It wasn't long before the two of them started sleeping together. At first, she just followed him back to the hovel he shared with other young men and clung to him while they slept, partly to stay warm and in part for protection. And then, as those things progressed, she started sleeping under his blanket, their legs intertwined and their lips locked on occasion. It was what everyone else did. Cling to each other.

They were young and didn't know better. That would be what Senn told himself many years later. But at the time, they were discovering something entirely new, something that didn't reek of pain or anguish or of the platitude of humiliations and barely remembered kindnesses that made it all somehow bearable. They found small joys and moments of respite from the hard, mind-numbing work and the harsh realities of hunger and fear. They managed to stay together for most of the days that followed. Some error or mere happenstance made it so the Counters assigned them to adjacent parcels in the rice fields. They could glance in each other's direction every few moments. Knowing the other person was around was enough to get them through the day. And in the nights, they found the solace they had waited for.

She was hesitant at first to go beyond the caresses. She had been marked by her experience that had prompted their meeting. With the passage of days, she grew to love him. It wasn't a hard thing to do when one meets caring after a life of starving for it. It wasn't hard at all.

Senn was confused. He didn't understand why he cared, what was happening to him beyond the physical effects she had on him. He found himself thinking careless, dangerous thoughts during the day's work. Of a life together, in their own hovel, just the two of them. Of a sturdier house in the middle of the plains, near another, endless lake. With no one else in sight. It was a strange daydream, of an impossible place. The only oasis he hoped to find was in Naial's arms. And he knew even that well wouldn't last forever. Such was life in the Hub. But as the elders' voices reminded him of that, he couldn't help thinking they might be wrong.

"You're not wrong."

He jumped, startled and shaken awake. He had been dozing off, lulled by the rhythmic splashing of his harvesting canoe as he paddled slowly along the shallow lake with his sticks. He looked ahead, then to the sides, and finally turned around. There was a man there. He didn't know him at first, but the man didn't speak further and so Senn wasn't distracted by words. It was the same man he had met when he had been exiled for days on end on the plains. He had barely survived then and only through willpower. The strange man had talked to him then, but Senn had almost convinced himself it had been an apparition, one of those the elders spoke of. Almost. Now he had to go back and think of that encounter in a different light. He wasn't brain-addled anymore. He wasn't parched and burning with fever. He didn't hurt. He wasn't desperate. And yet the man had come to him, in the opposite situation. What could he be, if not a ghost?

"It's you, isn't it?"

"Me who?"

"I met you some time ago. In the plains. I was in a bad shape."

"You seem to be just fine now."

"Yes," said Senn. "But what were you saying? You startled me and I didn't hear you."

"I was just thinking aloud," said the man. He had a raspy voice. He seemed eager, like that other time. As if he couldn't wait one more second for something.

"But you were talking to me. What are you doing here? In fact... what were you doing that time, out there?"

"You're inquisitive, boy. I'm just another wanderer."

Senn looked at the man's fine clothes. He remembered them from before. He had never seen the like. Not even the Counters dressed like that. He didn't even know clothes like that even existed. What was the point? The man's jacket had tails that fell on the surface of the water. It wasn't practical. There was no place for such a thing in the Hub. So he had to be from somewhere else.

"You haven't said you're sorry," said the man, interrupting Senn's elucidations.

"What for?"

"You tried to slash at me, back then, if I'm not mistaken."

"Oh. You had it coming. You could have been helping me instead of riling me up."

"I made your blood flow. Didn't that help you get back in one piece? I thought I saw the winged death coming for you."

"They were just vultures."

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"Isn't that the same thing?"

Senn dropped his gaze. He looked at the rice stalks in his canoe. He had been digging for roots at that time. Struggling to get a drink, a bite. Life now was almost idyllic compared to that.

"What troubles you? Is it the realization you are not satisfied with avoiding that hardship?"

"..."

"You can talk, can't you?"

"Yes. Yes to both your questions. It's not enough."

"That... is a marvelous thing, Senn. Very few people would dare think like that. Your kind of situation dissolves those thoughts before they can germinate. They never go beyond a hollowness in your chest."

"Well, it did grow in me."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Would you believe me if I told you that it may have been growing all my life?"

"No, I wouldn't. There's nothing to irrigate it around here. Some other source of water is necessary."

"You want me to thank you then?" asked Senn with a smirk. "For making me want to come back to life and also for making me want a different one?"

"Yes. I want that and a lot more. We're not very different, you and I."

"You seem to be doing better than me. Your hands are not calloused. You have fine clothes. You're not sunburnt."

"Because I did what I had to do to get to where I am. But now I can't keep doing things alone. I need more people to join me. One can build a house all alone. But I can't build an entire city."

"What is that?"

"Like the Hub, but unlike it. With no Chainkeepers around. Wouldn't you like that?"

Senn guffawed.

"How do you mean to accomplish that? Do you have magical scythes that can be used against them without someone wielding them? Can you kill with a thought? I tell you, I've tried it many times and it doesn't work."

It was the stranger's time to laugh.

"No magical tools of death. But I can kill with a thought. Anyone can if they learn how. It just takes a while. You have to think about who you want to kill, first. Then you have to think about how you can do it. Then you have to think through the act. And then think about what you do afterward. Every great action starts with a simple thought and then grows from there. And great change comes from humble imaginings."

Senn looked at him and pondered.

"Nice speech. If you excuse me, I have to keep working. The others will notice, and then the Chainkeepers will reward my attentive listening with their lashings."

It was strange, for Senn had been oblivious to the other gatherers that had to be around him. There were usually many of them on foot in the shallower parts, or on canoes like him. But now they all seemed to be far away. He had drifted farther into the great lake, so the closest people were but dots in the distance. There were no Chainkeepers close by. They usually stood like stones or buzzards around the water's edge. The stranger had found him in a relatively safe place. It had to be on purpose.

"What do you want from me?" asked Senn, turning to look back at the man. He had some experience with people wanting to trick him into things and this seemed like a good setup. But the man was gone.

A ghost, he thought. But a smart one at that.

* * *

She was acting strangely that night. She had washed in the well the women attended and smelled better than usual. They were in twilight, and the fire wasn't lit yet. They had been the first to come back. She had worked in the canid cages that day. He didn't have to hear her words to know she hated it. The animals scared her, and feeding them was unnerving for anyone. Senn himself had felt fear whenever he had to go near them, the small and the big alike. The big canids weren't usually seen around the Hub, but when they did, even with saddles and head armor that left them unable to bite at will, they were another pressing reason for everyone to hurry to their hovels. And she had hurried, but in the hopes of catching him before the place was full. He read that in her face. He knew her enough by then.

"What is it?" he asked.

She walked slowly up to him, gaze down, and hugged him. She cried. That hadn't happened since he had met her. He thought she was beyond tears now that she had him. She had thought so too.

"Tell me what happened," he said. He pushed her away, not without gentleness, but firmly, and he kept her at a distance so he could see her face when she answered. His heart was beating fast. "Tell me. I'll kill whoever dares touch you."

"It's not that. It's... I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself."

"I won't get hurt. I promise."

"No... I meant... don't make those promises. Because you'd have to hurt yourself."

"What...? I don't..."

"It's because of you."

"What could I have done to upset you?" he asked her. He was growing impatient and he didn't like to feel that way around her.

"You did quite a lot. They say... they say I'm carrying."

Senn knew he was in shock because his field of view narrowed and the world turned grayer. Even in the dusky lowlight, he knew his body was reacting as if to a new danger. He was prepared bodily to fight or escape. He wanted to do one of those. He just didn't know which.

"Don't look surprised like that. Didn't you think this could happen?"

"Yes, but... I thought it wouldn't happen so easily," he said. "I've seen barely enough children."

"Because of the sourroot. But I couldn't get any. You have to trade for it."

"We'll go to one of the elder women. They'll know what to do. We can get them something."

"Like what?"

"Half our rations for a month. We'll offer less but we should be willing to do that."

She looked at him with glassy eyes.

"It'll be a smaller sacrifice in the long run," he said. "You'd grow weaker if you carried him."

"And then what? Do it all the time? Or you'll never touch me again out of fear?"

"No, I... I don't know. I don't want to risk losing you."

"Me neither. I'm scared. I'm scared of them taking the baby away. I don't want what they did to me to happen to any child of mine."

She started sobbing and he pulled her closer. As he held her, the rest of the people that lived in their hovel started to show up. They glanced at them briefly and sat or slumped in the corners. Someone lit the fire with a dung log. It was already night. He held her still.

"What do we do now?" she asked in a whisper.