough. Tomorrow’s mess will wait for tomorrow.”

  I wipe my hands on my apron and head for the stairs, bones humming. Before I can escape, Alkek’s voice comes from the open back door.

  “Hey. Sol.”

  He’s leaning in the doorway, cloak already on, a small cloth-wrapped bundle in his hand.

  “Told you I’d make something,” he says. “You still steady?”

  I do a quick check. Phoenix is a low, sulky burn instead of a scream. “Steady enough.”

  “Good. Come on, then.” He jerks his chin toward the dark beyond the yard. “Hill’s better than your little broom closet. Stars are out tonight.”

  I hesitate just long enough to annoy myself, then grab my own cloak from the peg and follow him out.

  The yard is quiet now, just a few coals in the ash pit winking like tired eyes. We slip through the gate and into the lane, boots scuffing softly. The village has folded in on itself—shutters drawn, light leaking in thin lines.

  It’s a quiet walk, but not an awkward one. The road spills us into open ground, and we cut across the edge of a fallow field toward a low rise just beyond the last cottage.

  From the top, the world feels bigger and smaller at the same time. The tap and the other buildings are just a scatter of warm rectangles below. Beyond them, the dark line of fields, the faint silver thread of the road, the heavier shadow of Angel’s hull on the far ridge.

  Above that, the sky has opened.

  Sol II is down behind the hills, but its red-leaning glare clings to the edge of the world, painting everything with a low, copper afterglow. The larger moon hangs fat and bright, its usual white washed faintly pink. The smaller one rides higher, a cooler echo, also wearing that blush like someone smeared color along its edges.

  Stars burn through the fading blue—more than Earth ever let me see. No city-haze, no station lights. Just cold points scattered across the dark.

  Alkek eases himself onto the grass and pats the ground beside him. “Here. Only place in town you’re not allowed to serve anyone.”

  “That the house rule?” I ask, but I sit. The earth is cool under my legs, the smell of crushed green pushing the day’s stew and spilled ale out of my nose.

  He sets the bundle between us and unwraps it. Inside: thick slices of bread, a bit of cheese, a curl of meat gone glossy with cold fat.

  “Promise it’s not pax rat,” he says. “Just cow. I wouldn’t betray you like that.”

  I huff something that might be a laugh and take a piece. The first bite hits my stomach and disappears fast, but not in the panicked way from earlier. Phoenix doesn’t lunge so much as sigh, settling a little deeper into my bones.

  We eat, passing pieces back and forth, letting the food cover for anything we don’t feel like saying out loud. “You always inhale food like that?” Alkek asks eventually. “Starting to fear for my fingers.”

  “Don’t wave them over the plate and you’ll live,” I say.

  “Good rule,” he says. “Feed the mysterious out-of-towner first, keep all ten digits. Ma would approve.”

  I huff a laugh and take another bite.

  He leans back on his hands, watching the sky. I chew and follow his gaze. The larger moon has cleared a thin cloud, its pink-tinted light washing the hill in soft, strange color.

  We let the silence stretch, and then he says, “Never gets old. Ma used to drag me out here when I was small. Said if you get through a bad day and still have bread and stars, you’re doing better than most.”

  “That’s a low bar,” I say.

  “That’s a reachable one,” he counters.

  The wind fusses at the grass around our ankles. Down in the village, a door shuts; a dog barks once and decides it isn’t worth the effort. The sounds come up thin and far.

  My hand finds the core at my sternum without thinking. You’re usually above this, I think. Looking down, not up.

  They’re still out there. Jericho. The Hive. The Elders. Dad.

  But for once, the thought doesn’t press. No whisper in the back of my skull. No phantom hum of drives. Just a boy beside me making sure my dinner isn’t mystery rat, and two moons overhead, both touched with a smear of pink.

  You don’t get to keep this, I remind myself. You know that.

  I do. Sooner or later, someone will tug the leash. The storm will roll over this quiet little hill.

  For now, I let myself breathe in the world as it is: small, human, held together by flour and secondhand beef and a man who worries if I’ve eaten. I finish the last bite, wipe my fingers on the edge of the cloth, and lie back beside him.

  After a while, I feel something warm close over my hand. I glance down—and for once, I don’t pull away. I squeeze his hand back. The moons watch like slow, patient eyes.

  I let my eyes close with the afterimage of pink-edged circles burned into them.

  For tonight, I’m just Sol—sitting on a hill with a friend under a sky that doesn’t know it’s borrowed.