Krystal Evergreen wanted candles. Real ones, enough to last a winter, plus food in her cellar so she could stop hunting every cold dawn. That was the whole of her hope at eighteen, and it was small. She had buried both her parents years ago and learned to feed herself. This afternoon she felt close. Three fat rabbits and a slab of deer hide swung from her belt as she walked into town. The town met her tired, as always. Faded storefronts leaned over the road. Roofs sagged like broken backs. Past the last shop stretched the wide farming field, cracked and empty, gone to dust years ago. Krystal knew every gap in the boardwalk. She had planned to sell the meat, pocket the coin, and finally buy candles before dark. A fresh paper hung on the post office door. The ink was still black and sharp against all the grey. She stopped and read it twice. DISTRICT TAX. A number sat at the bottom. It matched, almost to the coin, the small pile she had saved under her floorboard. She pushed inside. The postmaster stood behind the counter, sorting slips he clearly did not care about. He barely looked up. "The paper outside," Krystal said. "That tax. It's new." "Posted this morning," he said. "District order. Everyone pays." "How much time do I have?" "Collectors come end of week." He set down a slip. "Have it ready." Krystal lifted the rabbits onto the counter. The hide she laid beside them, still smelling of the kill. "I can pay in this," she said. "Good meat. Clean hide. Worth more than coin out here." The postmaster looked at the pile the way a man looks at spilled water. "Coin only," he said. "I can't enter meat in a ledger." "Then I sell the meat and give you the coin. Same thing." "Sell it if you can. The tax stands either way." He pushed the rabbits back toward her. "Anything else?" Krystal did the sum in her head. She had one small pile. It could pay the tax, or it could buy candles. It could not do both. If she paid, she went back to hunting in the dark, gutting rabbits by the last of an old stub. If she didn't pay, the collectors came. "There's no field left to farm," she said. "Half these shops are shut. What's the tax even for?" "Not my paper to write," the postmaster said. "Just my door to hang it on." She gathered the meat and hide. Her hands were steady, which surprised her. Inside, something had gone hard and hot. Outside, the field lay grey under a grey sky. Krystal stood on the sagging boardwalk with her rabbits and her worthless hide. The candles were gone before she ever held one. So was the quiet she had been buying toward for years. She looked at the dead field a long moment. Then she turned toward home, and the anger came with her.

Krystal woke before dawn with the tax already paid and nothing left over. She sat up on the cold floor and did the sum again. The candles would have to wait. Maybe a month. Maybe longer. Her little sister stirred under the blanket. Dandy sat up, thin and quiet, her braid loose from sleep. She had watched Krystal hunt since she could walk. She trusted her more than anything. "We can't get candles for a while," Krystal said. "Not till I sell more game." Dandy pulled the blanket to her chin. "I could help. I could set snares too." "No." Krystal stood and reached for her bow. "You stay. I'll handle it." Dandy said nothing. She only watched her sister lace her boots, the way she always did. Krystal stepped outside. The problem was simple and cruel. Word of the new tax had spread. Every hunter in the district was selling now, dumping meat at the market to scrape up coin. Prices had fallen through the floor. Three rabbits fetched almost nothing. Her game no longer mattered. So she needed something bigger. Something worth real coin even in a flooded market. She walked to the old wheat field. Dead stalks stood in brittle rows, tangled and grey, rattling when the wind moved through them. She crouched at the edge and waited. She watched for the flick of an ear, the twitch of a squirrel. Nothing moved. The rows stayed empty. An hour passed. Her knees ached. No rabbits. No squirrels. The field was picked clean, hunted out by every desperate soul with the same idea. She had failed. Krystal turned back toward home with empty hands. Then she heard it. A heavy grunt, low and close. She froze. A boar stood among the withered stalks. Thick-shouldered, dark, rooting at the dead ground. It was more meat than she had killed in a season. She drew an arrow slow. Her breath went shallow. She sighted behind its front leg and loosed. The arrow struck deep. The boar squealed and bolted three steps, then dropped. She waited until it went still, then walked to it. Her hands shook. This one animal was worth more than a dozen rabbits. But now she faced a choice, and it split two ways. She could sell it. Even in a crowded market, a boar this size would bring coin, maybe enough for candles at last. Or she could keep it, smoke it, fill the cellar, and stop hunting cold dawns for weeks. Coin or food. She could not have both from one kill. Krystal knelt and gripped the boar's hind legs. She started to drag. The weight cut into her palms. It plowed a dark line through the dust behind her. She would decide at the door. Right now she only pulled, one hard step after another, toward the house and toward Dandy waiting inside.