A deliciously beautiful image. Opening my eyes and seeing Tariel smiling, waiting for me to wake, made my chest warm as if the dream were still spilling into the real world. There was something intimate in the way she watched me, as though that moment had been created just for the two of us.

  “You took too long to wake up,” she complained, a light playfulness in her voice.

  “You can wake me whenever you like,” I murmured, turning to brush her lips with a soft peck. “Waking up to your kiss is wonderful.”

  “You slept too much,” Jazzia interrupted now. “Breakfast is served. Willian, if you’re walking to the city, it’s best to leave soon to avoid the heat.”

  “Are we already close to the city?”

  “For a long time,” she replied, curtly.

  As Tariel stretched, my attention drifted over her body. Her movements were naturally sensual, effortless, and that innocent smile… it always affected me in a way I couldn’t hide. She noticed, opened her arms, and called me without saying a word.

  “You’re healed. You can walk now,” I said, still lifting her into my arms and carrying her to breakfast.

  The feeling of being in love, of loving someone with such intensity, was pleasurable and cruel at the same time. It hurt to move away from her, even for a few hours. I knew those feelings would one day soften — every love yields to time — but even in that, the Sekvens interfered.

  They don’t like feelings to soften, I thought, irritated.

  “Come back soon! Don’t take too long!” Tariel asked, waving as we moved away from the ship.

  “Would you like me to take you, Willian? The sun is very strong,” AX approached, attentive.

  “They say it isn’t a very pleasant trip.”

  “It can be uncomfortable. You lose any reference… it’s like jumping into nothing. But it’s fast. Just a few kilometers.”

  I nodded, despite the growing discomfort.

  AX expanded, enveloping me completely. A second later, we were among bushes near the city entrance.

  “I didn’t feel anything,” I commented, oddly unsettled.

  “Exactly. For less than two seconds, you felt nothing, yet you remained conscious. Imagine that for several minutes.”

  “I’d rather not imagine.”

  AX found it amusing, vanished, and fell silent.

  I stood still for a moment. The city resurfaced like a toxic memory — and the hatred I had felt before flooded back into me. The wind swept leaves from side to side, dragging with it an uneasy silence. A window slammed in rhythm with the wind’s whims, like a warning.

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  I headed to the canteen. On the way, I found Faro leaving, pulling a sad-eyed girl by a rope. It cut through me like a cold blade.

  “Where are you taking that girl?” I asked, without greeting him. My hand went instinctively to the back of my neck, trying to contain the rising discomfort.

  “I’m trading her at the Bona Vista market.”

  “What would they do with a six-year-old slave?”

  He shot me a look that said the answer was too obvious to ask.

  Anger surged, hot and alive.

  “She’ll be used as food?” I asked, my voice firmer than I intended.

  “Depends on the buyer.” He tugged the rope again. “Now excuse me. The caravan is going to hunt Seliums, and I’m going with them. Safer.”

  He tried to move on, but I grabbed his arm. The wind howled through the narrow corners and, for an instant, I felt like the fuse about to be lit.

  “I’ll buy her,” I said, sharply.

  “Five kilos of salt!” He smiled with childish cruelty.

  “I only have one kilo with me.”

  “That’ll do.”

  I took the salt from my pack, but set aside a hundred grams.

  “I can’t be left with nothing,” I explained.

  He snatched the salt and ran off, taking with him the stench of days without bathing.

  “I have to go! The caravan already left!” he shouted as he turned the corner.

  I turned my attention to the girl: thin, filthy, black hair heavy with dust. I touched her head carefully.

  “Let’s take this rope off,” I said, guiding her into the canteen.

  “If you take it off, she’ll run,” Marta warned, leaning near the door, her mood more sour than usual.

  “You’re digging your own grave buying useless slaves,” she said. “You don’t look like someone stocking food for the winter.”

  “Stocking food?” my voice rose as I understood what she was implying about Tariel and the girl.

  “What do you think the men went to do?” Marta snorted. “Hunt animals and slaves. If they don’t bring back enough food, we’ll die in the winter.”

  Hunger has always been the oldest excuse for human cruelty. Some civilizations collapsed because of it. Others remained dignified to the end. Donna… was not so lucky.

  “I understand,” I said, sitting down. “Take a hundred grams of salt to improve your mood. And prepare something for the girl.”

  I placed the child on my lap to keep her from running.

  “What’s your name?” I asked, releasing her hands.

  “Ana…” she answered, barely audible.

  “You’re safe now.”

  Marta brought two cups of water and some biscuits. Ana threw herself at the plate with a desperation that tightened my chest.

  “Is that all, Marta?” I asked, uneasy.

  “That’s all until the men return. Maybe Faro will get more food. That’s because someone bought all the available meat,” she grumbled.

  “Are you talking about Tariel?”

  She sat down, her eyes burning with rancor.

  “And you call her by name?”

  “What’s the reason for so much hatred?” I asked, trying to keep calm as the back of my neck burned.

  “They’re guilty of everything!” she almost shouted.

  “Explain it to me,” I demanded, firmly.

  “It’s a story of centuries,” she replied.

  “Too many centuries to keep feeding this.”

  “You’ve never gone hungry in the winter, have you?” She leaned toward me. “Never felt your body die slowly, the cold burning from the inside. You’re from much farther away than you said.”

  I remained silent.

  “You’re well fed, you have new clothes, strange tools. Your behavior with the slave… you touched her. Your ignorance about the world is frightening.”

  “I’m immune to the poison,” I murmured, trying to justify something I couldn’t even define.

  “I’ve never heard of that,” she replied, surprised. “So that’s why you wanted the slave alive? Fresh meat?”

  The impact of my hand on the table echoed loudly. Before I realized it, I was staring at her with all the accumulated rage. Marta took two steps back.

  “It’s the hatred you carry that buries you in the winter,” I said, my voice low and tense. “I’ll come back another day, and I’ll show what people who don’t know how to hate can do.”

  I stood up, took Ana in my arms, and left, too angry to look back. And in that moment I knew, bitterly, that there was nothing I could — or wanted to — do to save those people.