17

The name reached Bren before they did.

It was written on eight posters nailed beside the road.

IRIA, INCENDIARY AND ENEMY OF THE REGENCY.

Beneath it was a drawing. The face had long hair, a scar on the cheek, and light eyes. The woman in the portrait stood nearly as tall as Kaoran and held a sword in both hands.

Isolde studied the paper from the woods.

“The height suits me,” she said.

Kaoran read the reward.

“It gives you back your left hand too.”

“I could turn myself in and collect it.”

“The sum would barely cover what you eat.”

The joke found a brief place. Forty soldiers occupied Bren.

They had raised a palisade at the entrance. Two wagons blocked the coast road. The villagers stayed inside their houses. A line of prisoners waited before the communal oven.

Neira recognized her mother among them.

She moved before Jesa could catch her. Ancia seized her cloak and brought her to the ground.

“Seven guards are watching this side,” she whispered.

Neira breathed with her face against the leaves.

“They’re going to kill her.”

“We need to get closer without them seeing you.”

“My brother is still waiting for someone to get closer too.”

Ancia took the words without looking away.

Neira’s brother was still missing. Esvan’s books held a line with his name and the code West-9. They had found the evidence in the early hours. The discovery confirmed he had left Arvek and increased the distance between them.

Jesa brought the horses toward a hollow. The mine’s fugitives traveled in three groups. The first was already crossing the range. The second hid with charcoal burners. The third, made up of the nine wounded and the shelter’s families, waited behind a crag half a league from Bren.

“A patrol followed one of the wagons,” Cori said. “If it searches the woods, it finds twenty people.”

Isolde counted exits. The northern route passed a watchtower. The coast road was closed. An irrigation channel leading down to the river remained. It would serve people on foot and complicate moving the wounded.

“Who brought the posters?” she asked.

Ancia pointed to a black tent inside Bren.

“The Civil Order Commission. It arrived in the night with Prefect Belor. The proclamation accuses the village of feeding Iria, hiding her crew, and helping destroy Arvek.”

“Time of execution?”

“When the sun touches the oven.”

Three hours remained.

“The prisoners’ charges?”

“Neira’s mother gave horses to The Stubborn One. The baker sold unregistered food. Two charcoal burners have children in the Brotherhood. The other three were in the street when the Guard came in.”

“They chose them for visibility,” Isolde said. “They want every family to find its own connection to the line.”

“They want Iria,” Neira replied. “Give her to them.”

The group went still.

Neira raised her face. There was mud in her mouth.

“Show yourself away from the village. Make them follow you. When the soldiers leave, we free our people.”

“They’ll recognize the direction of the escape,” Jesa said. “They’ll look for the wagons.”

“Then have her run toward the sea.”

“Velaria’s ship is still there.”

“She brought down a mine. She can get through forty men.”

Isolde looked at Neira’s muddy knees. Two days earlier, the guide had opened a passage for them and entrusted them with her brother’s name.

Now she expected Isolde to give her mother back.

She wanted to say she would manage it. The ease with which the promise came made her clench her teeth before looking at the square again.

“I can draw away part of the force,” she said. “The rest will stay with the prisoners. Belor will have archers ready for my arrival.”

“You’re letting them die?”

“I need to get a blade to your mother. If she cuts the rope when we move the archers, she can leave with the others.”

Neira stood.

“They’re watching her all the time.”

“Where could someone reach her hand without being seen? You know the oven.”

The guide wiped her mouth on her sleeve and looked toward the shed. Isolde waited for the answer.

Ancia released Neira’s cloak.

“Give her five minutes.”

The guide walked away to a tree. Jesa followed. They spoke quietly.

Isolde looked at the poster again.

She had answered to Iria sick, hungry, and newly out of bed.

Under that name, she bought the first medicines she could carry alone.

People who knew how long she took to walk down a slope used it and saved her a place by the fire.

Now they had printed it beneath a sword her hands could barely have held.

Isolde touched the poster’s nail and looked again at the rope waiting beside the oven.

“Iria ends today,” she said.

Kaoran pulled one of the nails from the poster.

“How do you want to do it?”

“Give them too many women for one order.”

Ancia smiled for the first time since Arvek.

“The Brotherhood can get you twelve.”

“I need cloaks, three horses, fine charcoal, and mirrors.”

“And a way to make fire far from you,” Kaoran said.

“Bren’s ovens keep ignition tubes. Doven used one to light the forge from the yard.”

“Ancia knows how to make them.”

“And you know the three breaths.”

“I’ll need them inside.”

Isolde drew the village in the dirt. Ancia added channels and storehouses. Cori marked the posts she had seen on their arrival. Jesa returned with Neira and placed a stone on the communal oven.

“Her mother worked there twenty years,” she said. “She knows the flue, the ducts, and the ash outlet.”

“Can we send her something from below?”

Neira pointed to the feed channel.

“A small person can fit from the shed. My son used it to hide bread.”

“Where is he?”

“With the wounded. He’s thirteen.”

“Let him decide whether he wants to go in,” Isolde said. “Offer him another task of equal value.”

Neira nodded.

The boy’s name was Lio. He heard the two choices: carry a blade to the oven or guide the wounded along the irrigation channel. He chose the oven.

“My grandmother will know what to do,” he said.

Ancia gave him a saw blade wrapped in leather. Isolde added a piece of the poster with the time written on the back. Lio put both in a flour bag.

“If you find a closed grate, come back,” Neira said.

“If I hear soldiers, I wait.”

“If the smoke turns black, come back.”

“I know.”

His mother hugged him before letting him leave with Pela. Keden would take his place beside the wounded. The allocation kept the routes working.

Ancia gathered eight women from the Brotherhood and Bren. They differed in age, build, and gait. One had red hair. Another had shaved her head. Pela was shorter than Isolde, Neira taller.

“Each of you appears for a few heartbeats,” Isolde explained. “Let them see you, then change cloaks behind the houses. The mirrors will signal the ignition tubes. Fire appears on empty rooftops, the roads, and the mill.”

“They can shoot us,” said a charcoal burner named Ovel.

“We’ll use walls, smoke, and distance. Withdrawal begins before each flame. If a position loses its way out, it’s canceled.”

“Who plays Iria?” Pela asked.

“Everyone who agrees. Each witness sees a version.”

“And you?”

“I’ll go through the channel with Kaoran and Ancia. Jesa blocks the wagons. Cori finds the list of accusations. Neira reaches the oven when her mother cuts the bonds.”

“They’ll recognize you by the fire,” Ancia said.

Isolde took a handful of fine charcoal.

“Today we share it.”

Ancia prepared four tubes for the outside positions.

Isolde reserved a shorter fifth for the depot.

They were iron reeds filled with charcoal, thick oil, and spark stone.

A waxed cord allowed them to be triggered from several paces away.

Isolde heated each stone until it was near ignition.

The women could light them by pulling the cord.

The fire would remain small. It served as a signal and an appearance. Each tube came with sand to extinguish it afterward.

Kaoran checked the exits.

“The wind is blowing down toward the river.”

“We place the flames downwind of the houses.”

“The mill roof is thatched.”

“We lower the tube to the ditch. The base is stone.”

“There’s sawdust piled beside the carpentry shop in the square.”

“Cori will wet it as she passes.”

Ancia watched the exchange.

“How many times have you rehearsed this?” Ancia asked.

Isolde looked at the four points around the village.

“With people tied beside an oven, none. We’ll check the exits again.”

Pela returned without Lio. The boy had entered through the channel.

“He saw two guards by the shed and waited until they moved,” she reported. “The grate was open.”

Isolde drew a line from the oven to the nearest house.

“We begin when we get white smoke.”

The group took their positions.

Isolde, Kaoran, and Ancia descended to the irrigation channel. The water reached their knees and smelled of iron. They moved beneath the palisade. Boots sounded overhead.

A voice read the proclamation in the square.

“‘The community of Bren has knowingly aided the incendiary known as Iria…’”

Isolde kept walking.

“‘Shared responsibility authorizes exemplary measures…’”

Kaoran raised a hand.

They stopped beneath a grate. Two soldiers were talking above.

“The prefect thinks she’ll come,” one said.

“Varek sent portraits along the whole coast.”

“None of them look alike.”

“The gray cloak matches.”

“My grandmother has a gray cloak.”

The boots moved away.

Ancia looked at Isolde.

“Even they doubt it.”

“By the end of the day, they’ll have more reasons.”

They reached the oven branch. The space narrowed. Lio crawled into view. His bag was empty.

“My grandmother has the blade,” he whispered. “She says she needs the prefect to look at the bell tower.”

“Why?”

“The prisoners’ rope passes through a ring beside the oven. She can cut it when her guard turns.”

“Good work,” Neira said from the other side of the channel.

She had come in through the shed.

Lio smiled when he heard her.

“Now go back to Pela,” his mother ordered.

The boy obeyed. Before disappearing, he gave Isolde a second paper.

Neira’s mother had written seven names and a sentence.

Three want to run. Four will help block the oven.