the limits of what they could do to make her life in the Outer City more bearable, without inviting punishment on her or me. Corian made sure her house was built better than many in the shanties. The walls are now made of solid terrywood, and our slanted metal roofs are sturdy and don’t leak. Corian helped us install a proper chimney that Adena hammered into shape in her shop, so that my mother could cook indoors, and dug a tunnel underneath the house so that she had something like a toilet instead of the public outhouses at the end of each makeshift street, places so filthy that my childhood nightmares were filled with visions of falling into their dugout troughs. Knowing my mother’s skill with plants, Jeran had brought her seeds from his family’s garden—lettuce and carrot and radish—and even climbing roses, which now hang their beautiful blooms along the walls, and pink feather grass, which sways in a ring around the house.
She’s feeding a log into the stove when I step up to the open door. I just stand there for a moment, watching her sturdy shoulders at work, unaware of my silent arrival.
The house is small but warm, the single room barely big enough to walk a few steps from one end to the other. Potted plants crowd the damp corners and leaning ledges. Lush green vines, still dewy from being watered, drape down from her rusted windowsill. A little tree with long spring-colored leaves sits by the doorway, its scent as clean and sharp as lemon.
It’s not our home. But you try your best to take your home with you, even if it’s a shack in the middle of a desperate place.
She pours a spoonful of water onto the stove’s hot surface. Steam sizzles, humidifying the space. When she finally steps away from the flames, I knock twice against the doorframe.
She turns at the sound. Her eyes widen with joy at my smile.
Every corner of my heart fills as she steps toward me and reaches up to cup my face in her calloused hands. “There’s my girl,” she signs, then runs a hand through my hair. “She doesn’t visit often enough.” She pats my cheeks and adds aloud, in Basean, “Or eat enough.”
Like my Striker companions, with whom I flip back and forth regularly between our sign language and Maran, my mother communicates with me in a mix of Maran sign language and, when she can’t quite figure out what signs to use, in Basean. I lean into the familiar rhythm of my homeland’s tongue on her lips and the coarse movements of her fingers, then hand her the bag of spice from the market. “You said you missed woodruff.”
She sighs at the dried leaves and flowers, taking a moment to inhale their aroma. “Oh, it’s perfect.” She nods toward the table. “Sit down. I’ll fix something for you.”
“Ma, I’m not hungry.”
She clicks her tongue disapprovingly at me. “Never hungry, never learned how to cook. What a daughter. Tea, then.”
I follow her to the makeshift table in the corner of the room. It’s only large enough for two people to crowd around. As I take a seat, my mother puts the dried woodruff into two tin mugs. Then she takes a pot off the fire and pours me a steaming cup of water.
“Will you stay for dinner?” she asks me.
I close my eyes and inhale the scent of tea. “Can’t. I have to be back at the mess hall.”
She smiles a little. “How are your friends?”
“Fine.” I hesitate, not sure how to begin my story of what had happened in the arena.
“Tell Adena that I appreciate her bringing over that box of ginseng for me.”
“She said you helped her prepare some samples of camifera so she could experiment with its strength as catapult rope.” I smile briefly. “She always tells me no one has steadier hands than you.”
My mother shrugs and winks at me. “Well, she’s not wrong.”
Then I reach toward my belt and unhook a pouch of coins. Half of my weekly pay. I put it on the table between us.
She smiles sadly at me. During a normal visit, she would scold me more, telling me to keep a higher portion of my wages, buy myself something nice. But she knows I’m here because I always visit before we head back to the warfront. She knows this time is harder, given Corian’s death. So she spares us her usual argument and just leans her head