Flux

gave Ennek’s hair a quick combing, working through the worst of the snarls but not managing to tame the curls noticeably. Then he slung his bag on his back and Ennek gathered the towels and basket and they walked back to the house.
    Ennek spent more time in earnest conversation with Hai-Shui and Yuening, while Luli worked like a demon, preparing seemingly enough food to feed the entire Guard. Miner tried to help but he didn’t know what needed doing and he couldn’t understand her instructions, so he was soon relegated to scrubbing some sort of lumpy white tuber. He was fairly certain that Luli did not need nearly so many of the tubers scrubbed—perhaps only wanting to keep him out of her way—but at least he felt more useful than he did simply sitting there. Besides, it was pleasant to be sitting in the sun and doing simple work with the quiet hum of family life going on about him. The setting was quite different from Praesidium, of course, but still it reminded him of times spent among his father and siblings and nieces and nephews; with Eudoxia nearby, usually chatting with his sister Faentia; and his brother Drevan’s lanky dog running about and being yelled at by Drevan’s wife for its latest transgression; and this child arguing fiercely with that about a missing doll; and always in the background, his mother Celsa, her hands busy with some task, her eyes watchful. They must have had times like that again, after he’d been sent Under. The pain of his betrayal must have faded eventually so that once again they could gather and laugh and fight and hug and tease, and his absence would hardly have been noticed among such a lively crowd. Did Eudoxia remain there with Marsa? Or did she abandon his family altogether—the family that had been like hers since she was a toddler—and perhaps find a new husband, a new father for Marsa, a new family?
    And what about his mother? He remembered well the shadows that had settled under her sea-green eyes the day one of his brothers announced he intended to defy family tradition and become a sailor instead of joining the Guard. Celsa had smiled after that, of course, and sometimes even laughed, but those shadows had never quite faded away.
    Now, Miner looked over at Luli. She was kneeling in front of a low stone table, vigorously chopping something leafy and green with a long, heavy knife. The blade went thunk-thunk against the wooden cutting board and her hair, still more black than gray, was tied in a complex braid and set with pearls and red beads. All her movements were so steady and sure; he wondered if he’d ever be as confident about any task as that woman was about cutting vegetables.
    The two children came running up to Luli, chattering excitedly about something, and she ruffled the girl’s hair and lightly swatted the boy’s bottom and shooed them away with a smile, all with hardly a break in her rhythm.

    ***

    Despite what Luli had told Ennek, the feast was not small by any stretch of the imagination. Before the guests arrived, Yuening had given Miner another scarf to wrap around his neck, this one of a fine, soft fabric that looked gray or blue, depending how the light caught it. Surely everyone there—and there were over a dozen guests—must have known about the collar. After all, people had seen it plainly as he walked through the fields both this day and the day they’d first arrived. But perhaps the scarf allowed everyone the polite fiction of pretending the collar wasn’t there. Everyone treated him as a mysterious and possibly dim foreigner who couldn’t understand them even if they shouted, but nobody treated him as a slave.
    Miner ate and ate, probably consuming more food than he ever had at once, until his belly felt as tight as a drum and even walking seemed like far too much effort. As usual, he recognized little of what he ate, but that hardly mattered; it was all delicious. Luli seemed delighted with his eating and kept handing him bowls of food until he nearly became convinced she meant to murder him that way.
    As he ate, Miner smiled at people who came occasionally to talk loudly and gesture at him, but mostly he watched Ennek, who was once again the center of attention. Ennek was telling more stories—half acting them out, really—and his audience roared with laughter and plied him with tiny cups of rice wine and begged for more. Miner felt an odd combination of emotions roil through him: pride and happiness and a fierce love. But