3 #3

Isolde brought her hand to her breastbone. She reached for the bond. She found a cold expanse crossed by pulses that might come from the distance or from her own heart.

“He’s alive,” she said.

“That’s what you felt on the bridge.”

“I feel it now.”

The certainty lasted an instant. Then the bond closed again.

“Maelia,” Isolde said.

“No verified news. They talk about a woman who fled east with soldiers. No one I heard could give her a name.”

Isolde searched the decree for any mention of Maelia. Varek had shown her captive inside the core; the east of the rumor lay far from the signs they knew.

“Keep track of who says it. We need to find out whom they saw.”

Kaoran pointed to a name he had written at the edge of the paper.

“I have to reach Caleryon.”

“You reached the stable and opened your wound.”

“Aelyn is being watched. My father is in Darian’s hands. Every day I stay here gives them time.”

“Time for what?”

“To consolidate the Council. Replace the Guard. Erase the people who were in Cendral. Prepare a coronation.”

“All of that may be happening.”

“Then you understand the urgency.”

“I understand that arriving alive matters.”

Isolde stood. Kaoran had left the chair within reach. She moved it aside and kept her balance with a hand on the table.

“I can travel in a cart.”

“The soldiers search carts.”

“I’ll hide.”

“You have a low fever at dusk and need Enna to take out the stitches. The road to Caleryon takes weeks in this season. Every post has your description.”

Isolde returned to the Council’s choice. The Houses had sworn before her father; now they backed the regency. The line declaring Ardan unable to exercise the powers of the Crown forced her back to the seal.

“You can take me,” she said.

Kaoran held her gaze.

“I can tend the wound and look for a route. You’ll need help when you arrive.”

Isolde pushed the paper aside. They had listed the people she loved, and all of them were beyond her reach.

Isolde hurled the chair against the wall.

Fire appeared around her hand. A wave of heat struck the table. The fat in a lamp began to boil.

Kaoran moved the lamp away from the hot edge. Then he picked up the cloth from the table and laid it beside Isolde’s burning hand.

“Three,” he said.

“Don’t count.”

“The house is stone. The stable is full of straw.”

“I said stop.”

“The decision is yours.”

The glow reached her wrist. Isolde felt the core seek out the wound, the anger, and the confluence beneath the floor. She could let it grow. She could turn this house into a signal visible from Nydel.

She drew breath.

Three counts.

One.

Five.

The fire dwindled until it vanished.

Her left leg gave way again. Isolde reached the bench beside the hearth and sat down. The chair she had thrown still lay on its side against the wall; a crossbar had broken.

“I hate that he’s sitting in my place,” she said. “That my name serves him.”

Kaoran looked at the scorched decree.

“Your death serves him. Your name can still give you an advantage if you choose when to use it.”

Isolde read the mourning clause again. Forty days. Darian had made her absence into a ceremony with a beginning, an end, and a seal. New oaths would follow the mourning. People would return to work. The portraits would wear black ribbons until someone ordered them removed.

“If I appear now,” she said, “he’ll call me an impostor.”

“Or say Ice has corrupted you. Or that the wound has left you incapable. He has the palace, the criers, and the Guard.”

“I have witnesses from Cendral too.”

“If they survive and you can find them.”

“Rheskan can prove who I am.”

“When you find him, and when he chooses to appear before a city full of blue stone.”

The possibility of calling Rheskan left her motionless. Isolde remembered his wounded wing, the way Cendral’s network pulled at his scales, and the cry she heard before falling. Calling him toward Caleryon could deliver him to the same people who held Ydrael.

“I won’t use him,” she said.

Kaoran nodded.

Outside, Bruma whinnied.

Kaoran pinched out the lamp with two fingers. Isolde folded the decree and tucked it inside her shirt. Both stayed still.

A horse was coming up the path.

The hoofbeats reached the first bend. Then they stopped. A voice called from the wall.

“Thennar!”

It was the officer from the aqueduct.

Kaoran moved the wood box and shifted the table just enough to uncover the trapdoor. Isolde had seen it on the first day, covered by a rug. It led to a narrow chamber among the roots of the house.

She shook her head.

“If they search…”

“The chamber opens toward the well. It doesn’t show in the outside wall.”

“I can fight.”

Kaoran lifted the mud-stained walking stick.

Isolde moved the rug aside.

The trapdoor opened onto a dark space. She lowered her good leg first, placed her foot on a ladder, and felt the wound tighten. Kaoran held the door until she was inside. Before closing it, he handed her the knife and a flask of water.

“If you hear three knocks, leave through the well,” he said.

“And you?”

“I’ll be busy explaining the thyme.”

Darkness closed over her.

Isolde heard the front door, boots on the floor, and furniture moving. The officer asked about a wounded woman. Kaoran answered that he had treated a charcoal burner in the woods. The soldiers opened the cupboard, went upstairs, and dragged the bed.

A boot stopped above the trapdoor.

Fire woke in Isolde’s palm.

If the door opened, she would have one chance. The knife could reach a throat. The flame could blind the second man. Then she would have to climb the ladder, cross the house, and reach the woods with a leg that failed every three steps.

She counted silently.

Three.

One.

Five.

The boot moved away.

“What’s under the floor?” the officer asked.

“Rock,” Kaoran said. “If you want to take it, start at the north corner. I’ve spent years trying to level it.”

Someone struck the boards with a sword hilt. The trapdoor held. Another soldier called from outside: he had found tracks behind the stable.

“Mine,” Kaoran said. “My knee gets worse in the rain.”

“One footprint is small.”

“So is my dignity.”

The officer ordered a search of the woods. The door closed. The horses stayed nearby for a length of time Isolde couldn’t measure. The chamber smelled of earth and stagnant water. A thick root crossed the wall. When she touched it, she felt a faint pulse traveling toward the mountain.

She thought of Ydrael. The root was warm beneath her fingers, like those in Cendral, and the pulse came at intervals that didn’t match her own. She waited for an image, a signal she could distinguish from fear.

“I’m alive,” she whispered.

The vibration changed and was lost beneath the sound of a boot. Isolde withdrew her hand to hide the heat. If it returned, she would try to recognize the interval before giving it meaning.

Kaoran opened the trapdoor as the sun began to sink.

“They’ve gone north,” he said. “They’ll be back.”

He helped Isolde out. She accepted his arm as far as the bench.

“We can leave the house tonight,” Kaoran said. “There’s a shelter higher up. The cold will be worse, and Enna will take longer to reach us.”

Isolde took out the decree. Sweat had wrinkled the paper.

“If I run today, we’ll still be running tomorrow. My leg won’t change because the journey is urgent.”

“No.”

“How long before I can defend myself?”

“That depends on what you accept learning.”

“Give me a measure.”