You nod, hesitate, then reach for his hand. He’s not particularly affectionate, you’ve been relieved to discover, but he does need little gestures sometimes. A reminder that he is not alone, and that all is not hopeless. To this end you say, “If I succeed in shutting down the Rifting, you may not need to keep the node maintainers.” You’re not sure that’s true, but you hope it is.
He clasps your hand lightly. It’s been fascinating to realize that he never initiates contact between you. He waits for you to offer, and then he meets your gestures with as much or as little intensity as you’ve brought to the effort. Respecting your boundaries, which are sharp-edged and hair-triggered. You never knew he was so observant, all these years – but then, you should’ve guessed. He figured out you were an orogene just by watching you, years ago. Innon would’ve liked him, you decide.
As if he has heard your thoughts, Lerna then looks over at you, and his gaze is troubled.
“I’ve been thinking about not telling you something,” he says. “Or rather, not pointing out something you’ve probably chosen not to notice.”
“What an opening.”
He smiles a little, then sighs and looks down at your clasped hands, the smile fading. The moment attenuates; the tension grows in you, because this is so unlike him. Finally, though, he sighs. “How long has it been since you last menstruated?”
“How —” You stop talking.
Shit.
Shit.
In your silence, Lerna sighs and leans his head back against the wall.
You try to make excuses in your own head. Starvation. Extraordinary physical effort. You’re forty-four years old – you think. Can’t remember what month it is. The chances are slimmer than Castrima’s were of surviving the desert. But… your menses have run strong and regular for your entire life, stopping only on three prior occasions. Three significant occasions. That’s why the Fulcrum decided to breed you. Half-decent orogeny, and good Midlatter hips.
You knew. Lerna’s right. On some level, you noticed. And then chose not to notice, because —
Lerna has been silent beside you for some while, watching the comm unwind, his hand limp in yours. Very softly he says, “Am I correct in understanding that you need to finish your business at Corepoint within a time frame?”
His tone is too formal. You sigh, shutting your eyes. “Yes.”
“Soon?”
Hoa has told you that perigee – when the Moon is closest – will be in a few days. After that, it will pass the Earth and pick up velocity, slingshotting back into the distant stars or wherever it’s been all this time. If you don’t catch it now, you won’t.
“Yes,” you say. You’re tired. You… hurt. “Very soon.”
It is a thing you haven’t discussed, and probably should have for the sake of your relationship. It is a thing you never needed to discuss, because there was nothing to be said. Lerna says, “Using all the obelisks once did that to your arm.”
You glance at the stump unnecessarily. “Yes.” You know where he’s going with the conversation, so you decide to skip to the end. “You’re the one who asked what I was going to do about the Season.”
He sighs. “I was angry.”
“But not wrong.”
His hand twitches a little on your own. “What if I asked you not to do it?”
You don’t laugh. If you did, it would be bitter, and he doesn’t deserve that. Instead, you sigh and shift to lie down, pushing him until he does the same thing. He’s a little shorter than you, so you’re the big spoon. This of course puts your face in his gray hair, but he’s availed himself of the shower, too, so you don’t mind. He smells good. Healthy.
“You wouldn’t ask,” you say against his scalp.
“But what if I did?” It’s weary and heatless. He doesn’t mean it.
You kiss the back of his neck. “I’d say, ‘Okay,’ and then there would be three of us, and we’d all stay together until we die of ash lung.”
He takes your hand again. You didn’t initiate it this time, but it doesn’t bother you. “Promise,” he says.
He doesn’t wait for your answer before falling asleep.
***
Four days later, you reach Rennanis.
The good news is that you’re no longer plagued by ashfall. The Rifting’s too close, and the Wall is busy carrying the lighter particulates upward; you’ll never have to worry about that again. What you have instead are periodic gusts laden with incendiary material – lapilli, tiny bits of volcanic material that are too big to inhale easily but are still burning as they come down. Danel says the Rennies called it sparkfall, and that it’s mostly harmless, though you should keep spare canteens of water situated at strategic points throughout the caravan in case any of the sparks should catch and smolder.
More dramatic than the sparkfall, however, is the way lightning dances over the city’s skyline, this close to the Wall. The Innovators are excited about this. Tonkee says there are all sorts of uses for reliable lightning. (This would have made you stare at her, if it hadn’t come from Tonkee.) None of it strikes the ground, though – only the taller buildings, which have all been fitted with lightning rods by the city’s previous denizens. It’s harmless. You’ll just have to get used to it.
Rennanis isn’t what you were expecting, quite. Oh, it’s a huge city: Equatorial styling all over the place, still-functioning hydro and filtered well water running smoothly, tall black obsidian walls etched over with dire images of what happens to the city’s enemies. Its buildings aren’t nearly as beautiful or impressive as those of Yumenes, but then Yumenes was the greatest of the Equatorial cities, and Rennanis barely merited the title. “Only half a million people,” you remember someone sneering, a lifetime ago. But two lives ago, you were born in a humble Nomidlats village, and to what remains of Damaya, Rennanis is still a sight to behold.
There are less than a thousand of you to occupy a city that once held hundreds of thousands. Ykka orders everyone to take over a small complex of buildings near one of the city’s greenlands. (It has sixteen.) The former inhabitants have conveniently labeled the city’s buildings with a color code based on their structural soundness, since the city didn’t survive the Rifting entirely unscathed. Buildings marked with a green X are known to be safe. A yellow X means damage that could spell a collapse, especially if another major shake hits the city. Red-marked buildings are noticeably damaged and dangerous, though you see signs that they were inhabited, too, perhaps by those willing to take any shelter rather than be ashed out. There are more than enough green-X buildings for Castrima, so every household gets its pick of apartments that are furnished, sound, and still have working hydro and geo.
There are several wild flocks of chickens running about, and more goats, which have actually been breeding. The greenlands’ crops are all dead, however, having gone months unwatered and untended between you killing the Rennies and Castrima’s arrival. Despite this, the seed stocks contain lots of dandelion and other hardy, low-light-tolerant edibles, including Equatorial staples like taro. Meanwhile, the city’s storecaches are overflowing with cachebread, cheeses, fat-flecked spicy sausages, grains and fruit, herbs and leaves preserved in oil, more. Some of it’s fresher than the rest, brought back by the marauding army. All of it is more than the people of Castrima could eat if they threw a feast every night for the next ten years.
It’s amazing. But there are a few catches.
The first is that it’s more complicated to run Rennanis’s water treatment facility than anyone expected. It’s running automatically and thus far hasn’t broken down, but no one knows how to work the machinery if it does. Ykka sets the Innovators to the task of figuring that out, or coming up with a workable alternative if the equipment fails. Tonkee is highly annoyed: “I trained for six years at Seventh to learn how to clean shit out of sewer water?” But despite her complaining, she’s on it.
The second catch is that Castrima cannot possibly guard the city’s walls. The city is simply too big, and there are too few of you. You’re protected, for now, by the fact that no one comes north if they can possibly help it. If anyone does come a-conquering, however, nothing will stand between the comm and conquest except its wall.