Chapter 574: Decades, Not Days

Maren received them in a room that had once been a granary.

The old shelves still lined the walls, though the grain had long since disappeared. Now they held bundles of cloth, jars, tools, and the accumulated necessities of a settlement that had learned to make use of whatever space remained.

One guard stood beside the door.

He wasn’t rigidly at attention.

He simply watched.

The same careful suspicion Vane had seen everywhere in this half of Meridine.

Maren sat at the far end of a rough wooden table.

She was older than Vane had expected, though there was nothing frail about her. The years sat in her posture, in the stillness of her hands, in the way she seemed to have learned that reacting quickly was rarely worth the information it cost.

"You carried Dessa’s basket across."

She said it before anyone had finished sitting.

Vane nodded.

"We did."

"Why?"

Valerica answered.

"A woman needed medicine for her sister. Neither side of your wall was letting her take it across."

Maren watched her.

"And that was enough?"

"We had no stake in your dispute."

Valerica paused.

"That made helping easy."

Maren’s mouth shifted slightly.

"Easy."

The word hung there.

"Be careful with that."

Valerica frowned.

"I didn’t mean anything by it."

"I know."

Maren’s gaze moved across the six of them.

"That is why I’m correcting you."

She leaned back slightly.

"Nothing here has been easy for longer than most people can remember. People who have lived through that tend to stop using the word casually."

Valerica accepted the correction without argument.

Maren seemed to notice.

"You’re outsiders."

"Yes."

"Unaffiliated."

"For now."

Maren studied them again.

"That makes you useful."

A pause.

"Or dangerous."

Her eyes settled on Vane.

"I haven’t decided which."

"You’ll hear Rurik’s version soon enough."

Maren folded her hands on the table.

"Perhaps you’ve already heard parts of it."

None of them answered.

"Then hear mine first."

Her tone remained calm.

"Not because mine is automatically more truthful. Because you should understand what you’re stepping into before someone convinces you that their side is the only side that ever made sense."

Isole nodded.

"We’re listening."

Maren’s eyes remained on her.

"Fifteen years ago, half the people living behind Rurik’s wall wore Imperial colors."

The room seemed to tighten.

"Extraction crews."

She counted them off quietly.

"Garrison support."

"Informants."

Her fingers pressed together.

"People who gave the Empire routes, names, supplies. Sometimes for money. Sometimes because they thought cooperating meant their families would survive."

"And Rurik’s people were among them?" Vane asked.

"Some."

Maren’s answer was immediate.

"Enough."

Valerica watched her carefully.

"And now they’ve changed sides."

Maren’s expression hardened.

"They say they have."

She looked directly at Valerica.

"That’s different."

Valerica didn’t challenge her.

Maren continued.

"I lost people to informants who sounded sincere."

Her voice remained level.

"That matters."

A pause.

"It doesn’t mean every person who once wore an Imperial uniform is still working for them."

"No," Isole said.

Maren met her eyes.

"You understand that."

"I do."

"Good."

Her fingers loosened slightly.

"Because I understand it too."

She looked toward the door.

"The problem is that understanding the difference doesn’t tell me which person in front of me actually belongs on which side."

The words were quiet.

"I have been trying to answer that question for fifteen years."

Vane watched her.

This wasn’t anger.

Not really.

Anger burned hot.

Maren had been carrying something much colder for much longer.

"What happened to make the wall permanent?" Isole asked.

Maren looked toward the wooden boards covering one of the old windows.

"People kept promising they had changed."

A pause.

"Some had."

"Some hadn’t."

"Some probably meant it when they promised."

She looked back at them.

"And sometimes that still wasn’t enough."

"Because of what they had done before?"

"Because of what we had done to each other."

Maren’s hands tightened.

"We stopped arguing about actions."

"Started arguing about histories."

"Who had served."

"Who had informed."

"Whose father had worked for the Empire."

"Whose brother had disappeared."

"Whose family had accepted Imperial food during a winter when ours didn’t."

Her voice never rose.

"That is how these things happen."

"One memory at a time."

"One exception at a time."

"One person who says, ’You should trust me because I’m different.’"

Maren looked toward Vane.

"And one person who remembers the last time somebody said exactly that."

Nobody spoke.

Vane understood then why the barricade looked so permanent.

It wasn’t built out of stone.

It was built out of accumulated certainty.

Every betrayal had added something.

Every funeral had hardened it.

Every argument had made crossing the line require a little more trust than anyone still had available.

"What would it take," Valerica asked, "for you to trust us?"

Maren considered the question.

For the first time since they’d entered, she took a long time before answering.

"Time."

Valerica nodded.

"That makes sense."

"Don’t say that yet."

Maren rose from the table.

"It isn’t a satisfying answer."

She walked toward the shelves and adjusted a jar that didn’t appear to need adjusting.

"It’s simply the only one I believe."

She turned back.

"You’ll meet Rurik."

"Listen to him."

"Listen to his people."

"Watch what they do when they think nobody is watching."

Her gaze sharpened.

"Then come back."

"Tell me what you actually believe."

Vane nodded.

"That’s fair."

Maren gave him the same look she’d given Valerica earlier.

"It isn’t fair."

Vane waited.

"It’s merely honest."

She stepped toward the doorway.

"You’ve been here less than a day."

Her eyes moved across all six of them.

"You haven’t seen what they were before the wall."

"You haven’t seen what we were before the wall."

She touched the doorframe.

"You haven’t lived through fifteen years of deciding whether someone’s regret is real."

A pause.

"Or whether believing it is worth the risk."

Maren looked back at them.

"Decades built this."

Her voice softened.

"One betrayal."

"One funeral."

"One compromise."

"One person forgiven."

"One person who proved the forgiveness deserved to hurt."

She shook her head.

"I won’t insult all of that by pretending six strangers can dismantle it in an afternoon."

Then she opened the door.

"Go meet Rurik."

"Make up your own minds."

Her gaze lingered on Vane for a moment.

"And when you come back, don’t bring me the answer you think I want."

She stepped aside.

"Bring me the one you actually believe."

The six of them filed out.

Vane looked back once.

Maren was already returning to her table.

The guard remained by the door.

Nothing about the room had changed.

Yet the wall outside suddenly seemed older than any stone could possibly be.

Decades, Vane thought.

They had been trying to cross something that had taken decades to build.

And no matter how good their intentions were, intentions were not going to make it disappear.