Chapter 88 Supplies and Future

  The road sloped down to the sea, broadening where stone gave way to hard-packed earth, wheel ruts gouged deep into the ground. Tib kept pace with Caelen, shoulders set, voice lowered so only the boy could hear.

  “Don’t reveal who you are,” he said under his breath. “Not here. Not now. We’re guards. Hired muscle. Whatever story fits. Let me handle the talking.”

  Caelen gave a sharp nod, jaw clenched. “Guards. Work. No names.”

  They moved on. Petyr fidgeted with the odd device fastened at his belt, unable to be still, while Kali lingered a step behind, her calm presence anchoring the group.

  At the town’s outskirts, two city guards rested against their spears. Their armor was dented but serviceable. They stood upright as soon as they noticed the newcomers and started to approach. For a moment, Caelen’s stomach tightened—he expected suspicion. But Tib hailed them with a grin and a salute, speaking as though the world had no shadow.

  “Morning to you. Passing through with goods. Ship salvage—tools, canvas, copper. Looking for fair trade in the market,” he stated.

  The guards’ faces eased, one chuckling. “Better that than another pack of sea-scum off the wharves. Aye, head through. Keep to the merchant quarter.” He leaned closer, voice dropping conspiratorially. “Best avoid the taverns. They bite strangers quickest.”

  They passed untroubled. Caelen kept his silence, though his eyes tracked everything—the angle of the walls where weeds crept unchecked, the placement and condition of the gates, the weary men-at-arms who patrolled more by habit than purpose. The city smelled of salt and pitch, but beneath it, the rot and refuse lingered.

  The merchant district sprawled just beyond the wharf. Crates stacked along crooked streets. Banners of faded paint creaked in the breeze. Here, citizens hawked goods in open stalls—grain, fish, pottery—while just beyond, sailors and rough men with knives at their belts lounged in shadows. It was not one quarter, but two worlds bound together.

  Caelen’s noble-bred eye could not help but measure the place. He counted the alleys as they moved along, tracked the patrols, and noticed how every third street seemed to slant down toward the harbor, as if the whole city longed to spill itself into the sea. The collection of ships drifted in the water. Some appeared sturdy and dignified. Others drooped, their hulls splintered, sails dangling in tatters.

  They bumbled through the throngs, passing merchants shouting over one another for attention. Taverns beckoned with music and laughter, but the group pressed on. They had no time for distractions, not with that kind of laughter—the sort that spelled trouble. Twice, Caelen caught something—movement at the periphery of his sight. Someone was trailing them. Maybe more than one. When they stopped, so did the shadows. Caelen’s hand hovered near his battered short blade, ready.

  “Two shadows,” he murmured to Tib, the crowd swallowing his words.

  “I see them,” Tib replied, never breaking stride. “Eyes ahead. Don’t let them notice us. Just look bored.”

  They wove through the market, Tib in front, his voice calm and even—always the first to speak. The first merchant handed over barrels of dried beans and peas—six total, each so heavy it took two people to heft one into the cart. The next merchant exchanged sacks of barley and oats, stacking them until the cart creaked under the load. Then came wheels of hard cheese, each snug in waxed cloth, and jars of pickles sealed tight enough to hold in every drop of brine.

  Caelen said nothing, only watched, but his eyes narrowed as the pile grew. This was not food for a handful of men—it was provisioning, the kind meant for a campaign or a holdfast preparing for lean months.

  The cart filled further—crates of dried fish, their smell cutting sharp against the salt air, and baskets of onions and roots that would keep well enough underground. A merchant dealing in oil and grain sold them kegs of lamp oil, loaves of hard bread, and flour sealed in clay jars to keep the damp out. Even the barrels of dried apples and figs, once luxuries, became necessities in Tib’s bargaining tongue.

  By the time the last merchant was done, the cart stood heaped nearly to the height of a man, canvas covers straining to bind the goods. It was enough for eighty mouths, maybe more, enough to hold against hunger for three months if stretched carefully.

  “Too much,” Petyr muttered, half in awe, half in disbelief as he perched on the cart’s wheel. “We’ll snap the axle.”

  Tib only shook his head, a grim smile tugging at his mouth. “No such thing as too much. Not when you have people to feed.”

  Kali touched one of the sealed barrels, her quiet voice carrying in the din. “A spark of plenty. But sparks burn fast if not tended.”

  Caelen’s gaze lingered on the load. To others, it was food, sustenance. To him, it was a matter of strategy and security. The Hollow could be fed on this and held together. And already, he counted in his mind what they had spent—and how much more they would need before the hollow was truly safe.

  They were doing what they came to do, yet at every turn, Caelen’s fury built. He saw a woman shoved aside in the street, her purse taken while passersby pretended blindness. He saw a boy cuffed bloody by a sailor for the crime of looking too long at his boots. He saw the guards themselves bark threats at a fishmonger, taking his best cuts without coin.

  Every muscle in him ached to intervene. His father’s voice echoed in memory—Avalon’s blood is for honor, not for coin. Yet here, honor was trampled beneath boots, and no one seemed to care.

  Kali noticed the tightness in his jaw, the way his eyes burned. She touched his sleeve, her voice soft. “Not now, Caelen. Later, maybe. But not now.”

  He gave her a single glance, then looked away, his silence iron.

  By the time they turned from the last stall, their cart fuller and their trade items spent, the city’s truth had sunk deep into him. Litus Solis was not one city, but two: one ruled by trade, weary and law-abiding, and another ruled by the knife and the sea, where scoundrels wrote their own laws.

  And between them walked the guards, caught in the middle, too few and too tired to keep order, their loyalty split between coin and oath.

  For Caelen, the lesson was bitter. He had hoped for a city of strength, something to anchor the south. Instead, he found a city ravaged by decay, diseased but not yet dead.

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  He said nothing, but as they turned the cart toward the northern road, his eyes swept the harbor once more. Noted the gaps in the wall. Counted ships. Weighed men against stone.

  The cart groaned under its weight as they turned toward the north gate. The guards there, having seen them before, gave a nod and told them to pass at their leisure. Yet Caelen slowed, his stride faltering, his gaze caught not by the gate but by the fountain that stood before it.

  The water that spilled from its cracked stone mouth was foul, streaked with a greasy sheen, carrying with it the smell of rot and brine. Caelen bent, fingertips brushing the rivulet as though it were a wound he had no words to name. A woman waiting there snorted when she saw his expression.

  “If you want better water, stranger, you’ll need the noble quarter,” she said, shifting her pail. “But it tastes little better there. The sea’s creeping up the river, and the filth from the north rides down into it. None can stop it. Not anymore.”

  Caelen lifted his eyes. He did not answer her, not in words, but in the stillness of his face; something passed—an unspoken refusal to accept what she had said as truth. It was not defiance; it was recognition, the same way a mason sees where stone has shifted, or a smith sees where metal has cracked.

  He straightened and untied his water skin, kneeling before three children who huddled at the fountain’s edge. Their feet were bare, their eyes wide, their small hands clutching a bucket almost too heavy for them to lift. At first, they shrank back, the smallest burying his face in the crook of his sister’s arm. Fear lived in their posture; fear was the water they drank every day.

  Caelen’s voice came soft, almost reverent. “Drink.” He tipped the skin toward them.

  They did not move until Tib muttered under his breath, “They think it’s a trick, Cael.”

  So Caelen sat and waited. He did not press. At last, the eldest girl, no more than ten, reached a trembling hand and took the skin. She sipped, then passed it to her brothers. The boy’s eyes lit at the taste, as though he had forgotten what clean water might be.

  Caelen broke a loaf of hardbread from their purchases and shared it among the three. The act drew more eyes from the fountain’s edge—derision from some, disquiet from others.

  It was then that she came. A young woman, ragged at the edges, her hair unkempt, her gown torn at the seams. Yet in her face, beneath the dirt and weariness, was beauty—like a statue toppled but not yet broken. She clutched at the children, pulling them away with whispered urgency, her eyes darting with terror.

  Caelen inclined his head with courtly grace, as though she were a lady of Avalon in her own hall. “Lady,” he answered, his cadence halting yet precise.

  “My lord,” she stammered, though the words sounded wrong upon her tongue, “you should not… I am not fit for such a greeting.”

  Her breath caught, and for a heartbeat, she looked ready to flee. Whispers stirred at the fountain’s rim, cruel murmurs from those who knew her name and trade. She pressed her lips thin and said, “I am no lady. I am a woman sold. These children are mine to keep alive, but I…” Her eyes lowered. “I am what they call me. Prostitute. Do not waste words on me.”

  The stillness that fell over Caelen then was dangerous. His hand flexed once at his side, as though he held back something that longed to be loosed. Within him, a fire coiled—anger at the city that let such a thing stand, anger at the men who preyed, anger at the Veils themselves for permitting it. His face betrayed none of it, but Tib saw. Tib always saw.

  “No,” Tib said quickly, stepping closer, his voice pitched low to reach only Caelen’s ears. “Not her. We cannot take them away from here. You know what that would bring.”

  For a long moment, Caelen said nothing. He only looked at the woman, at the children clutching her skirts, at the jeering citizens who found her shame their amusement. Then he turned, the faintest shadow of a smile pulling at his mouth, not of mirth, but of promise.

  “We prepare,” he said simply. And he moved toward the gate.

  They passed beneath the archway, the guards giving them no pause. Yet in Caelen’s eyes, there was no peace. He saw the city for what it was: strong walls masking hollow bones, a place where power ruled in cruelty and the weak drowned in neglect.

  For now, he walked in silence. For now, he held his tongue, bowed to the order of things. But beneath his calm was steel, tempered and waiting. Someday, soon, his silence would break. Someday, the city would learn that Avalon’s sons did not leave rot unchallenged.

  It was not a question of if. Only when.

  …

  By the time they returned to Arlen’s holding, the air was heavy with the coppery scent of the sea wind and the hush of cicadas rising from the hedgerows. The shed-turned-workshop had become a nest of shavings and tools, the carved log resting on the ground like some half-born beast awaiting life.

  Caelen gave no speech. He merely set the bark he had stripped—a single unbroken sheet, thick and pliant—upon the ground and motioned for Tib and Arlen’s sons to hold it steady. Together, they wrapped it around the carved screw, binding it tight with twine until the form became a hollow tube. The seams were rough, but under Caelen’s hands, roughness became purpose.

  “Now,” he said, his cadence clipped as ever. He set the crank, which Kali had shaped from oak and metal, into the upper brace. Together, they all lifted it and carried it to the bank that Caelen had dug into a gentle slope. They placed the contraption so that the bottom was entirely in a deep pit that Caelen had put into the river, and so that its head was proud of the bank. The children brought the stones so they could weigh the tube down and partially conceal it. Tib leaned in and gave it the first turn. The log groaned, the bark creaked, but slowly the screw bit and a trickle of water lapped up, falling into the ditch’s edge.

  Arlen bent low, eyes wide, as the water rose—not in torrents, but in a steady climb, lifted by the spiral until it spilled into the small stone trough they had stacked earlier. The thin stream wove its way down toward the fields, glinting in the fading light like a promise half-fulfilled.

  It was hard work. Tib’s arms strained with each crank, sweat rolling down his temple. The motion was clumsy and slow, requiring considerable effort from the shoulders and back. Yet still the water climbed—one turn, then another, each drop more than Arlen could have hauled with his buckets in the same span.

  For a long moment, the farmer only stared. Then his mouth split wide, and he slapped Tib on the back so hard the young man nearly stumbled. “By the Veils,” Arlen swore, voice rough with awe. “It works. Veils above, it works.”

  His kin crowded round, murmuring in disbelief, reaching out to touch the wet stones as though they could not trust their eyes. Arlen turned back to Caelen, his face alight. “You’ve given me a gift I cannot repay. My fields—my children—this will change everything. I’ll not forget it, not ever.”

  Caelen only nodded, stepping back, his eyes already searching the horizon, as if the device were but one stone in a wall not yet built.

  They departed in the late afternoon, the sun casting the world in copper fire as they pushed their cart down the rutted lane. Arlen’s voice followed them still, calling blessings until distance swallowed the sound.

  Yet behind them, Kali walked in silence, her gaze drawn again and again to the crude device half-hidden in Arlen’s field. Yes, it worked—Veils help her, it worked—but her mind did not linger on the labor it would take to turn it, nor on whether the bark would hold or the twine would fray. Those were simple problems, solved with hands and patience.

  No—what troubled her was not the effort, but the eyes that would one day fall upon it. Already she could imagine: neighbors peering over hedges, merchants sniffing out profit, lords hearing whispers of a tool that pulled water from earth and ditch. And with those whispers would come hunger—covetous, endless hunger.

  She knew too well what people did when they wanted something that wasn't theirs.

  It was not the screw of wood that frightened her, but the desires it might stir, the contests it might spark. What will they do with that desire? she thought, stomach tightening. Will they bargain for it? Steal it? Fight over it until blood stains the troughs we built in innocence?

  Her eyes shifted to Caelen, striding ahead, shoulders set with unshakable certainty. He saw only what could be done, never pausing to wonder what others would make of it.

  Kali hugged her bindings close, a quiet spark of unease prickling at her core. Tools drew eyes, eyes drew greed, and greed rarely walked alone. Her last thought was of the proverb her grandmother had told her: “Not all roads paved with mercy lead to safety—some lead the wolf to the fold.”