Yara’s people did not live behind a single gate.
They lived along the high corridor in stone houses, drying yards and narrow gardens, with water channels stepping between them toward the reservoir works. Some roofs were new. Others had been repaired around old crooked chimneys so many times that Iven could see three generations of judgment in one line of tile.
The place had not begun when the current dispute became important to the road.
Yara met them at the upper intake path, four kilometers from the receiving ground. She had come before the morning’s military turn, bringing the local keeper rather than a circle of officers.
Neri had her field book. Elian carried the seasonal drawing. Iven carried the tools the keeper had asked to see, not a promise that looking at the right pipe would make everybody’s claim compatible.
“This way,” the captain said.
They walked past a garden where two people were cutting the outer leaves from a row of plants to reduce the demand on their roots. A child carried the cut leaves to the household’s animals instead of leaving them to dry beside the path.
Neri watched the narrow water trough.
