I'm Kestra, and my yard has never needed a fence as much as it does this morning.
Mavra: Don't go out there yet. The whole row is already awake and watching.
Four packs' worth of apology is stacked on my workbench before I've had my tea.
A copper tub. Bolts of red silk. A crate of tools better than the ones I own.
Mavra: There's a note on the tub in Aric's hand. For your back, after the pumps.
Kestra: My back's been fine six years without a copper tub.
Mavra: Kestra. They sent you a price tag with a bow on it.
By noon the fence is three deep, and nobody is pretending to be passing by.
Not one of them is looking at the crates. They're all looking at me.
Veyla: Kept woman. That's the name the row settled on.
Veyla: Four Alphas keeping a wolfless bitch in a pump yard. Everything paid but your pride.
My ears go hot. Six years of dry streets, and one cart of silk turns me into a joke with furniture.
Rhoswen: She's not even wearing the silk. That's the rude part.
Veyla: Look at her hands. She wants to keep it. They always want to keep it.
My hands are shaking. It's not from wanting.
Then boots on the gravel, four pairs, and the yard goes quiet enough to hear the pump breathing under the boards.
Aric stops six feet away, and my chest goes tight and stupid, and I hate that most of all.
Aric: We brought these to help you. Not to buy you.
Kestra: Then you should have carried them yourself and left the town out of it.
His hand comes up like he'll touch my arm. I step back, and it stays in the air.
Ulric: She's not taking it. Look at her face, Aric.
Dain: It was a good tub. I picked the tub.
Nobody laughs. Not even Dain, once he hears himself.
I get both hands on the first crate and drag it across the boards.
The whole yard takes a step back, like the wood might bite somebody.
Talon: Kestra, wait. Let me talk to you, please.
Kestra: Talk to them. They're the ones who bought the story you started.
The crate hits the water and the silk comes out of it like a red breath.
It floats. Of course it floats. Nothing in this town drowns easy.
The copper tub takes two hands and both boots to roll down the bank.
It goes under with a sound like a bell apologizing.
Last is the tool crate. Good steel, better than mine, and my palm knows it.
I hold the wrench one second. Then I throw it. Not one bolt.
Veyla: That's a season's wages in the water!
Kestra: Then it's mine to drown.
The fence line has stopped laughing. It's the only thing I've gotten all day.
Ulric: Woman, that's a lot of money going downstream.
Kestra: Then learn to swim, Ulric.
Aric doesn't move. His hands hang open, and his jaw works like he's chewing glass.
Aric: We did this. We sent a cart and called it respect.
Kestra: No. You sent a cart and let the town write the rest.
Talon: We can't fix it with things. We know that now.
Kestra: Then don't fix it today. Go home.
I walk back to the pump house with river mud on my boots and four Alphas behind me on my own bank.
Let them figure out what a woman costs when she isn't for sale.