Chapter 9: First Winter

The council voted six to two in favor of settlement. The two dissenting votes came from families whose land bordered the area designated for the refugees — a concern Sera understood as legitimate and addressed immediately by proposing a boundary agreement that protected existing crop rights for three years and established a shared water access protocol. By the end of the first week, the two dissenters had not become advocates, but they had stopped being obstacles. The first winter was the hardest thing Sera had ever done, and she had descended a volcano. Two thousand people needed shelter built before the cold arrived, and they had arrived in early autumn with the cold six weeks behind them. The valley's resources were stretched. Sera put herself on the same work rotation as everyone else — not as performance, but because the work needed doing and there were not enough hands. She learned quickly that there were things a queen was not suited for and things she was surprisingly good at, and that knowing the difference was itself a skill. The children were the most difficult. Not because they complained — they rarely did, with the resilience that children bring to situations adults find catastrophic — but because they needed a future to orient toward, and the future was not yet clear enough to show them. Sera held school in the evenings, in whatever communal structure was available, using whatever materials could be found. She taught when there was no one else to do it, which was often. "You're spreading yourself too thin," Addo told her, on a night when the temperature had dropped below what the valley people had predicted and three of the outer shelters had insufficient insulation. "I know," she said. She was helping reinforce the shelter's walls with packed earth and straw, her hands past feeling in the cold. "What do you suggest?" "Delegate more." "To whom? Everyone is already doing two jobs." "Then trust them to do two jobs without you doing three." He picked up a bundle of straw and worked beside her. "You are the queen. That means something specific here — not just labor but direction. The people need to see you deciding, not just working." She thought about this while her hands worked. "I'm afraid," she said quietly. "Of deciding wrong. With this many people depending on every decision." "Good," Addo said. "Queens who are not afraid make worse decisions than those who are." He pressed straw into a gap. "But fear shouldn't paralyze you. It should sharpen you." A pause. "You've made good decisions so far. Trust that record." The winter was long. They lost four people to cold and two to illness — fewer than anyone had feared, which did not make it less terrible. But in the spring, the children planted seeds in the new fields, and Drusse stood beside Sera watching them and said: "They'll do." Sera looked at her people in the valley light. "Yes," she said. "We will."