Ashes and Rain: Sequel to Khe (The Ahsenthe Cycle Book 2) by Alexes Razevich

“Bethon Blue. You know what this costs? But Simanca was willing to throw it away to keep me here. She dragged me out of her dwelling and threw me into a root cache. I only got out because the earth shiver broke the boards in the cache’s door.”
    Jit came up and stroked my throat. “I don’t care what you did or didn’t do Khe. You are our sister.”
    “Worth being shunned for?” Stoss asked, her voice knife-edge sharp.
    “No one needs to be shunned,” I said. “Go to your dwelling. I’ll disappear into the darkness and go back to Kelroosh. Simanca will never know you saw me.”
    “There are no secrets here, Khe,” a loud voice said. “Everything is known.”
    We swung our heads to look where the words had come from. Min and Gintok stood shoulder to shoulder in the dim light.
    “Come inside now,” Mintok said.
    The muddy-brown of fear covered Jit’s, Stoss’s, and Thedra’s necks.
    I stepped toward Simanca’s unitmates. “These doumanas were just about to bring me to you.”
    Gintok laughed under her breath. “Your neck should be aglow from the shame of that lie, Khe. Where has your decency gone?” She glanced over her shoulder back toward her shared dwelling. “You will all come now.”
     

     
    Tav was sitting in one of the over-stuffed chairs, her hands in her lap, her eyes on her hands. Simanca was in another chair, her back straight with eager expectation but her face composed in worry. My three commune-sisters stood huddled together, a few steps away from me, their chins sunk toward their chests. I didn’t know how Simanca and her unitmates knew we were there in the dark, but it was plain they had known, and that Simanca had sent Gintok and Min to fetch us.
    “Thedra,” Simanca said, “is everything all right at your dwelling? No damage from the — ”
    She waved her hand in the air as if it might accidently bump into the word she couldn’t find. We had no word for what had happened, the shiver and buckle of the planet. Why have a name for something that never occurs? Had never occurred.
    Thedra looked up to answer. “No damage. A bowl fell from a ledge and broke. Nothing else.”
    Simanca nodded. “Good.” She turned her gaze to me, but her words were for my unitmates. “Khe was leaving us again, after promising to stay. I’m very disappointed.” She shifted her eyes to Jit, Stoss, and Thedra. “You must be very disappointed as well. Here, your own sister and unitmate seems to return to you, takes our hospitality, pretends to love us and want nothing more than to return to her rightful place, but all the while she is conspiring with corentans to take our food, seeds, beasts and fowls — and then abandon us in our time of need.”
    She paused, waiting for my sisters to speak, but none did.
    “There are things you don’t know.” Simanca swung her gaze back to me. “Lunge has been prosperous. But suddenly we have rain. You know that if the rain keeps up, we won’t be able to plant at our usual time. What I’m going to tell you now, only my unitmates have known before this. We traded for this information when Trantal corenta was here.” She paused, building up her big moment of revelation. “The Powers, who helped us through all the aspects of our lives, have been destroyed.”
    My unitmates gasped.
    “This doesn’t seem to surprise you, Khe,” Simanca said.
    I kept my eyes on the commune leader, my gaze as level and searing as hers. “I was in Chimbalay, being treated for my affliction when it happened. There was an explosion. No one knows what caused it.”
    My neck didn’t warm at the lie. What sort of doumana was I becoming that I could bend the truth so easily and without shame?
    I felt the eyes of each sister in the room focused on me, but I didn’t waver from watching Simanca’s face. This was a competition Simanca wouldn’t win.
    Her gaze finally dropped away. “There is opportunity here for Lunge. With Khe to help grow our crops, Lunge will be positioned as