No one would come for the bucket. He held it out, the opposite of an offertory. His eyes fixed, not on anyone in the crowd but on Hawk, and he smiled, a sad and wretched thing.

No one will take it, this gesture seemed to say. Even if I could, what’s the point?

Fine.

She stepped forward, deliberately braving the line. She was sure he wasn’t actively using power now. But he stopped her. “The line is for your safety,” he said.

Okay, that was pretty good. He just hadn’t been loud enough. She kept going.

“Hawk!” He said this loudly. She looked up with the blankest, most white-blond expression she could manage. He stared at her hopelessly, then said, “You cannot cross that line.”

His eyes were fixed on her. Her eyes were darting across the entire courtyard, counting the number of faces turned, eyes watching, ears comprehending their so-called “ancient” tongue. Was it enough? She had to gamble it was. So now, obediently, she walked around the cord until she reached the edge nearest him, and held out her arms for the bucket—making sure not one finger reached past the line.

“Do you often flirt with danger?” He asked her, whispered and harsh.

“Half this courtyard just saw you yell at me out of concern for my own safety.” And she waited a beat, a beat, and half a beat, until comprehension and—yes, an Alex-like enthusiasm that she always found precursor to a headache. That was there in spades. So she whispered, even quieter, “Be louder, next time.”

“What a delight you are, Hawk,” he whispered in return, and finally handed her the goddamn bucket.

She didn’t hesitate with flirting now. There were wounded, injured, terrified people and she held their only release. Realizing, too, that she didn’t have time to run back and forth, she grabbed the nearest acolyte who did not look like they wanted to murder the Shadow. “Get others and make a relay system so we can get the buckets to the wounded. We’re going to pour this water over their burns.”

Mouth open to protest, the acolyte was interrupted by a scream of pain from the always-filling medic tent. And Hawk felt something snap inside of her own mind.

“You have people suffering right now, who could be dying right now, and you’re going to focus on the theology from the people who put you here? Your god Argon started this fire, your god Nasheth encouraged it. They could end it right now if they wanted,” and that was a total gamble. Probably, they couldn’t. Probably, they wouldn’t want that to be too widely known. She had a lot of things hanging on a probability, so it’d better not collapse. “Who do you want to serve?” She said.

Silence.

The acolyte wordlessly reached for the bucket.

“No. I’m taking it to the medical tent. You get more of them and start relaying them back. As if you were putting out a fire.” She said. They had to understand fire lines, at least. And they did, because this brought her the brightness of understanding, and a swift move through the crowd. The acolyte did not touch every person, which meant the line idea might work. They would be choosing people who would cooperate. Or else, they’re choosing people who would kick Hawk and…and the Shadow out of here, hard.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

And she kept wanting to call him Alex.

Bitterly, she hauled the heavy bucket to the medical tent and went to the most injured person. The Earthside medic was there, and they didn’t wait even long enough to ask a question. They took the bucket, set it down beside the injured person’s cot—wood lashed together with linen straps, more linen braided over top of it. She remembered this bed from her time in Archon Mattias’s care—and began liberally wetting cloths with it. The medic, a man, worked feverishly and spoke without care. “If we had a faucet I’d be pouring it, but we don’t. Where’s my translator?” And an acolyte came forward. “See what I’m doing? Do it to everyone. Get the water as quick as you can, come back, help me keep the burned areas wet.”

Hawk was given a bowl, smaller than the bucket and filled with water. She was told to go to one of the less wounded. She went, and laid eyes on the person who would be the recipient of her kindness. She saw blackened flesh and singed hair, and thought if this was less wounded, what was it like on the worse end of the tent. There was a worse end. She slowly developed this perception while acolytes charged up and down a makeshift path; there was an area they were keeping people out of. Good move, Hawk thought. Lessen the risk of infection, give them a fighting chance if ever they got antibiotics down in the hole. Only acolytes and the Earthside medic were allowed back there…and Hawk got the feeling that if blocking acolytes wouldn’t guarantee a riot, they’d be blocking those too.

Time began to dilate as Hawk carried water. She told herself that was all she was doing: carrying water. She found that if she thought too hard about the people, she’d panic. So she was just carrying water from the bucket relay to the cots and back. It was water. It was only water. And then she reached a patient and that safe, self-made calm evaporated like water an inch from the solar furnace. Because here was a person, skin in varying shades of brown, only it wasn’t at all because it was black Hawk could see. Not the warm, safe, living Blackness humans could supply but something dark and crackled and gleaming. Blood flowed from the gaps in brutalized skin. Blisters had a sickening yellow glow, light refracting through misery. And now it was water, water, and more water. Bring more water. She started with the rags but compassion overpowered reason, and she began pouring water by the cupful over violated skin. This caring touch brought about more agony, screams at the touch of water, screams when the water was gone and she had to go out, go seeking for another bucket, another mere cupful with which she could slake thirst and cool skin. And then she’d be told to move on. Her patient was still writhing but it didn’t matter, because there was always another. More bodies coming in, more bodies on narrow makeshift cots. And then they ran out of cots and the injured had to go on the ground…and she had to tell herself it was just water. She was only carrying water. There was no blood. There were no burns. There was herself, and a task she had to do: carry water from here to there. Easy as putting one foot in front of another. One foot. One foot. One foot. And then she was there, and the whole catastrophe fell in again at the sight of burnt skin.

She didn’t know how long she’d been doing this when a pair of hands—human, damn it—gently took her bowl of water. “It’s done.” A stranger whispered. “It’s all done. You can let go now. We’ve got everyone well in hand.”

There were lots more people in the white silk tent, all of them in comforting Earthside khakis and camo. She watched as a stranger—a Black man, the yellow stethoscope around his neck screaming medic—administer an avenging angel’s dose of morphine. The moans of the poor wretch on the cot ebbed, though they never precisely stopped.

Morphine. All hail the gods of modern medicine. You don’t have to propitiate those.

She backed away from “her” patient, and looked throughout the tent, where rapidly moving soldiers were administering medicine. Real medicine. Not everyone got morphine shots. Likely, there hadn’t been enough on site for all the victims of this terrible, god-driven fire. But the gate had broken. Earthside finally knew what they were up against. Or at least, they knew about the fire.

Mulligan knows. He went topside. He’s probably already thrown every medic they have up there down here, and then some. Yes, she saw a few civilian doctor’s coats, a handful of people in pale scrubs. They’d blended in with the religious robes of the Holian order. Bereft and cut loose, she drifted through the surge of help until she made it out of the tent.