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her arms at him.
    “You received a job?”
    “Yes, of course.” He pulled back the curtain from the set of shelves they used as a makeshift pantry. Four cockroaches the size of his thumb dropped from the curtain to the floor.
    “What is it?”
    “It’s a translation job. It’s not local, though. We’ll need to pack our things and go north with the next caravan.”
    He carefully put away all of the groceries. When he was finished, she still had not said anything.
    He turned.
    Elahyiah’s face was stricken, as if he’d just said that her father died. He watched her crumple. She leaned against the wall for support. She pressed the rag to her face and choked back a sob.
    “Elahyiah?” he said. He reached for her, but she smacked his hand away.
    “No,” she said. “No more. No more of this.”
    “It’s just one more move. A few weeks’ travel.”
    “A few weeks? Weeks? God be merciful, are you mad? Have you seen the state of your children? Have you seen me at all since we arrived here? We are in no state to go anywhere. We’re dying here, Rhys.”
    “The money is good, Elahyiah. It will get us all the way back to Tirhan, once the job is done.”
    “Good? For us? You mean for you. I don’t understand any of this. We were going to Chenja to do good work in this world, but I hardly have the energy to care for our children. We can afford no help. I miss my family. I miss the housekeeper. I cannot do this on my own, Rhys. Remember when we were partners? I have not felt that for some time.”
    “We’ll sort this out. You need to trust me, Elahyiah.”
    “Trust you? The way I trusted you to bring us out here? I have prayed long about this, Rhys. I am a good wife. A good mother. And I know my rights.”
    “I know it’s been very difficult…”
    “One year has turned into two, then three, now seven. And you keep turning away from me. We keep going farther and farther, and getting nowhere—”
    “Think this through.”
    “I have. I have asked God and prayed often. I am not a woman to forget my prayers. It’s my right to ask for a divorce, if I feel my husband is unworthy.”
    Rhys stumbled. He caught himself on the shelf behind him. It was like a blow—a blow he had known was coming. “Elahyiah, please,” he said. He pressed his hand to hers. “I know I’ve been a poor husband. I won’t pretend it’s been easy for any of us. But… not yet.”
    Elahyiah began to cry. “I’m sorry, but I cannot honor a man who cannot care for us. My father has agreed to help us get home. Me and the children.”
    “The children are mine.”
    “Rhys, please don’t—”
    But his resolve was firm. He knew his rights, too. “You take your right, Elahyiah, and I will take mine. I will take the children, and you’ll have nothing.”
    “Rhys, please—”
    “One chance,” Rhys said. He took her hands. “I can’t lose you all. Not now. Don’t let them take you from me now.”
    “It’s not the bel dames I fear anymore, Rhys,” his wife said. “It’s you.”
    From the next room, his son began to wail.

4.

    N asheen smelled different. It was the first thing Nyx noticed as they crossed the border. She expected to get a lungful of tar and ashes, even this far from the front, but instead the air had the tangy lemony flavor of some nearby red crix beetle colony, the same bug used in many com consoles to translate and transmit communications.
    They met the patrol escorting Mercia and her entourage just twenty kilometers out of Sameh. The three armored bakkies felt like overkill to Nyx, but then, she hadn’t been in Nasheen for a long time. Mercia assured her things were much changed. To Nyx, that sounded ominous.
    Nyx sat up front in the lead bakkie with the patrol leader and a driver. Mercia followed in the second bakkie with her bodyguards.
    “All this just to escort a diplomat?” Nyx asked. Not that she could judge. She wore a baldric bristling with weapons—a short sword sheathed at her back, the hilt