14 #3

Isolde lifted a sheet stuck underneath.

There was a second version.

Twenty-four containment plates.

Fourteen dragon rings.

Two confluence cores.

Twelve labor subjects.

The destination was listed as West-9, with no port.

“Dragon rings,” Kaoran said.

Isolde felt the cage’s scar beneath her fingers.

“Rheskan has kept them from arriving.”

“Or kept them from coming back full.”

They copied both manifests. Kaoran lifted the seal wax using steam from a pipe. Beneath the commission’s emblem, another impression appeared, almost erased: a four-pointed figure crossed by a line.

“Skarde,” he said.

Isolde brought the page closer to the lit pipe.

“Cael used a mountain crossed by a silver line. Here they’ve separated the points. It looks like a crown.”

“A forgery?”

“Possibly. It could also belong to another House of Ice. We need a complete impression before we attribute it.”

The document assigned part of the cargo to the north. Varek could use it to justify the war, blame Cael, or hide an alliance with people operating beyond his authority.

Isolde copied every difference.

A key turned in the door.

Kaoran closed the box again. Isolde hid behind a shelf. Two men came in: the pier supervisor and an officer in a Rhyne cloak.

“The plate was left exposed,” the supervisor said. “The dockworkers saw the claw marks.”

“Tomorrow we’ll declare that the cargo belonged to a Skarde vessel intercepted by the Guard.”

“The ship carries our seals.”

“That’s why there will be a fire tonight.”

The officer set a bottle of oil on the table.

“Burn both versions. The crew will leave with a third.”

“And the workers?”

“Replace the nine escapees in the predawn raid.”

“Sero was missing too.”

“There’s authorization for that one already. Leave the box as it is.”

Isolde looked at the number twelve. That absent man still allowed them to collect payment for a transfer. They would have to keep his name beside the difference she had counted in the line.

Kaoran looked at Isolde from the other side of the shelf. The raid would reach dormitories and streets.

The supervisor opened the box. He discovered the wax was still soft.

“Someone’s here.”

Isolde shoved the shelf.

The boxes fell between the men. Kaoran struck the lamp with his scabbard. The room went dark. The officer shouted toward the door.

The guards came up.

Isolde took the oil bottle and the original manifests. Kaoran blocked the stairs with a table. They escaped through the drying room. The tide half covered the conduit.

“We won’t fit with the papers out of the water,” Kaoran said.

Isolde wrapped the documents in the waxed shirt and tied them to her back. They went in.

Water filled almost the whole tunnel. They had to move with their mouths against the ceiling. Behind them, the guards battered the grate.

The lock gave.

Isolde reached the exit as a wave surged in from the port. The water drove her against Kaoran and swallowed the last pocket of air. Her left hand found a joint in the wall. Her fingers would not close.

Kaoran placed his hand beneath hers and held them both. Isolde turned against the ceiling, searching for air where she had already lost it. She remembered Darian’s mouth beside her ear, telling her to stay still. Her throat closed.

Kaoran tapped her forearm twice and pointed toward the light at the exit.

They waited for the wave to recede. When she could breathe, Isolde put her good hand over his and moved it to a firmer joint.

This time she signaled when to advance. By the time she reached the boat, she was still coughing and could barely move her legs.

Thalos hauled them out with a rope.

“You took your time,” he said.

“They’re planning to burn the archive.”

“That will bring every ship out with buckets.”

“And a raid before dawn.”

Thalos hoisted a red flag. The pilots answered from four piers.

The signal announced a warehouse fire, though there were no flames yet.

The port began to mobilize. Workers came out of the dormitories to form bucket lines.

The Guard lost its chance to close the streets without explaining why it was arresting people responding to an alarm.

Isolde gave the oil bottle to Rima and the originals to Ilan.

“You’re one of the labor subjects,” she said. “Your testimony connects the two pages.”

Ilan signed the edge of both versions. Meri and the others added their names. Thalos stamped the tide mark and recorded the ship’s actual draft.

The evidence could travel now.

“And the salt-route crew? Do you trust them?”

“I trust that they want to get paid. And that they hate Velaria.”

“I need to reach Arvek.”

“The Guard will search every ship for the woman in the gray cloak.”

Isolde looked at the wet cloth. She had worn the same cloak since Nydel. People on the pier were already describing the fire held in her hand and the mark on the seal.

“Then the cloak takes another route,” she said.

Rima cut it into four pieces. One would go with the workers toward Caleryon. Another would stay in the port. Thalos would tie one to the tide post. Isolde kept the last inside the saddlebags.

The story would have four directions.

Before they left, Thalos took Isolde to the outer breakwater.

The woman waiting for them was named Ossa. A leather patch covered one eye, and years of net work had deformed her hands. She handled a boat that could pass through channels where a Guard vessel would be trapped.

“I saw the dragon nine nights ago,” she said. “He came down by the glass cove. There was a chain caught on his wing.”

“Blue?” Isolde asked.

“Blue when it touched the water. Black when it came out.”