22 #2

He wore a dark cloak without embroidery and a short sword. He had grown thinner. His face still held the hardness Isolde knew, now marked by lines around his mouth. At every sound, he kept his head still and let his officers look for him.

Isolde closed her hand around the shovel.

Darian turned toward an officer, and the edge of his cloak exposed his wrist. Beneath the pomegranate tree, he had held hers that way, barely supporting it as he kissed her pulse.

She remembered the red flower on the blanket, her own laughter as she caught his sleeve.

Her body sought that closeness for an instant so brief she could almost hide it from herself.

Then she saw Beren’s manacles.

Her palms had grown hot. She loosened her fingers one by one and drove the shovel into the mud. Peren was waiting for her signal; he needed to find her watching the dike.

She raised her head.

Darian lifted a hand fifty paces from the first dike. The column stopped.

The vanguard’s captain approached. They spoke without dismounting. Darian pointed to the huts, the embankment, and the damp marks of a recent repair. Then he looked toward the salt pans.

His attention passed over Isolde.

The hat covered half her face. Mud hid her knife sheath. She bent her back and lifted a sack beside two hired workers.

Darian ordered the middle wagon moved.

The guards took Beren out of the expected position and brought him toward the vanguard. The chest remained two wagons behind.

Kaoran had anticipated the first choice. Darian had just changed it.

Peren passed behind Isolde.

“What do I do?”

“Keep the signal. We open with the prisoner on the dike.”

“The water will cut off the chest.”

“Dira and Col will decide whether they can reach it.”

Darian sent two scouts forward. One entered the empty hut. The other examined the sluice gates. The observer with the blue wire dropped a white stone at the edge of the road.

The trap already knew the convoy had arrived.

Two flashes came from the boat.

The containment unit was coming into view.

Isolde heard horses behind the hills. Cevran Tor had left the quarry before Darian crossed the causeway. Twenty-four men occupied the eastern exit. Four dragged iron bases with long points. Others carried blue nets over their shoulders.

Darian turned toward them.

The distance hid his words. His gesture was enough. He had ordered them to stop.

Cevran kept coming.

The regent rode toward the technical captain. The argument forced the vanguard to spread out. Beren was left among six guards, twenty paces from the dike.

Peren reached the upper edge of a pan and raised the red handkerchief.

The volunteers pulled out the wedges.

Water struck the north gate.

The first plank burst free. A dark current poured into the drainage channel and rushed toward the causeway. The hired workers heard the bell and dropped their tools. Two ran toward the huts. The rest followed Peren along the high edge.

The false salt workers pulled out whistles.

Isolde threw her shovel.

The handle struck the nearest man in the throat. She lunged at the second before he could blow. He had a blue needle hidden in his sleeve. Isolde caught his wrist, twisted, and drove the point into the mud.

The third sounded the alarm.

The containment unit deployed its nets.

The convoy erupted in shouts, turning wheels, and frightened horses. Water crossed the road in two places. The wagon carrying the chest stopped between them. One wheel slipped and hung over the channel.

Darian drew his sword.

“Form up to the north!” he shouted. “Get the civilians out of the salt pans!”

Cevran pointed at the sky.

“Raise the cores! The creature will come for the chest!”

“Keep your unit out of the water!”

“The threat is active.”

“So is my order.”

The current covered the causeway.

Isolde ran toward Beren.

Two guards recognized her as the target before seeing her face. The first threw a net. Isolde ducked, cut off a lead weight, and let the mesh wrap around the second man’s legs. A third advanced with a pike. She deflected the point with her basket, slipped beneath the shaft, and struck his wrist.

The man fell into the water.

Isolde grabbed the neck of his breastplate and shoved him toward a high stone.

“Hold on.”

She left him there.

Beren was still attached to the wagon by a short chain. A young guard held the key and a trembling sword.

“Put it down,” Isolde ordered.

The boy looked toward Darian.

“I have to protect the prisoner.”

“He’s chained up in a flood.”

“Lower your weapon, Sial,” Darian shouted from the embankment.

The guard obeyed.

Isolde took the key. Beren held out his hands.

“Neira’s alive,” she said as she opened the first manacle. “She left Bren with your mother.”

The man’s lips parted.

“You saw them?”

“I saw their names on an evacuation list. A woman from your village confirmed the route.”

The second manacle fell.

Beren rubbed his wrists.

“The chest.”

“You first.”

“The plan could lead us to the people still inside.”

“And you can read it.”

A shadow crossed the water.

Rheskan came in from the sea.

He flew low, wings angled against the wind. The scar on his flank gleamed as he passed over the causeway. Nets rose from four points.

Isolde felt his decision before she understood it.

The dragon left the chest to his right.

He turned toward the quarry.

The second mobile core was hidden behind a stone wall. Rheskan had seen that it could close off the sky above the entire marsh. He folded one wing, passed between two nets, and sent fire into the base of the mechanism.

The blue metal absorbed the first burst of flame.

Rheskan kept breathing fire.

The plate turned white. The runes lit one by one. The dragon cut off the flame before the core returned the discharge and struck the structure with his tail.

The mechanism fell from the quarry.

Three men leaped clear. The core struck the edge of the channel and broke apart. A blue wave swept through the salt pans. Rheskan lost height. He corrected with two wingbeats and reached the open sea.

Three flashes came from the boat.

Kaoran had seen his choice.

Cevran shouted to the harpoon crews.

Dira and Col appeared behind the freight wagon. Each carried a fishing line attached to the nets they had placed that morning. They pulled together. Two iron bases tilted toward the channel. The harpoons fired at a low angle, grazed Rheskan’s wings, and plunged into the water.

The third shot was aimed at the boat.

Isolde saw the cable cross the rushes.

“Kaoran!”

Yssa moved the tiller. The point tore through the sail and ripped away half the mast. The boat spun. Kaoran rolled across the deck, and Vela threw herself over him to protect his shoulder.

Rage kindled fire beneath Isolde’s skin.

Beren caught her arm.

“If you burn the cable, the core will know where you are.”

She looked at the blue line. The current was pulling the boat toward the pilings.

“Can you run?”

“I can try.”

“Follow the white stakes. Peren will take you to Yssa.”

“And you?”

“I’m going to cut the cable.”

Isolde handed him the saw and pointed to his open manacles.

“Take these to Kaoran.”

Beren entered the channel.

Isolde moved toward the third harpoon.

Water struck her above the knees. Every step required pulling a foot free of the mud before finding purchase. The harpoon operator turned the base toward Rheskan. His assistant was feeding the core with a blue rod.

Isolde threw her knife.

The blade pierced the assistant’s sleeve and pinned it to the side of the wagon. The man dropped the rod. Isolde reached the base, set both hands on the cable, and released a narrow band of fire.

The metal absorbed the heat.

Blue pressure entered through her fingers.

She felt a hollow beneath Cendral, taut chains, and breathing so deep it seemed to move the coast. Ydrael recognized the material. His rejection reached Isolde with a force that buckled her knees.

The harpoon operator raised a mace.

Isolde released the cable and rolled beneath the blow. The edge of the handle struck her right shoulder. Her arm went clumsy. She swept the man’s legs out from under him, retrieved the rod, and drove it into the core’s slot.

The discharge found its own circuit.

The runes went dark.

Isolde picked up the length of chain still attached to Beren’s wagon. She wound it around the cable, fastened the free end to the axle, and inserted the rod between two links. She used the wagon’s weight for leverage. The first pull opened a crack. The second broke the metal.

The boat was free.

Yssa raised the broken mast with Vela’s help. Kaoran was still on the deck. He lifted the mirror once.

Vanguard moving.

Isolde turned.

Darian was crossing the flooded ground on foot. He had left his horse on the embankment. Two guards followed him. His boots slipped on the stone, though he kept up a pace Varek’s men could not match with their plates.

Isolde’s hat floated beside a sluice gate.

Darian saw her face.

He stopped.

Water ran between them. Around them, the battle continued for one soundless heartbeat: falling nets, shouting soldiers, horses seeking firm ground.

“Isolde,” he said.

She pulled the rod from the mechanism.

“Withdraw the harpoons.”

Darian lowered the tip of his sword a few inches.

“You’re alive.”

“You already knew.”

“I had indications.”

“You turned them into a hunt.”

One of the guards reached Darian. The regent extended his arm to stop him from advancing.

“Lower your weapon,” he ordered.

“My lord, the target—”

“I gave an order.”

The guard obeyed.

Darian looked at her again. His eyes stopped on the scar in her eyebrow and moved down to the bandage on her hand.

“Come with me.”

He had used those words to draw her out of a hall full of councilors, with a basket of fruit hidden behind his back. Isolde felt the brutality of hearing them beside a prisoners’ wagon.

“Withdraw the harpoons,” she repeated.

“I can open the Citadel to you. There are healers.”

“Beren has spent months asking for an audience.”

Darian glanced toward the channel. The prisoner was moving between the stakes, still bent low to stay hidden.

“I’ll have his case reviewed.”