3 #2

“What else have they said about the woman?” he asked.

“One lieutenant claims she had fire in her hands. Another says Kaoran Thennar left him hanging from a bridge with his pants torn.”

“A man’s fall changes the details.”

“They also say a red creature crossed the mountain after the collapse.”

Kaoran kept his face still.

“A dragon?”

“The guard who saw it had been drinking. His companion swears the blue stones swallowed it. Then the order came to keep quiet about beasts and confluences. Every tavern in Nydel has been talking about it ever since.”

Rheskan had still been near Cendral at dawn on the day of the rescue. The response Isolde received on the bridge confirmed that he could reach their bond, though distance or stone interrupted the contact. The rumor added little. It also showed that the pursuers knew the dragon had survived.

Outside, the crier struck a rod against the flagstones.

“By order of the protector regent,” he announced, “every household shall declare its stores, animals, and persons of service age before sunset.”

The square answered with hostile silence.

Kaoran bought the nails and buckle. Doven hid a small sack of flour between two rolls of leather and refused payment. Before Kaoran left, he pointed to the back door.

“Enna’s at Sira’s house. The captain went looking for her this morning.”

“Why?”

“They found stains on her apron.”

“Enna always has stains.”

“This time someone decided to count them.”

Kaoran crossed three courtyards and entered a parallel street. Sira’s house stood beside the irrigation ditch, with a bunch of onions hanging at the window. Enna came out before he knocked.

“They’ve seen you,” she said.

“You too.”

“The captain wanted to know whom I treated on the hillside. I told him about a charcoal burner with a cut leg.”

“Does he exist?”

“He does now. I bandaged Teren so he can limp until tomorrow.”

Kaoran gave her the red ribbon.

“Stop the visits.”

“I still have stitches to take out.”

“I can do it.”

“You put in five, and one opened.”

“There was a fragment.”

“There was haste too.”

Enna opened Sira’s door. Inside, a man groaned with considerable enthusiasm for someone whose leg was sound.

“I’ll come in three nights,” she said. “If you leave a ribbon on the tree, I’ll hide the instruments among the roots and go back.”

“The patrol may be watching you.”

“Let them watch. They’ll have to decide whether an old woman carrying roots up a hill merits twelve soldiers.”

“You already know their answer.”

“I do. That’s why I’ll take the streambed.”

A bugle sounded from the square. Two soldiers entered the street.

Kaoran bent over Sira’s flower bed and plucked a sprig of thyme. Enna began explaining, in a voice loud enough to carry, how to make an infusion for knee pain.

“Kaoran Thennar,” one of the soldiers said.

The man wore a bandage around his forehead. Kaoran recognized the officer from the aqueduct. The fall had added a cut to his cheek and a new stiffness to his walk.

“Thyme is good for many things,” Kaoran replied. “I’m not sure it cures bad manners.”

The officer put a hand on his sword.

“You’re wanted for attacking a patrol of the regent’s.”

“A patrol shot at me while I carried a wounded woman. There was mud. We all learned something about slopes.”

“Where is the woman?”

“If I’d taken her somewhere safe, there would be little point in asking.”

The second soldier moved behind him. Kaoran calculated the width of the street, the distance to the ditch, and the weight of Enna’s staff.

He could bring the first man down before he drew his sword.

The other would reach his bugle. Then the six from the square would come, along with those searching the granaries.

“The regent offers clemency for cooperation,” the officer said.

“Clemency for what crime?”

“Harboring an enemy of the Crown.”

“The crier just announced that the heir died. A dead woman can hardly threaten the Crown.”

The officer stepped closer. He smelled of ointment and wet clothes.

“I didn’t say she was the heir.”

Kaoran pointed to the sheet the crier held in the square.

“You’ve spent all day telling us who died. I’d like to understand whom you’re looking for.”

The man’s hand closed on the hilt. Enna struck the ground with her staff.

“If you’re going to arrest him, do it away from my door. I have a patient inside, and your voice is restoring his health.”

Teren stopped groaning.

The second soldier laughed. The officer looked at him, and the tension lost an edge.

“We’ll search your house before dark,” he told Kaoran.

“Bring firewood. It’s cold on the way up.”

Kaoran returned to the square without quickening his pace. He bought salt, traded a rabbit for oats, and mounted Bruma under the guards’ eyes. He took the northern road, the one leading away from his hillside. He knew they would follow.

Two riders left Nydel as he passed the mill.

Kaoran rode along the main road for an hour. At Vessa ford, he let Bruma drink and watched the reflection. The men had stopped among the trees. They were waiting for him to make the mistake of looking back.

He took a copper wire from his pack, tied it to the ring of an old sluice gate, and opened the latch. Water from the irrigation ditch flooded the lower track. Bruma crossed by a path of stones Kaoran had laid years ago. Her tracks vanished beneath the current.

On the far side, he took a goat trail west. The riders continued north. Even so, he took another two hours to return. He made a wide circuit, left Bruma in the woods, and climbed on foot.

The house door stood open.

Isolde’s walking stick lay in the mud.

Kaoran dropped his pack and ran.

He found her behind the stable, beside a stone marking the old property boundary. She had traveled more than thirty steps. Both hands braced against the wall, she had one foot in a low stirrup. The saddle rested over a fence. Bruma wasn’t there, but Isolde had fashioned another bridle from a rope.

“What are you doing?”

She turned her head. Rain had plastered her hair to her face.

“I saw you on the northern road.”

“They were following me.”

“I thought they’d arrested you.”

Kaoran looked at the stirrup hanging from the fence.

“I had to lead them away from the path. I was delayed at the ford.”

“I saw you heading north.”

“I should have told you what I’d do if I was followed. The routes are marked, but from here they looked as though they were taking me somewhere else.”

“I wasn’t going to wait.”

Isolde tried to pull her foot from the stirrup. Her left leg gave way. Kaoran reached her in time to catch her beneath the arms.

She struck out with her elbow.

“Let me go.”

Kaoran leaned her against the wall.

“Brace yourself first.”

“I can reach the woods.”

Blood had soaked through her shirt beneath the ribs.

“You’ve opened a stitch.”

Isolde looked at the road.

“What did you find out?”

“Inside.”

“Tell me.”

“The soldiers will search the house. They left Nydel behind me and think I’m still to the north. We have a few hours.”

“Then get Bruma ready.”

“You can’t ride.”

“Tie me on.”

“The movement will tear the rest of the stitches open.”

“I won’t stay here when they come.”

Kaoran picked up the stick. Isolde tried to move toward the house. She reached the first post. On the second step, her knee touched the mud. Her body followed.

Kaoran crouched, but she raised a hand.

“Wait.”

Isolde tried to stand. She planted the stick, brought her right foot forward, and pushed. Her left leg trembled without lifting her. She tried again. Pain changed her breathing.

“Wait,” she repeated.

Kaoran waited.

The rain covered the sound Isolde made when she understood her body would not obey. She stayed on her knees, head bowed, one hand sunk into black mud.

“Now,” she said.

Kaoran lifted her.

Inside the house, he changed the bandage and drew the open edge together with linen strips held beneath a dressing. Isolde stayed silent. The skin around the stitches was still clean. The effort had cost her blood, but the deeper wound remained stable.

Kaoran placed the decree on the table.

“This was in Nydel.”

Isolde opened it.

She read the heading once. Her eyes moved more slowly through the account of Cendral. When she reached Darian’s name, her right hand went still.

“Protector regent,” she said.

“Chosen by the Council of Houses.”

“Varek controls defense and the confluences.”

“Reconstruction too.”

“My father is alive.”

“The decree calls him incapacitated. No one in Nydel knows who is tending him or who can see him.”

“Aelyn?”

“The crier said she remains in Caleryon under the palace’s protection. That may mean surveillance.”

“It does.”

* * *

Isolde found the signature and ran her thumb over the final curve. Darian separated his surname when he changed pens; that hand had also written private notes in the margins of a map, where only she would find them.

She brought the sheet closer to the light. She read the clause asking that her sacrifice be honored, then read it again, searching for a hesitation the printed words could never give her. They had chosen words that could be spoken in a public square.

“Did one of Darian’s men read this?”

“The crier. Varek’s guards stood beside him.”

“His office must have prepared it.”

Kaoran stood on the other side of the table.

Isolde knew the path an order took before it was sealed; Darian had explained it during days when they still planned to rule together.

He could have corrected that sentence, made the scribe leave it open, sent men to search the gorges.

He himself had ordered the search called off while she still breathed on the stone.

“He’s signed my death,” she said.

Fire caught one corner of the paper.

Isolde let go. Kaoran caught the sheet before it fell onto the table and smothered the flame between two cloths. Part of the seal turned black. The signature survived.

“Give it back.”

Kaoran laid the decree before her.

“What did they say about Rheskan?”

“There’s a rumor of a red dragon near Cendral. The officers have ordered silence. No one knows whether he got out of the mountain.”