5 #2

“The same office.”

“Then it can raise the debt and lower the payment until Lera grows old in a gallery.”

The man folded the sheet.

“It doesn’t concern you.”

“She’s in my bed.”

The sergeant brought his hand to his hilt. Kaoran leaned against the frame, blocking part of the entrance. Isolde felt the core beneath her ribs. The veins in the house could carry fire to all three soldiers’ feet.

The upstairs room creaked.

Lera was trying to get up.

“She stays under this house’s responsibility until Enna Vael authorizes a transfer,” Isolde said. “You can leave a guard at the wall. Move her today, and her leg will open. You’ll have a corpse to deduct from your accounts.”

“Custody belongs to the Crown.”

“The Crown has decreed reconstruction. A dead worker produces little.”

The reasoning reached the collector by the only route he respected. He looked at the sergeant.

“Until dawn,” the sergeant said. “We’ll return with a cart.”

“A sprung cart,” Kaoran added.

“A cart,” the sergeant repeated.

The collector left a copy of the order on the table. Before leaving, he pointed to Isolde.

“Tomorrow you’ll register in Nydel.”

“Tomorrow I’ll be busy keeping you from collecting a debt from a cold body.”

The soldiers left. Kaoran closed the door and rested his forehead against the wood.

“Iria Thennar,” he said.

“I needed a surname.”

“You could have chosen another.”

“The collector already thought I lived with you.”

“Now I have a twenty-year-old niece who appeared after Cendral.”

“Twenty-one.”

Kaoran turned.

“When?”

“Today.”

The answer filled the silence the patrol had left.

“You never told me.”

“It wasn’t relevant to the bandages.”

Kaoran looked at the pot, the still-damp table, and the door through which an order of custody had just passed.

“On my last birthday, there were musicians in three courtyards,” Isolde said. “Aelyn changed the sheet music so they played a tavern song during the toast. My father fell asleep before dessert.”

A smile escaped her. She went still when she noticed it.

“Darian started singing it,” she added.

The water from the treatment cooled on the table.

Isolde put her hands in it to wash off the blood.

She thought of another day beneath a pomegranate tree, of the sleeve she had held after a kiss.

They had talked about a dinner they could arrive late for and how they would argue before the Council.

She remembered wanting to lie beside him until the shadow reached the basket.

That future had seemed close, made of decisions they could take the next day.

Kaoran brought her a clean cloth.

“Would you like to be alone for a while?”

“Lera heard us.”

“I can go up.”

Isolde dried between her fingers. She could stay and cry for the birthday she had imagined; the permission relieved her enough to look up.

“We’ll go up together. Let me finish this first.”

Kaoran took the order as she folded the cloth. It carried patches of Lera’s blood that were beginning to dry.

“They’ll take Lera at dawn.”

“That’s what the sergeant said.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to know her choice.”

They went upstairs together.

Lera sat pale and sweating, one hand around the bell. The bandage showed a small stain. Her foot was still warm.

“They said they’d take me,” she said.

“At dawn,” Isolde replied. “We can hide you in the mountains, take you to Enna, or let them move you and look for another way to get your brother out. Each route has risks.”

“If I run, they take Oren.”

“Probably.”

“If they take me, I’ll go to the mine.”

“Probably that too.”

Lera gripped the blanket.

“Can you stop it?”

Isolde wanted to say yes. The word would have been easy. She could burn the cart, bring down the guards, and take Lera into the woods. Then the sergeant would return with twenty men. Oren would disappear. Doven, Enna, and Teren would pay for having come up to the house.

“I can buy time,” she said. “I can hide you and arrange to get Oren out. You would both have to leave Nydel. I can also study the accounts and prove the debt is calculated to grow. That will take time, and the regent controls the people who judge.”

“Who are you?”

The question came without fever.

Isolde held Lera’s gaze. The girl had seen the heir’s portrait on coins, mourning notices, and perhaps banners. Ash and covered hair altered a face, but time together was beginning to strip away layers.

“Iria lives in this house,” she said.

Lera understood the boundary.

“I want to get Oren out,” she replied. “Then we’ll go to my aunt’s village. It’s beyond the Ember Plains.”

“Can you travel with your leg like this?”

“In a good cart.”

Kaoran checked the stitches.

“In two days, if there’s no fever. Tomorrow would be dangerous.”

“Then we need two days,” Isolde said.

Lera released the blanket.

“The cart carried tax records. When it overturned, a crate opened. I saw sheets with children’s names. The collector hit me because I tried to take one.”

“Where are the crates?”

“In the mill storehouse. They’re guarded.”

“Does Oren know a way in?”

“He sneaks through the channel to steal flour.”

Isolde looked at Kaoran.

“I can go down for him tonight,” Kaoran said.

“The sergeant will watch the road.”

“I know another route.”

“And I know the marks we need to find in the records.”

“You stay with Lera.”

“You’re better at treating bleeding if the stitches open.”

The old man folded his arms.

“This house has run on my decisions for fifteen years.”

“I’ve lived here for months. I’ve given you the accounts, held that bandage with you, and I can read the seals we need. I want a part in the plan.”

“The collector just saw you by lamplight.”

“Then help me prepare an entrance where I won’t have to pass in front of him.”

“Our agreement requires you to hear objections.”

“I’m listening.”

Kaoran listed the posts, her leg, Iria’s pending registration, and the possibility that the officer from Cendral was in Nydel.

Isolde answered with a route through the irrigation channel, charcoal burner’s clothes, and a time limit.

They agreed to return if they met a patrol before the mill.

If her leg failed, she would wait beside the channel while Kaoran found Oren.

Enna returned from the mine before dusk.

She examined Lera and agreed to stay while they were out.

They changed the plan in front of both women: the healer would sound the alarm if anyone came up; Bruma would wait saddled in the clearing below the roof exit.

Lera asked to keep the bell beside her hand.

Isolde left it there even though Enna sat a step away.

Kaoran finished his objections.

“We go together,” Isolde said.

“And we come back together.”

“Agreed.”

The agreement changed the house. Kaoran stopped preparing to leave alone.

He placed the map on the table and listened when Isolde pointed out the blind spots, the watercourse, and the guards’ likely positions.

She listened when he shortened the route to protect her leg. They both explained the plan to Lera.

They waited until the moon slipped behind the mountains.

The channel entered Nydel beneath a rusted grate. Oren had loosened two bars years earlier and kept them in place with wire. Isolde slipped through sideways, water reaching her calves. Kaoran closed it behind them.

They walked through a tunnel beneath the mill. The sound of the wheels covered their steps. Halfway along, they found a boy curled on a ledge with a bag of flour between his legs.

Oren had hair the same color as his sister’s and eyes wide with fear.

“Lera is alive,” Isolde whispered.

The boy clutched the bag.

“They took her.”

“Kaoran got her out from under the cart. She’s on the hillside.”

Oren knew the old man. He climbed off the ledge without asking for further proof.

“The papers are upstairs,” he said. “The red man sleeps in the office. He keeps the key inside his boot.”

Kaoran looked at Isolde.

“Two days,” she said. “We need to erase the debt or give them a reason to look for the records somewhere away from Lera.”

Oren pointed to a side hatch.

“I can go in through the grain.”

The chute ended behind a hopper. The boy fit. Isolde did too, though the passage required her to crawl on her good side. Kaoran had to stay in the channel.

“If you take twenty minutes, I get the boy out and close the hatch,” he said.

“Fifteen.”

“Twenty.”

“Eighteen.”

Oren looked at them.

“Lera argues like that.”

Isolde followed the boy.

The hopper opened into the storehouse. Crates were stacked to the ceiling, and a lamp burned in the office. The collector slept behind a half-open door. His boots were on the floor.

Oren moved among the sacks with a skill learned from hunger. He entered the office, took the key, and returned without a sound.

Isolde opened the crate marked with Nydel’s seal.

The records were arranged by street. She found Lera Vos on the third sheet. The original debt was eleven crowns. Administration costs, the price of grain, and Oren’s exemption had raised it to forty-three. A side column listed a transfer: twelve young workers assigned to the red-vein gallery.

Lera was included.

Isolde took the sheet and the two beside it. Changing one figure would free a family for a few days. Taking the record could halt the transfer and force the office to reconstruct every account.

“Is there another crate?” she asked.

Oren pointed to Varek’s seal.

Inside were the transport orders. Isolde read enough to understand that the workers would leave for the mountains at dawn. The cart accident had delayed the operation.

She tucked the lists beneath her shirt.

“Let’s go.”

A board creaked in the office.

The collector appeared barefoot, a short sword in his hand.

“You.”

He had recognized Iria’s eyes even though the hood covered the rest.