He had held back a retort of his own; seeing two tears spill over and run down her cheeks made him glad of that momentary restraint. “I can do something you can’t,” he pointed out gently. “I’m bigger and stronger than you, and I am quite, quite used to hard physical labor. I can help dig people out. And if you stay here and keep an eye on Avatre and the little ones, I can do that without needing to worry about them.”

She bowed her head. “Then, thank you,” she said quietly—and went back to her work of calming the agitated dragons.

The other boys decided that going into the city would be a good idea. Pe-atep wanted to look in on his successor anyway; he was worried about the cats. And Kalen wanted to check on the health of his former charges, the falcons. Huras was dying to find out how his father and neighbors were, and perhaps, if there was heavy damage, help get some of the ovens going again. “People need to eat,” he pointed out. “If they can’t bake their own bread, we can do it for them.” Menet-ka, Orest, Gan, and Oset-re volunteered to stay to mind the dragonets so that the others could go out; Toreth promised to check on all of the families of the nobly born and pass on word to both sides.

After telling Lord Khumun of their intentions, Kiron did go out, dressed in an old kilt, and not to the Second Ring either. Assuming that the military could take care of themselves, and the nobles and wealthy could purchase whatever help they needed, he went across the causeways to the Fifth Ring, where most of the poorer sections of Alta were. There, as he had promised her, he labored for the rest of the day in a gang of other common folk, digging out houses where there might have been injured folk still trapped.

By the end of the day they were only finding bodies, and he reckoned it was time to go home. Not to be crude about it—but it would not matter one day, or two, if a body was recovered. The spirit would be satisfied by the proper prayers and rites whenever it was found.

He trudged back across the causeways, feeling tired enough to lie down in Avatre’s hot sand and bake all night to get the aches out. It had been a hard, hard day. He hadn’t labored this much since he’d worked for Khefti. But every time they’d gotten someone out still alive, still able to go to the hands of the Healers that had swarmed down to the Fifth Ring, it had felt as if he had won a prize.