16 #4

It saw hundreds of people evacuating, a tower occupied by a red dragon, and Esvan depot full of smoke. The officer ordered a line formed. His soldiers found relatives, neighbors, and childhood playmates in the crowd.

The line opened in the center.

Jesa led the wounded through.

Isolde came out of the mine with Kaoran, Ancia, and Tesa. Her left leg dragged. The glove was torn, and the spear graze on her shoulder had stained her shirt. She kept her hood low.

Pela waited beside a wagon. Keden sat in the bed drinking water.

Mother and son had spent the first part of their reunion helping load others.

“Thirty-four,” Pela reported. “The three from the room and the thirty-one from the support chamber.”

“Wounded?”

“Nine. Oro needs stitches. One woman lost consciousness. Everyone is breathing.”

Raden helped hold a board beside the thirty-four. Pela recorded his name separately: they had found him on the way in, and he came from another gallery.

Kaoran brought Isolde a clean cloth.

“Your shirt is sticking to the wound.”

She tried to lift the edge. The two fingers lost the cloth, and she had to use her other hand.

“Help me sit.”

Kaoran offered his elbow. Pela added a tenth wound when they reached the wagon.

Ancia sat opposite her. She had two burned fingers and a cut above her eyebrow. She placed Esvan’s books between them.

“The office kept six months of transfers,” Cori said. “A hundred and seventy-nine names. Arkhe, Nydel, Cen, Luzmer, and Caleryon.”

“Final destination?” Isolde asked.

“They use codes. West-9 appears forty times. The shipments end at a station called Threshold.”

Jesa opened the smallest book. Several pages held resonance tests. Each date bore a chain number and a calculated loss.

“Loss of what?” she asked.

Ancia read the units.

“Extracted fire. The amount increases after every delivery to Cendral.”

“They’re using Ydrael to power something,” Isolde said.

“The opening phase,” Kaoran added.

Esvan rode bound in another wagon. Hearing him, he raised his head.

“When the border falls, you’ll all understand the price of keeping it closed.”

Ancia stood.

Isolde caught her wrist.

“We need his testimony.”

“He needs to remember the names of the people he locked up.”

“He’ll read them.”

Pela took one of the lists to Esvan. She began with Keden. The workers took turns continuing. Each person spoke a name and a date. The supervisor had to listen as the wagons left Arvek.

The Brotherhood lost the kiln shelter. The guards knew the old tunnel and would search the quarry at dawn. The nineteen people who lived there split among three routes. Savia would receive five on the coast. Bren would hide four. The rest would cross the range with charcoal burners.

“The price reaches every house,” Ancia said.

“So does the evidence,” Isolde replied.

“My people will have to start again.”

“Keep their names, their routes, and their ability to decide intact. I’ll help find shelters.”

Ancia looked at the torn glove.

“Doven taught you to pay debts no one has asked of you.”

“He made a tool that let me get Tesa out.”

“He’ll be glad to know his stitching outlasted the leather.”

The wagons reached the tower at the third gallery. Its bell had disappeared a year earlier. A cut rope and an empty support remained.

Keden asked to stop.

The workers lowered the broken link Ancia had stolen. They hung it from the crossbeam with a winch chain. Pela handed her son a hammer.

The young man struck the blue metal.

The sound crossed the gorge.

One mine answered with four blows. Another repeated them from the north. Arvek added tools striking rails, doors, and wagons. The alarm traveled through the range without the foremen’s permission.

Rheskan flew above the towers. Each blow brought him revulsion and relief. The metal meant to imprison him had found another use.

Isolde touched the red vein beside the road.

“Thank you,” she told Ydrael.

The dragon showed the thirty-four lights outside the mountain. Then he showed his chest surrounded by five directions. The new chain remained incomplete. The break at Arvek had bought time.

The next image belonged entirely to him.

Ydrael pushed human hands from his body. He spread his wings inside a chamber too small and struck a door covered with three marks. Then he chose to wait.

The waiting held intent. Fury too.

“Can he wait through another delivery?” Ancia asked.

Isolde took her hand from the vein. It trembled from the wrist.

“He’s stopped answering. We’ll have to tell him which roads remain open when he reaches us again.”

Ancia studied Isolde for a moment.

“Iria is on every new order. The name will draw patrols to any village that repeats it.”

“It’s helped keep other names hidden.”

“Its time is running out.”

Isolde listened to the link that had become a bell.

Across the gorge, a woman shouted that the warrior from Nydel had opened Arvek’s mine. Another witness swore she was a sailor from Arkhe. A child said she traveled with a red dragon. Every voice added a different shape.

The mountain was already changing the story.

Isolde put the torn glove inside her jacket. Someone called Iria again from the wagons. She turned by habit and saw how many people followed her gaze. Ancia had lowered her voice to warn her; the square was already shouting the same name.