They used to have medicine for Era's condition. What drugs they had ran out long ago, and now Era was left with piecemeal treatments, barely able to get enough salt to ease the dizziness, and living with a frequently racing heart. Today, she wrapped her legs extra tightly before standing, hoping to stave off the wooziness being on her feet would bring.
Mar watched her judgmentally from her mat, as if Era wouldn't do it right. When Mason asked Mar to watch over her while she was in the women's section instead of leaving her care to the busy nurturers, Mar had taken the request far too seriously.
Era stood a little too quickly, leaned heavily on her stick, and set off before the wooziness had time to resolve. The last thing she wanted was to be followed by the busybody. She didn't even spare a glance at the men's section to see if Mason had already risen for the day or not. After last night's excitement, there were more sleepers on the mats than out of them.
Era cut a path for the kitchen.
“Out,” one of the chefs commanded before she could open her mouth to say hello.
“Good morning to you, too,” Era replied, undaunted. She shuffled into the kitchen anyway, reveling in the smell of oats cooking on the fire and clay stovetop. The former catering space had been retrofitted with these simpler materials, with a fireplace built into the back wall so the staff could cook over a wood fire if the cleaner fuels ran out. For today, at least, that fireplace remained dark and cold.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough to put Era—or any of them, judging by Chef’s snappish demeanor—at ease. The catering space also doubled as the food storage center. Even after the successful run, too many of its shelves and storage bins remained empty. At least the supply relay had given them some walnuts this time. Their container sat open on the counter, tempting Era with the promise of a crisp, savory bite.
But her attempt to casually move by and snake her hand into the bin was met with a slap from one of the kitchen boys. She glowered at him, withdrawing the injured hand as though it was sprained.
“Good morning,” a flat and obviously sleepy voice proclaimed.
Era turned slowly, intending to offer him her exact opinion of how the day was shaping up, and stopped dead.
The boy who'd sat next to her last night now stood in the doorway, yawning and then trying to smooth his tousled hair. His effort was not a success. When the cooks immediately began to fuss over him, Era offered him a moue of displeasure as she tried to remember his name. Declan or something? There were too many new faces here as conditions worsened in the south and along the coast.
“There's our hero,” Chef Beatriz, who'd tried to send Era away, exclaimed at the sight of him. Chef was beaming like it was the subsistence garden's first harvest in spring. “You shouldn't be up so early after the night you had! Why don't you sit over there? I'll fix you a bowl.”
Era clucked her tongue at him. “I suppose all I had to do to be offered early breakfast and a chair was be foolhardy, too, Declan.”
The boy's brow held a deep furrow as he replied, “My name is Devlin. Devlin Song.”
As if he hadn't meant to correct her, his mouth snapped shut.
After taking the corner chair Chef Beatriz had offered him, Devlin hesitantly asked her, “Why am I foolhardy?”
A thrill went through her at his surprisingly deep voice. Why hadn't she noticed it before? Probably because all they'd said to each other were polite greetings, and because she was always distracted, thinking of what scraps she could repurpose and how.
Era shrugged in reply to him—and tried to filch a walnut. Again, the kitchen boy was too fast for her.
“You just moved here,” she said to Devlin, trying to keep her tone light rather than suspicious, “and you volunteered for the most dangerous position there is.”
Devlin lowered his head. “I don't mind traveling.”
“You barely spent any time here before you left.” Her finger pointed at him.
“Era, leave the boy alone,” Chef Beatriz warned. “Some people like earning their meals.”
“I earn my meals,” Era replied sharply, narrowing her eyes. “I'm a keeper, remember?”
Chef rolled her eyes. What's that supposed to mean?
Before Era could retort, the cook was scooping steaming oats from the pot and adding a very generous handful of walnuts into a bowl. As Devlin received it from her with a murmur of thanks, Era's stomach growled loudly.
“Wait your turn,” Chef Beatriz scolded, as if Era could control her stomach. “You're sixteen now; you're not a child anymore. You need to act like it.”
I'm not acting like a child, she almost bit back. Sure, she was mischievous, impatient—Mason would say impulsive; her father used to say reckless—and not the best with secrets. Which was probably why no one trusted her with them anymore. But she was trying to change. Didn’t her good intentions matter?
Era needed to have everyone's trust if they were going to let her stay on as a keeper. She didn't think it was boasting to say her father was the best there was, and he’d taught her everything he had known. He'd doubled the size of a dozen settlements before they came up north for the freshwater, all with her at his side.
In the year before he died, he often remarked that she'd outstrip him someday.
Patience, though, to get to that stage? That was a harder thing to master.
Case in point, Era was just about to give up on breakfast when a low voice rose from the corner. “If it wasn't for Era, we wouldn't have made it back last night.”
Era froze, her walking stick angled forward and her weight shifted onto the ball of one foot. How does he know?
“What?” Chef blinked furiously as her eyes darted between Devlin and Era. “What do you mean?”
“She set up the beacon,” Devlin said. “The dragon the storyteller spoke of. It was how we found our way back.”
Chef's mouth fell open. “How do you—”
“How do you know that?” Era demanded, not bothering to deny it. Even if it did mean dealing with Mason fretting over her for going out in the storm and the cold. And breaking the rules.
The boy shrugged, wearing a slight smile that somehow changed his countenance completely. “I figured it out.”
Before she had time to question him further, a warm bowl was pressed into Era's hands.
“Thank you,” Chef Beatriz said sincerely. “My Fay is in the supply team.”
Era gaped back at her, stunned. “I know,” she replied, though in truth she didn't know Fay's name, just that she was Chef's daughter.
With a nod and a smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes, Chef Beatriz turned back to her work, leaving Era to her oats and walnuts, and to the mystery of how Devlin had figured her out.
When she passed by him, he only offered her an impish half-smile.
Looks like I'm not the only troublemaker here after all.