Chapter 3 - The Market and Memory

"Trade flourishes where governance falters. This is not an argument for anarchy. This is an observation requiring correction."

�" Regional Command 3 Strategic Assessment

The Market sprawled across the ruins of what had once been a highway interchange. Four roads converged here, their asphalt cracked and heaved by two centuries of freeze-thaw cycles. Vendors had claimed the ramps and overpasses, stretching tarps between concrete pillars, building stalls from salvaged wood and corrugated metal. The whole structure groaned in the wind.

 

Lavender approached from the south, Brute padding at her heels. The rabbit from yesterday's hunt hung from her belt, wrapped in oiled cloth to keep the meat fresh. Trade goods. Currency in a world where actual currency had turned to worthless paper generations ago.

 

The Market opened every seven days, weather permitting. Traders came from across the Barrens, some traveling three or four days through the cold to reach this convergence point. They brought furs, dried meat, salvage from the old cities, medicinal herbs, ammunition for those lucky enough to own pre-war weapons. They bartered and haggled and spread rumors that served as the Barrens' only news network.

 

Lavender hated every moment of it.

 

Too many people. Too many eyes. Too many opportunities for the heat in her chest to surface at the wrong moment.

 

She pulled her scarf higher, covering her mouth and nose. The wool itched against her skin, but it served a purpose beyond warmth. Her heterochromatic eyes drew attention. Green and purple, mismatched in a world where radiation had twisted bodies in far more dramatic ways. Still, people stared. People remembered. Better to give them less to remember.

 

The first checkpoint waited at the southern entrance, manned by two traders in patched coats. They collected a toll: one item of food or trade goods per person entering. Market tax, they called it. Payment for the protection the Market council provided. Lavender dropped a handful of dried mushrooms into the collection basket and pushed through without a word.

 

The noise hit her immediately. Voices raised in negotiation, argument, greeting. Metal clanging against metal from the smith's stall. A child crying somewhere in the maze of tarps and stalls. Lavender's shoulders tightened. Brute pressed closer to her leg.

 

She had a list memorized. Salt. Wicking cloth for new wrappings. Needle and thread if she could find it. The rabbit would cover the salt and maybe one other item. The rest would have to wait.

 

The salt vendor worked from a stall near the center of the Market, a prime location that spoke to her success and connections. Milesa, her name was. Broad-shouldered, grey-haired, with hands scarred by decades of hard work. She'd been trading here longer than Lavender had been alive.

 

"Vaughn girl." Milesa greeting carried no warmth. Professional acknowledgment. "What have you got?"

 

Lavender unwrapped the rabbit and laid it on the counter. Fresh kill, clean skinning, meat properly preserved. Milesa inspected it with practiced efficiency, checking the haunches, the condition of the remaining organs, the absence of disease markers.

 

"Small."

 

"It's a rabbit. They're all small."

 

"Smaller than usual." Milesa’s eyes flicked up, measuring Lavender the same way she'd measured the meat. "You look thinner."

 

"Hard season."

 

"For everyone." Milesa pushed the rabbit back across the counter. "I'll give you a half-measure of salt."

 

"That's robbery."

 

"That's market rate. Meat's scarce everywhere. Everyone's hunting. Demand is up, supply is down."

 

Lavender pulled the rabbit back, rewrapping it with deliberate slowness. "I'll find another buyer."

 

"You won't. Not for better than I'm offering." Milesa leaned forward, voice dropping. "Word is the Authority's pushing deeper into the Barrens. More patrols, more checkpoints. The traders from the eastern routes aren't coming through anymore. Whatever you can't find here, you won't find at all."

 

The heat stirred in Lavender's chest. She breathed through it, slow and steady, and kept her hands busy with the oiled cloth.

 

"Why?"

 

"Does the Authority need reasons?" Milesa shrugged. "Resources, maybe. Labor conscription for the war effort. Or maybe they just remember the Barrens exists and decided we've been too comfortable."

 

The eastern routes ran through territory closer to RC2. Better climate, more settlements, more infrastructure. If the Authority was cutting those trade lines, the Market's supply would tighten. Prices would climb. Survival would get harder.

 

Lavender set the wrapped rabbit back on the counter. "Three-quarter measure."

 

"Sixty percent."

 

"Seventy. And you throw in information."

 

Milesa’s expression didn't change, but something shifted behind her eyes. Interest. Calculation. "What kind of information?"

 

"Authority patrol patterns. Schedule changes. Anything that explains why they're pushing deeper."

 

A long pause. Milesa glanced around the Market, checking for observers, then leaned closer.

 

"Sixty-five percent. And I tell you what I've heard."

 

Lavender nodded. Milesa scooped salt from the barrel behind her, measuring with practiced precision into a leather pouch. She tied it off and slid it across the counter.

 

"Patrols are running double shifts along the northwest ridge. Three teams, rotating every four days. They're looking for something. Someone, maybe. Word is they lost a squad up there last month. Never reported back."

 

"Lost how?"

 

"Nobody knows. That's what's got them scared." Milesa’s voice dropped further. "Some of the traders think it was dragons. There's a territory marker up near the old ski resort. Been there for years, but the dragons have been more active lately. More sightings. More attacks on Authority convoys."

 

The heat flared. Lavender clamped down, hard, and the spike of pain behind her eyes made her vision swim for a moment.

 

"Thanks for the information."

 

"Vaughn." Milesa’s hand caught her wrist before she could turn away. The touch was light, professional, but Lavender froze. "Your father traded here for thirty years. He was careful. Smart. Whatever you're carrying, whatever you're hiding, be more careful than he was."

 

Lavender pulled her wrist free. "I don't know what you're talking about."

 

"Sure you don't." Milesa’s eyes dropped to Brute, sitting patient and watchful at Lavender's feet. "That dog showed up three years ago. Same time your magic flared stronger."

 

Ice flooded Lavender's veins. The heat in her chest guttered, smothered by fear.

 

"I don't..."

 

"I'm not reporting you. If I wanted to, I'd have done it years ago." Milesa stepped back, resuming her position behind the counter. "Your father saved my life once, during the fever outbreak of 198. I owe his memory that much. But the Authority isn't stupid. They've got equipment now. Detectors. If your magic keeps getting stronger, they'll find you eventually."

 

Lavender couldn't speak. Her throat had closed.

 

"Be more careful." Milesa turned away, already reaching for the next customer's goods. "That's all the help I can give."

 

---

 

The rest of the Market passed in a blur.

 

Lavender found the wicking cloth at a stall run by a woman with no name and fewer words. She traded two handfuls of dried herbs from her father's garden, plants that still grew wild near the hut despite the cold. The transaction took less than a minute. No pleasantries. No conversation. Exactly how she preferred it.

 

The needle and thread eluded her. The vendor who usually carried such things hadn't made the journey. Eastern route, someone said. Authority checkpoint turned him back.

 

She was heading for the exit when the patrol arrived.

 

Two soldiers in black fatigues, black armor plates over vital areas, rifles slung across their chests. They entered through the northern checkpoint, brushing past the toll collectors without payment. Their boots rang on the broken asphalt.

 

The Market went quiet.

 

Conversations died. Haggling stopped. Every eye in the place tracked the soldiers as they moved between the stalls, not browsing, not shopping, just walking. Watching. Letting themselves be seen.

 

One of them carried a device strapped to his forearm. A small screen, blinking with data Lavender couldn't read from this distance. He consulted it regularly, sweeping it across the crowd like a compass seeking north.

 

Detection equipment.

 

Lavender's heart stopped.

 

The heat surged in her chest, responding to her fear, feeding on it. She clamped down with everything she had. Pain exploded behind her eyes. Her vision narrowed to a tunnel, the soldiers at its center.

 

Brute pressed against her leg. Warm. Solid. His weight against her calf was the only thing keeping her upright.

 

The soldier with the detector turned. His sweep passed over her position.

 

Passed on.

 

He continued walking, following his partner deeper into the Market. The blinking screen never paused, never flagged, never gave any indication that it had registered the fire trying to claw its way out of Lavender's chest.

 

She didn't remember leaving. One moment she was standing frozen among the stalls, the next she was outside the checkpoint, stumbling down the southern road with Brute at her heels. Her lungs burned. Her legs shook. The salt bounced against her hip with each step.

 

A mile from the Market, she collapsed against a boulder and threw up.

 

---

 

The memory came unbidden, the way it always did after close calls.

 

Three years ago. Late Auctumnus, the harvest season, when the nights grew cold but the days still held warmth. Her father had been sick for two weeks. A cough that wouldn't quit, followed by fever, followed by a weakness that kept him in bed even when the trap lines needed checking.

 

Lavender had done the work. Hauled water, checked traps, prepared food, changed his bedding when the sweat soaked through. She'd been nineteen. Old enough to survive alone, young enough to believe she wouldn't have to.

 

He'd died on a clear morning, sun streaming through the gaps in the shutters. She'd been reading to him, one of the old books he'd salvaged from a ruined library decades ago. A story about ships and the sea, things that barely existed anymore. His breathing had slowed, then stopped, and she'd kept reading for three more pages before she understood.

 

The grave took her two days to dig. The ground had already started to freeze, thin crust of ice over the topsoil that shattered under her shovel. She'd worked until her hands bled, until the blisters broke and reformed and broke again. The grave was too shallow. She knew that. Animals would find him eventually. But she couldn't dig anymore.

 

She'd wrapped him in his favorite blanket, the one her mother had made before Lavender was born. Lowered him into the shallow pit. Filled it in with dirt that seemed heavier than it should be.

 

The magic had erupted without warning.

 

Fire burst from her hands, scorching the ground in a perfect circle around the grave. She'd screamed, tried to stop it, and the flames had only burned hotter. For one terrible moment, she'd been certain she would set the whole Barrens ablaze, burn down the world her father had spent his life teaching her to survive.

 

Then it stopped.

 

She'd collapsed in the ash, sobbing, too exhausted to move. The cold had crept in. Night had fallen. She'd stayed there, curled on her side, waiting to freeze or burn or simply stop existing.

 

That was when Brute appeared.

 

He'd walked out of the darkness with a rabbit hanging from his jaws. A big one, easily ten pounds, blood still fresh on its fur. He'd dropped it at her feet and sat down. Waited.

 

She'd stared at him. A dog. A massive, scarred dog, appearing from nowhere in the middle of the night with an offering of food. It made no sense. Dogs in the Barrens were wild, dangerous, more wolf than pet. They didn't bring gifts to grieving strangers.

 

"Where did you come from?"

 

The dog had tilted his head. His eyes reflected the stars.

 

She'd eaten the rabbit. Raw, because she didn't have the strength to build a fire. The dog had watched her tear into the meat with her bare hands, blood running down her chin, and hadn't flinched.

 

When she'd finished, he'd stood up and walked toward the hut. Stopped at the door. Looked back.

 

She'd followed.

 

---

 

Brute was watching her now, the same way he'd watched her that night. Patient. Knowing. His amber eyes held depths she'd never quite been able to read.

 

"You appeared at the exact moment I needed you." Lavender's voice came out hoarse. "Out of nowhere. With food."

 

The dog's tail swept once across the ground.

 

"That's not normal. Dogs don't do that."

 

Brute stood and pressed his head against her leg. The warmth of him seeped through her trousers, grounding her.

 

"Who are you really?"

 

He didn't answer. Couldn't answer. He was just a dog.

 

Except he was something more. She'd known that from the first night, even if she'd refused to examine the knowledge. An animal with secrets appeared at moments of crisis with perfect timing. A dog who remained completely calm in the presence of uncontrolled magic. A companion who looked at her with eyes that held understanding beyond anything canine.

 

Milesa’s words echoed in her head. “That dog showed up three years ago. Same time your magic flared stronger.”

 

The magic had always been there. Dormant through childhood, stirring in adolescence, erupting when she turned twelve. But it had been manageable then. Occasional flares, easily hidden, nothing like the constant pressure that built in her chest now. The fire hadn't started burning hotter until after Brute arrived.

 

Coincidence. It had to be coincidence.

 

Lavender pushed herself to her feet. Her legs had stopped shaking. The nausea had passed. The hut waited, three more miles through the cold, and she needed to move before the afternoon shadows lengthened into night.

 

"I don't know what you are," she said to the dog. "But you're the only friend I have. Whatever secrets you're keeping, I hope they're worth it."

 

Brute's tail wagged. Slow. Deliberate.

 

She started walking.