Free Ebony Hill by Anna Mackenzie Page B

feel no less marginalised for their absence.
    As people begin to file out into the hall Ronan catches my eye. I follow him through the kitchen and into the scullery beyond. “Brenon has agreed to Truso’s plan to send a group back to Vidya,” he tells me. “I’m not going Ness.”
    I didn’t expect he would, not after the way he reacted when Truso proposed it. “I’ve no ties to Vidya,” he adds,though he has no need to justify his decision to me. “It’s wrong, what’s happening. I’d rather stay and help.”
    All I can do is nod.
    “You don’t have to stay for my sake,” Ronan adds. “You should do what’s best for you.”
    I clamp my teeth on my confusion. Yesterday I’d begun to think Ronan wanted me to stay; that a bond had begun to grow between us.
    “You’d be safe in Vidya,” he says.
    “I’ll stay,” I tell him. “I can’t fight but I can,” my voice falters, “I can do other things.” Even as I claim it I wonder whether it’s true. If Esha was alive I’d simply offer her my help. Without her … I shake my head. My friend Merryn on Dunnett taught me how to set a bone and make healing tonics, but I doubt those are skills with much application against guns and bombs.
    Ronan begins to fiddle with a basket of onions, turning them so that their papery necks all face upwards in tidy rows. “Are you still glad you came to Vidya?”
    I hesitate, wondering how Esha’s death has changed the answer I might give. Perhaps it hasn’t. “I couldn’t stay where I was,” I say at last, not quite answering. “The islanders would have killed me for harbouring a stranger. For harbouring Dev.”
    “He told me,” Ronan says.
    I feel betrayed. But why should I, when I’d have told Ronan anyway? “What was Ister like?” I counter.
    Ronan shrugs. “Like this. People fought to get control of the things they thought mattered: the power plant and harbour and roads. It went on a long time. By the end allthat mattered was food so they fought over that.”
    “Is that why you left?”
    His silence stretches out a long time. I catch my lip between my teeth, wondering whether I’ve intruded too far. His nails have peeled their way into an onion and the sharp tang of it bruises my eyes.
    “We didn’t leave till later,” he says at last. “If it hadn’t been for the fighting, we wouldn’t have needed to; we’d have been all right. But my father—”
    His words dry up. Impulsively I lay my hand on his wrist. The tendons jump beneath my fingers. “He was trying to save our breeding stock.” He drops his hands to his sides.
    An awkward silence hums around us, tight as walls closing in. “No one wins in wars,” Ronan says finally.
    “So, why fight?”
    His shoulder jerks. “What choice is there? Everyone got drawn into it on Ister. We had no alternative; we had to defend what we had or starve. It’s the same here. Vidya can’t survive without the farms. The city couldn’t feed itself. Sooner or later, war reaches everyone.”
    I’m amazed he’s seen so much, so clearly, when I’ve been in Vidya two years and scarcely seen anything beyond my own nose. Saice comes in, and tries to hide her surprise at finding us there. My blush must make her think there’s more to it than there is, and Ronan doesn’t help by scuttling off like a mouse caught too far from its hole.
    Trying to regain my composure, I make my offer of help and Saice leads me to the nursery, explaining whatwe need to do to convert it to a hospital ward.
    There’s a queasy tug in my belly as I help replace toys and clothes with bandages and medical supplies. As I remake the beds I wonder whether Ronan is right: that war reaches everyone, harms everyone, irrespective of who wins. But if he is, then where does that leave us?

CHAPTER 8
    Lynd, the head of Decon, is wiry and short, tight-mouthed, hard-eyed. When she leads her team into the kitchen she barely spares us a glance. “Where’s Brenon?” Her voice suits her, harsh and