Hawthorn wiped at his nose with the back of his hand, eyeing Shale like he didn’t know if he should be pitied or warned. "It’s rough, lieutenant. You sure about this?"

  Shale stood at the edge of the square, staring at the collapsing skyline of Matiran, the streets choked with beggars and smoke. "I’ve got no barracks. No company."

  Hawthorn nodded slowly, resigned. "It’s a bastard’s life, what we’ve got left. One karmata a night for a mat and some lice. You won’t like it."

  "I’m not looking to like it," Shale muttered.

  "Then come on."

  The flophouse smelled of wet stone and desperation. Shale followed Hawthorn through the sagging doorway, ducking beneath a splintered beam as they entered a cramped common room lined with straw mats and threadbare cots. The air clung heavy with the sour tang of unwashed bodies, mold, and spilled grog.

  One karmata a night. That was the price for a place to sleep that didn’t involve a doorway or an alley.

  Shale eyed the faces scattered through the dim space—former soldiers, mostly dryads, some with bark flaking from their skin where hunger gnawed too long. A few psyads huddled close to the hearth, mageia flickering faint and unstable, their once-vibrant cloaks dulled to rags. Nobility broken down to little more than the common rabble. The resentment between them simmered quietly, but hunger leveled all things.

  There were no maenads. They’d returned to the forests, back to the wilds where food grew plentiful and no walls caged them.

  Hawthorn gestured to a vacant mat in the corner, dropping onto his own with a groan. "You can stay here if you’ve nowhere better."

  Shale hesitated. Pride screamed to walk away. But pride wouldn’t fill his stomach.

  He dropped his pack, settling in.

  It wasn’t long before the grumbling began. Voices low, but sharp enough to catch Shale’s ear.

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  "We bled for the empire," one soldier hissed, a dryad with moss-streaked skin. "Now we bleed to stay warm."

  Hawthorn leaned in, his voice rough. "There’s a way out."

  The men gathered closer, forming a rough circle around the dim firepit. Shale stayed where he was, listening.

  "Cannery’s nearly finished," Hawthorn whispered. "The one on Arictus Avenue on the main thoroughfare. They say it’s for the empire’s recovery. Human design. Food storage for the winter months."

  "I’ve seen it," another chimed in. "Walls half-built. No guards at night. They’ve been stockpiling supplies already."

  Grain. Salt. Enough to feed a company for weeks.

  "It’s there," Hawthorn said. "For the taking."

  Shale sat straighter, the knot in his gut tightening.

  "That’s theft," a psyad muttered, his hollow cheeks shadowed by the firelight.

  "It’s survival," Hawthorn snapped. "You see any psyads starving? Sitting fat on their mageia, lording over us while we scrape the streets?"

  The psyad’s head jerked up, eyes blazing dull orange. "Look around you, fool. We rot beside you. Not all of us sit in towers. Some of us bled just as hard and starve just as deep. The high houses don't feed their own, let alone the likes of me."

  Another voice cut in from the shadows, a dryad’s bark-rough tone. "And yet when the coffers fill, guess who eats first? Not us. Not even the psyads here. It’s the ones who wear the silk and never see the mud."

  The circle fell silent, the crackling tension heavy as iron. Old lines of class and race frayed and knotted, tangled by the weight of shared hunger and betrayal.

  The circle fell silent. Shale could feel the crackling tension in the air, the old lines of class and race fraying under the weight of shared hunger.

  Shale shifted forward, breaking the quiet. "What happens when Morgellon’s lot come sniffing around? You think they won’t trace it back?"

  Hawthorn’s eyes narrowed. "Let them come. What are they gonna do? Strip the bones from men who have nothing left?"

  The plan hung in the air, dangerous as a loaded gun.

  Shale leaned back, his jaw tight, the dryad in him recoiling from the imbalance—the taking of what wasn’t theirs. But the soldier in him understood.

  The empire had abandoned them.

  Outside, the protests boiled louder, chants rolling through the streets like thunder. Shale could hear the crack of clubs, the distant growl of Morgellon’s Black Cloaks, stretched too thin to hold it all together.

  The cannery loomed in his mind. Unfinished. Unguarded. Waiting.

  Like the empire itself.

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