"Amara," she responded, feeling her mouth tug up at the corners. She glanced around her, licking her lips, and thought for a moment. She needed to see more of the camp. Try to find something she could take with her. "Odiana, is there any place to get a drink around here? We were traveling for hours, and I'm parched."

The girl tossed her frizzy hair over one shoulder and sniffed at the commander's tent. "What's your pleasure? There's some cheap beer, but it's mostly water. Optionally, we could get a drink of water. And if none of that suits you, I think there's some water."

"I'll have the water," Amara said.

"A dry wit," Odiana noted. She hooked the handle of the basket over the crook of her arm and said, "This way." Then she turned and walked with a kind of bristling, crackling energy through the camp, toward the opposite gate. Amara caught up with her, eyes flicking around. A troop of soldiers came jogging by, boots striking the ground in rhythm, and the two girls had to skip back, between two tents, to let them pass.

Odiana sniffed. "Soldiers. Crows take them all, I am sick to death of soldiers."

"Have you been here long?" Amara asked.

"Since just after the new year," the other said. "But there are rumors that we'll be leaving soon."

Amara's heart pounded. "Going where?"

Odiana looked at her with an amused smile. "You've not been around soldiers much, have you. It doesn't matter where you go. This," she gestured broadly, at the camp, "never changes. It's the same, if you're down by the ocean or up at the Wall. And the men never change. The sky never changes, and the earth doesn't change enough to notice. This is it."

"But still. You get to go to new places. See new things."

"Only new stains on uniforms," said Odiana. The soldiers passed, and the girls stepped out onto the track again. "But I've heard further north and maybe east a ways."