She grunted, stomach growling. Hungerspren appeared, like little brown specks with wings, floating around her. That wasn’t odd. Many of the folks in line had attracted them.

“I got two powers,” Lift said. “I can slide around, awesome, and I can make stuff grow. So I could grow me some plants to eat?”

“It would almost certainly take more energy in Stormlight to grow the plants than the sustenance would provide, as determined by the laws of the universe. And before you say anything, these are laws that even you cannot ignore.” He paused. “I think. Who knows, when you’re involved?”

“I’m special,” Lift said, stopping as they finally reached the line of people waiting to get into the city. “Also, hungry. More hungry than special, right now.”

She poked her head out of the line. Several guards stood at the ramp down into the city, along with some scribes wearing the odd Tashikki clothing. It was this loooong piece of cloth that they wrapped around themselves, feet to forehead. For being a single sheet, it was really complex: it wound around both legs and arms individually, but also wrapped back around the waist sometimes to create a kind of skirt. Both the men and the women wore the cloths, though not the guards.

They sure were taking their time letting people in. And there sure were a lot of people waiting. Everyone here was Makabaki, with dark eyes and skin—darker than Lift’s brownish tan. And a lot of those waiting were families, wearing normal Azish-style clothing. Trousers, dirty skirts, some with patterns. They buzzed with exhaustionspren and hungerspren, enough to be distracting.

She’d have expected mostly merchants, not families, to be waiting here. Who were all these people?

Her stomach growled.

“Mistress?” Wyndle asked.

“Hush,” she said. “Too hungry to talk.”

“Are you—”

“Hungry? Yes. So shut up.”

“But—”

“I bet those guards have food. People always feed guards. They can’t properly hit folks on the head if they’re starvin’. That’s a fact.”

“Or, to offer a counterproposal, you could simply buy some food with the spheres the emperor allotted you.”

“Didn’t bring them.”

“You didn’t … you didn’t bring the money?”

“Ditched it when you weren’t looking. Can’t get robbed if you don’t have money. Carrying spheres is just asking for trouble. Besides.” She narrowed her eyes, watching the guards. “Only fancy people have money like that. We normal folk, we have to get by some other way.”

“So now you’re normal.”

“Course I am,” she said. “It’s everyone else that’s weird.”

Before he could reply, she ducked underneath the chull wagon and started sneaking toward the front of the line.

Chapter 3

3

“TALLEW, you say?” Hauka asked, holding up the tarp covering the suspicious pile of grain. “From Azir?”

“Yes, of course, officer.” The man sitting on the front of the wagon squirmed. “Just a humble farmer.”