Chapter 44

Two Sides of a Coin

By the time the combat tests wrapped, the sun was at noon. A few people were waved out on the spot. The seven or eight left were called under the shed and checked off by name.

"Interviews are done for today," the middle-aged man said from behind the table, voice carrying across the yard. "Scores and papers go up the line before anyone's hired. Everyone else—come back tomorrow for the list."

Lila wiped sweat from her temple. "Sounds like we're in."

Eren glanced at the sheets on the desk. "Don't get ahead of yourself."

"Can't you say something nice for once?"

"I can." He looked away from the papers. "You looked pretty sharp out there today, sharpshooter."

Lila laughed. "All right. That one counts."

When they stepped out of the gate, Nova was already half off the bench. The second he saw them he jumped down. "Well?"

"Not bad," Lila said. "List tomorrow."

Plenty of people still hung around the gate—some cursing how hard it was to get hired, others already fishing for other openings. The three of them took the same road back. Just past the town gate, the street ahead was louder than it had been that morning.

Crowds poured from several side streets toward the same point. Farther on, a few ochre banners showed through the haze under gray-blue flags.

Lila slowed. "What's going on over there?"

Eren saw it too. "Let's look."

They followed the flow.

Plenty of people were coming back from outside the west gate—some fresh off the mine-guard tests like them, others workers from elsewhere. Shopfronts along both sides stayed open at first. Farther in, half the shutters were already half-closed, only a slit left. A few owners stood in their doorways watching, faces tight with annoyance.

Around another corner, a gray-white building came into view.

It stood taller than the houses around it. Thick stone walls. Over the gatehouse hung a blue-gray flag, the field the color of washed-out denim. At the center, matte gold thread stitched a standing six-sided crystal pillar, edged with a thin gold frame. Above the doors a brass plaque had been polished bright. It read: Iron Crystal Guild Mint.

The doors at the top of the steps stayed shut. Guards flanked them. Workers packed the square below. Ochre banners stretched over their heads, red paint crooked but loud:

CUT HOURS. MORE JOBS.

Lila tipped her chin up. "What are they after?"

Nova followed the banner. "What's a mint? Why yell here?"

Eren kept his voice down. "It's where they stamp Crystone coins. The ones we spend—made here, then out to people and shops."

What the crowd wanted was plain enough from the banners.

A tea seller nearby dragged his wooden tub back a step. Seeing the three of them looked like outsiders, he murmured, "Don't push in. The union's marching again."

Lila turned. "Union?"

"Union." He pressed the lid down so the tea wouldn't spill. "Only got going this year. Plenty from the mines and plants joined—plus folks on the street who can't find work. Ones with jobs are overtime-heavy and treated cheap. Ones without are lined up forever. So they're out here."

Lila kept at it. "Does this actually work?"

"Hard to say." He shrugged. "The Guild hates a stoppage. Town hates a mess. When it's time to actually pay out, though—that's another story. Can't cover it in a line or two."

Eren listened and said nothing.

He knew this kind of scene. He just hadn't expected it in a wasteland town.

On the square in front of the Mint they'd thrown up a rough wood stand, megaphone lashed to the front. A middle-aged man with an ochre kerchief at his throat stood on it. His voice carried through the horn:

"Eight-hour day—no more two doing three men's work!"

The crowd below answered at once.

He lifted a sheet of paper. "Hire more! No random layoffs!"

Someone below jumped in: "Gear! Safe housing!"

The chants stacked. Nova looked more lost with every line. He tugged Eren's sleeve and whispered, "What's a layoff?"

"Means they stop using you," Eren said.

"Isn't that normal? Like when we took odd jobs?"

"Hard to explain," Eren said. "I'll tell you properly when there's time."

Nova frowned, still ready to ask, when Lila cut in. "Sounds like the Guild hires too few—lots of people idle, and the ones inside work themselves raw."

"Yeah. About right," Eren said.

His voice stayed low, face barely changing. Only when his eyes hit the word Mint on the plaque did they go a shade colder.

Up close, the crowd was mixed. Near the stand, people wore work tags; some were still in gray-blue uniforms—clearly on shift. Most of the outer ring had no tags: bedrolls under an arm, hire sheets crumpled in a fist, faces baked dark. A few young men yelled loudest, voices already cracking. A handful of old men just folded their arms, mouths moving with the chant, no real push behind it.

At the key corners stood town guards in dark-gray uniforms and peaked caps, pale trim along brim and shoulder—easy to spot against the ochre banners. They kept their distance, short sticks at their belts. No shouting at the man on the stand. No shoving into the crush. Now and then a hand caught someone pushing the wrong way and steered them aside, clearing a lane before a stampede started.

Farther out, at the very rim, a woman with a child ducked along the roadside, patting a scared back while she edged away. A shopkeeper scowled and bent to pull his signboard indoors. Two boys in school smocks hung out a second-floor window until someone inside yanked them back. At a street corner a few men in narrow-brim gray-blue caps swept faces with hard-shell clipboards, pens moving fast.

Lila saw them and hiked a brow. "They're writing names?"

The tea seller hissed at once. "Keep it down."

She shrugged and let it go. She wasn't picking a side here. The talk from the stand didn't sound wrong—but she'd never held a regular job, and none of it meant much to her.

Nova had more questions.

"They want someone from the Guild?"

"Probably," Lila said.

"Then why doesn't anyone come out?"

Neither of them had an answer.

Applause under the stand grew louder. The man on the platform was about to speak again when a short burst of brass bells rang from the other side of the Mint steps. The crowd went still, then parted like water.

People from the town hall turned in from a side street. Two clerks walked abreast in front, satchels tight to their ribs, steps short and even, metal clipboards flashing at their chests. Nobody yelled make way—but that energy cleared a path better than sticks.

Last through the crowd came a young woman.

She wore a pale-gray fitted coat, the town seal pinned at her left breast. The waist was cut sharp, then flared into a clean, full curve. Climbing the stone, the hem threw her hip line ahead of her face and pulled every eye in the front ranks.

A few voices up front lost half a beat.

Chestnut hair coiled low at her nape. Sun caught the crown and threw a thin ring of light. Gray-green eyes, light lip color—sharper still under the gray-blue flags. Face, throat, and the hands clear of her cuffs were even and pale—almost harsh against the dust-worn faces below the steps.

Her heels struck the stone one by one, like something she'd rehearsed. Dust lifted off her skirt and never seemed to stick.

When she lifted her gaze across the black press of heads, a smile sat at the corner of her mouth. Small—but it cut a little quiet into the noise.

Eren looked a beat longer than he meant to. The gap between her and everything around her left him briefly blank.

The wasteland had handsome women. This one—pale skin, proper clothes, the rehearsed walk—still sat wrong in a place stuffed with grit and broken walls.

"Mayor Orlova's here," someone nearby said.

"Mayor Orlova!" another voice rose from the crowd, like relief had finally shown up.

Only then did Eren know who she was.