Chapter 792: The People

Back at the receiving route, Mingyue found Selene dealing with the first transport’s pilot.

His ship had reached the freight ground while she was at the water-control building. The wounded had been brought along the checked road, with the two attendants he had promised to send.

He was speaking through Vesa’s maintained connection. Mingyue could hear his impatience while Selene told him where the passengers had been taken.

"The last carrier came back without our attendant," the pilot said. "Where did she go?"

"With the patient who couldn’t lie flat." Selene caught a man about to push another bed across their path and turned him toward the clear side of the entrance. "And she’ll be easier to find if you let someone answer."

A bed passed them toward Edonia. The woman walking beside it wore the same plain work clothes as the people waiting at the freight ground.

Mingyue asked her whether she was one of the ship’s attendants.

She nodded.

"Tell your pilot where you’re going."

Vesa let the woman’s voice reach him.

The conversation changed as soon as he heard someone he knew. She described the beds, the healer, and the place where she would remain while the first patient was examined.

When the attendant finished, the pilot said he would keep the ship outside the district and check the damage to its engine. Some passengers wanted to leave once the injured had treatment arranged. Others were asking about the survivors gathered on Proxima.

"Let us know before you take off," Selene said. "Your people shouldn’t come back to an empty landing ground."

He agreed.

Selene sent the attendants’ names back to the freight ground with a carrier. The pilot’s next question was about engine fittings. He had stopped asking where his people had gone.

Vesa brought a different response forward.

The older vampire in the sealed shelter had returned to ask about the man they were watching. His leg had stopped twitching after they stopped trying to force its blood back into one movement, but the wound still needed care.

Mingyue described what the attendants had done for Mara once her control improved. She kept the advice limited to holding the wound and watching for renewed movement; they did not have the same injury in front of them.

The shelter leader repeated the signs to someone beside him. A younger voice interrupted, asking whether the ships still had places.

"For the last time, we aren’t leaving today," the older man said. "Bring the clean cloth."

A cupboard slammed. A moment later the cloth arrived, and the leader asked the injured man whether he could feel his foot.

Mingyue waited for the answer. He could. The twitching did not return while they changed the dressing.

"We have someone to tend him now," the leader said. "Keep the warning channel. We don’t need a transport."

Vesa lowered the response to the warning channel. The younger man was still arguing when his elder ended the conversation; he would have to persuade someone who knew the people and the rooms they were being asked to leave.

A soldier came back from the lower district carrying the packing board.

He had checked the other water-control building with its former worker. The storage room there was empty. Beyond it, they found a locked side chamber and the remains of people who had hidden before the fighting reached the street.

"No one answered?" Mingyue asked.

"We opened it. No one was alive."

He set the board down, careful not to let its wet edge touch the clean cloth on the table.

Mingyue marked the second building as checked. They had found survivors in only one of the two buildings.

"Bring their names if you find them," she said. "Keep what you recover separate from the water-control family."

The soldier nodded and returned to his people.

Vesa looked at the two marks.

"There are more weak responses."

"I know."

"Some may carry enough for Luna to recognize another place."

Mingyue turned toward her.

Vesa held her gaze.

"She found more in a touch than we found by listening. The next room may not have someone who knows its steps." Vesa’s wings shifted sharply. "I haven’t brought anything near her. But people will die while we search."

"Those calls stay away from Luna."

The answer came before Mingyue thought about softening it.

Vesa lowered the faint response she had been holding apart.

"I will."

Mingyue looked at the two marks on the board. They had opened both rooms. She would have to carry what they found back to Alex without asking Luna for another image.

She contacted Alex through their bond.

He answered quietly. Luna was awake and asking for water in her cup, though she had been annoyed when he tried to help her hold it.

Mingyue let herself breathe.

"We found the room," she told him. "A woman and her son are alive. Her husband was already dead."

Alex was silent for a moment.

"And the other building?"

"No survivors."

She told him about the remaining weak calls.

"Use people who know the places," he said. "Ask the callers what they can repeat. Don’t bring Luna back into it."

"She wants to know whether you found the lady," he added.

"Tell her we did. I’ll tell her the rest when I come back."

She ended the conversation and found Dorian waiting beyond the treatment route.

More of the local arrivals had gathered beside him. The gray-haired loyalist was arguing with a man who wanted weapons before accepting any guard assignment. Behind them, newly emptied stretchers waited for people who could carry the next patients.

Dorian looked toward Mingyue.

"They keep asking whose orders they follow."

She glanced at the mixed group, then at Selene, who was now stopping two arrivals from blocking the Edonia entrance.

Selene moved one man out of the entrance while the other looked to Dorian for an order. Mingyue could not leave another argument waiting for whichever heir returned first.

"Bring the people speaking for them," she told Dorian. "We have enough here to start dividing the work."