31. Stealing Bread
STEALING brEAD
DAWN
Any lesser person can be grateful for good fortune. Be grateful instead for the heartache, for the pain, for the mistakes you loathe to face. These things sharpen you.
COLLECTED SAYINGS OF LORE TAVIS, COMPILED BY THE ACOLYTES OF STARFALL SANCTUARY
Three days after the storm, Dawn watched Holloway portion out the last rations. A handful of dried corn was nothing. She chewed the kernels one at a time to distract from the noises coming from her stomach. The horses were worse off. If they didn’t find food soon, they’d be walking.
The sun burned overhead, a flat white coin in the empty sky. Shimmering heat blurred the horizon line. Lore rode ahead. His cloak was drawn close despite the heat. Talia’s hands shook on the reins. Holloway’s jaw was clenched so tight she heard his teeth grind.
Riven would have said something sharp to break the silence. Made her laugh against her will. When the wind shifted, she swore she heard his voice. He’d taken more than one bullet for her. It killed her to think that he’d fallen and she’d just watched.
He couldn’t be gone. He was too tough to die, too stubborn to stay down. She wouldn’t believe it until she saw a body.
A twist of smoke curled into the sky. She sat up in her saddle and whistled to Lore.
He shaded his eyes to see. “A camp?”
“Think it’s a homestead,” Dawn said. She caught the scent of woodsmoke and warm bread drifting on the breeze.
The cabin was set in a ragged field, children picking rows of late-season corn. A hard life, but they had food. Lore rode down alone. The man who came to the door closed it behind him. Wind brought the rhythm of voices, not the words. When Lore came back, his jaw had gone hard. He shook his head.
Talia straightened. “Did you offer to pay?”
“They have no need for coin. Winter is coming on, and they’ve got seven mouths.”
Holloway exhaled slow. “Okay then, we move on.”
“On what horses?” Dawn asked. “Jonquil is already faltering.”
He turned on her, his voice raw. “So we steal from children? Is that how we operate now?”
“Children can survive a lot.” Did she like it? No. But staying alive was the priority here. She wasn’t going to have this conversation with Holloway, of all people. He’d never gone hungry a day in his life.
Lore spoke slow and even. “Nobody wants this, but we cannot go on without provisions, and we cannot go back. The gods set us on this path, and we must see it through. By whatever means.”
Dawn agreed with the sentiment, but the calm in his voice made her skin crawl. Same tone he’d used over those graves, marking grief as sacred. Men with his kind of conviction were the most dangerous. They could make the worst atrocities feel holy.
Holloway’s gaze darted to each of their faces. “This is your faith?”
“This is reality.” To Lore’s credit, he did not look away.
Lore went down again. When the man lifted his rifle, Lore raised a hand. The air shimmered. There was a crack as the gun shattered, wood and metal dissolving to splinters. The woman started screaming, and the children were hauled inside.
Dawn’s hands went to her revolvers. She knew Lore had power, but this was something else. If he could do that to a rifle, what else could he unmake? Maybe it wasn’t so bad the flux crystals were running low.
Lore’s voice echoed from the doorway. “Take what we need. Nothing more.”
Holloway grimaced and rubbed his palm. Dawn wondered if the blood oath was hurting him or if he obeyed on his own. She watched him pull out his coin purse, hefting it once before setting it on a fence post. The farmer might not be able to use it, but Holloway needed to try.
Dawn moved toward the smokehouse when Talia’s voice stopped her.
“We’re really doing this?”
Dawn turned. Talia sat rigid on Jonquil, staring at the little house.
“You want to starve?” Dawn asked.
“I want—” Talia’s voice cracked. “I want people to stop treating me like I can’t handle the truth. If we’re robbing these people, just say so.”
Dawn went still. She clearly had something bigger on her mind. Lore must have told her about Riven. Shit. Talia looked up at the sky, avoiding her eyes.
“We’re getting food,” Dawn said. “Don’t overthink it.”
Talia stayed mounted as Dawn stepped on into the smokehouse.
The scent of smoking meat turned her stomach and made her hungrier at the same time.
She found a burlap sack in one corner and started filling it up.
Behind her, Lore stood at the gate and watched Talia, his shadow stretching long across the yard.
Holloway worked in silence, hands shaking worse now as he tied sacks of cornmeal, bread, potatoes.
Kept dropping knots, retying them. Sorrel stepped in wordlessly, set a hand on Holloway’s, and took over.
Dawn watched him gather some herbs and a cut of fresh meat.
It was nice to have a real cook with them.
They loaded the last sack onto the horses.
Dawn pulled the final cinch tight. The family huddled in the open doorway.
The father’s rifle lay in splinters at his feet.
The smallest girl clutched a wooden toy, staring at them with shock as they rode away.
Something about the scene got under Dawn’s skin, and as Brimstone fell into a steady rhythm, she was transported to a memory she hadn’t visited in a very long time.
The waif ran on the balls of her feet, cobblestones pressing hard and round against her toes. Not even the glass in the gutter was sharp enough to pierce her bare soles.
When footsteps sounded, she ducked into an alley and crouched low, breath shallow. A boy came into view, maybe her age but taller, with the look of someone who’d eaten yesterday and the day before. He carried a heel of bread, still steaming where he’d torn it from the loaf.
She sprang on him. Her teeth sank into his wrist. Instead of dropping the bread, he caught her arm in a steady grip. His eyes were gray, and they didn’t blink.
“Are you some kind of dog?” he asked, cocking his head to the side.
“I’m a dragon,” she hissed. “And I’m going to eat you.”
He laughed, soft and startled, then broke his bread in half and pressed the bigger piece into her hand. “This’ll taste better. And stop biting people, it’s not nice.”
She tore into the bread so fast she choked. He didn’t move, just watched her swallow and cough. Then he handed her his half too.
She’d thought hunger only made people meaner. He proved her wrong. Something sharp caught in her throat when he showed up the next day. She wiped at her eyes, furious with herself for feeling anything at all.
The gray-eyed boy came back again and again with bread, salt pork, whatever scraps he could scrounge together. He never stayed long, but he always shared. She still growled at him, but she’d follow that boy anywhere.
Dawn jolted from her reverie as they pulled off the road. First the faerie story about Elanwei, now some sappy childhood memory. She was going sentimental, and she didn’t like it.
They passed through five broken pillars that Dawn recognized. Ashenfell. Fuck, they were too far west. She made a note to turn them north in the morning. The boundary of the Whisperwood was always shifting, and they wouldn’t want to cut too close.
Sorrel built the fire and cooked the fresh meat over it. Lore passed out the portions. Before he ate, he held his plate loose in both hands and bent his head.
“For this food, we give thanks,” he murmured. “Not because it was freely given, but because it keeps us alive. May the hard choices fall on those strong enough to bear them.”
Holloway ate without hesitation, shoulders tight, eyes fixed on the fire. Talia took her portion and moved off. Sat with her back to them.
The first bite filled Dawn’s mouth with salt and smoke. It hit every empty place in her body. She’d gone longer than a few days without food. She’d done worse things than steal from children. Every feast had a cost. She’d add this one to her tab.
She took first watch, let the others settle. Tomorrow they’d eat stolen food again. And the next day. And they’d survive. Out here, guilt hurt less than hunger.
The moon rose, nearly full. Dawn walked the perimeter, hands on her holsters. Movement on the ridgeline caught her eye, and both guns came up.
“It’s not nice to shoot people.”
The voice stopped her cold.
Riven stepped into the moonlight. He looked like shit—face tight, shirt torn and crusted with blood. He was favoring his left leg.
Relief hit her so hard she had to catch her breath.
“You bastard,” she coughed out. “I thought you died.”
How had he survived, let alone made it this far? Over those mountains, across the dry grassland. They were well off the Queen’s Way.
“Not yet.” He swayed, caught himself. “Is she okay—”
“Talia? She’s alive. For now. Lore’s got his hooks in her.”
He looked past her toward the camp, where Talia slept. “This is my nightmare,” he said, barely above a whisper. “I failed before to save our friends, and it’s happening again. I don’t know how to stop it.”
“Well, you’re not invited over.” Dawn’s grip tightened on her guns. “Lore will kill you. Or have Holloway do it. He made the kid take a fucking blood oath.”
Riven grimaced.
“What were you thinking?” she asked, punching him on the arm. He felt solid. “Giving Lore’s name to the enforcers? He put a hit out on you. Asked me to handle it.”
Riven sighed. “Want to take a shot? Best chance you’re gonna get.”
When Dawn glared, the bastard just opened his arms wide and grinned. She looked him over again, then she reached into her pack. “You’d better take this,” she said, pulling out the bread they’d stolen. Shoved it at his chest, hard, so he had to grab it.
He looked down at the bread in his hands. Then up at her.
“Take it. Just”—she paused—“stay close. This whole thing’s going bad. I can smell it.”
They didn’t need to trade more words, the gesture said plenty. Her gray-eyed friend nodded, took the bread, and stepped away. She waited until she lost sight of him in the dark before turning back for camp.
Made sense, she supposed. Why he’d stayed. Why he’d made the calls he did, maddening as they were. Riven had been lost a long time, and now he’d found someone worth protecting again. He deserved it.
She’d kept his betrayal from Talia once. Tomorrow, she’d have to lie about his loyalty. Add that to her tab too.