Excerpt: The Way Things Are

There was a stranger in Aika’s waypoint today.

She didn’t particularly like him; he walked as if he owned the place, and this place was Aika’s. She had fought for it; had worked until her fingers ached and her head pounded, fixing broken buildings and pouring over ledgers. And here was some stranger, waltzing into her waypoint as if he owned it. And he didn’t.

Aika managed the waypoint on the eastern side of the mountains, and Shai managed the western side of the mountain path that they kept. They took in a steady amount of income, each managing one side of the mountain path. This was their life. This was what Aika had fought for—to promise Shai a steady living, because Shai wouldn’t ever fight for what was necessary to survive—and she wasn’t going to have some no-name stranger waltzing into her waypoint. It was hers. Not some no-name stranger’s.

She didn’t even know how he had gotten in. She had just closed down the gates yesterday, because the winter snowstorm was coming, the first snowstorm of the year, and it promised to be a big one this year. She didn’t do business during the first winter storm; the first year she’d managed the waypoint, she’d allowed a caravan to go across right before the first storm, and the shipment had frozen halfway there. She had lost money then, on her first venture.

(Auntie had laughed in scorn and said: I told you you’re not ready yet, girl. Leave this to your cousins and concentrate on finding a good husband.)

Aika Matsusei stood up from her seat in her office. Ledgers could wait. Confronting this no-name stranger, however, couldn’t.