Ashes and Rain: Sequel to Khe (The Ahsenthe Cycle Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

days from now. Would the anger at having my life stolen flood back, or would love for those who had been my sisters crush my heart? I was glad that Simanca never let the sisters go to a corenta, calling them places of evil.
    I decided I’d stay in Kelroosh. That way I would be spared seeing those I had known and loved. Those who had betrayed me for a few extra pounds of crops.
     

     
    Five doumanas wearing cloaks of the brightest blues, reds, and yellows I’d ever seen stood waiting at the edge of a large field at Bethon commune. I was caught by the fabrics’ dazzling colors. I wanted to run my fingers over the threads, to know how that vividness felt. The desire hit me hard; I’d never had that want before. Behind them we could see doumanas hand-harvesting zind, one of the few crops that bloomed in Barren Season and set seeds in First Warmth.
    “We call them the Eager Weavers,” Azlii said, her voice low so as not to carry. “They do everything by hand at Bethon, no machines except for harvesting a couple of the five crops they grow to make their cloth. Their guide is very proud. She’ll likely give us the full walking tour, especially now that I have two fresh faces with me.”
    The five waiting doumanas stepped forward to greet us, spread out like flying birds with the one I picked as the commune’s leader in the front. Her cloak was an exquisite blue — the color of the clearest Growing Season sky. Her skin was a light-pinkish-red, and she was shorter than her sisters, the energetic sort, I thought, who always walked ahead of others. Who probably thought ahead of others, too, the way that Simanca did. I hoped she was kinder than Simanca.
    When the short doumana reached us, she and Azlii didn’t exchange neck touches the way Azlii and Rill had. Instead Azlii shared our names with the weavers, and the weavers’ leader, Fundid, shared the names of her unitmates. That done, Fundid turned and began walking quickly across the field, never looking back to see if we were keeping up, saying loudly enough for us to clearly hear, “We grow five crops here for their natural dyes. We are, of course, best known for the remarkable shade we produce using binion: Bethon Blue.”
    Fundid chattered on, leading us across fields, most of them fallow now, and past various outbuildings. Through an open, wide doorway we saw a team of lean doumanas with bunched muscles in their backs, legs, and arms, beating bundles of thick, hard binion stalks against sharp metal spikes set in the dirt floor. No sound came from the building but the slap, slap of the stalks against the spikes and ground. At Lunge, we would have had a song to make the work go easier, and to keep a rhythm. It seemed Fundid gave about as much thought for the doumanas in her charge as Simanca had, maybe less.
    I didn’t want to think about Simanca; we’d reach Lunge soon enough.
    I glanced at Nez. Her eyes were as wide as full moons, watching the weavers beat the stalks into fibers. Kler doumanas had no idea where the staples and luxuries they took for granted came from, what it took to make them. I touched her neck and smiled.
    “I wish I could think-talk to you,” Nez whispered. “My mind is spinning.”
    “We’ll talk in Kelroosh,” I whispered back.
    We came to what I guessed must be Fundid’s dwelling from the way her back suddenly straightened. I blinked, surprised at the brilliant color on the walls, a blue so pure it would have lit my spots with joy — Bethon Blue. I wondered how they’d dyed the stones to get that color.
    Just before we went inside, I caught sight of a doumana who stood alone near one corner. Fundid passed by her without acknowledgement. Around that corner stood another lone doumana. Fundid paid her no mind either.
    Shunned . The cruelest punishment any set-place doumana could receive. I wondered what they had done to deserve such mean treatment.
    The door of the Bethon Blue dwelling was as crimson as the day-ending sky. Inside, the