Chapter 34. The Salt House

June's POV

River Downs smelled like tears.

That was my first thought, coming down the long valley road at dusk. Salt on the wind. So much of it that my eyes stung and my lips tasted of it.

Then the valley opened up below us, and I saw where it came from.

Brine ponds. Hundreds of them, shallow and square, stepping down the hillside in terraces like a giant's staircase, shining dull silver in the last light. Below them, a row of long evaporation sheds with steam pouring from their stacks. Warehouses as big as the Thornfall pack house. And people. Dozens of them, moving slowly between the ponds with rakes and buckets, bent over, heads down.

I knew how they were moving. I'd moved like that most of my life.

"Bonded workers," Ines said quietly beside me. "Varne buys their debts. They work them off. Most of them never do."

I didn't say anything. I was memorizing the road.

* * *

We slept in