23

The first chain was written in charcoal.

Beren found the account inside an abandoned furnace, behind three bricks that seemed fused to the rest of the wall. He needed the copper plate to put the figures in order. Each engraved circle corresponded to a station. Each line marked a shelter.

The furnace occupied a cleft on the western coast. For decades, it had produced rings for ships. It closed when the commission bought the iron mines inland and moved the smelting into the mountains.

Kaoran watched the entrance.

The sea journey had worsened the pain in his ribs. He could walk short distances and use his right hand. His left arm was still bound to his chest. Vela had given him a list of restrictions before returning to Luzmer with Peren and Col.

Kaoran had broken two during the first morning.

“The wall is warm,” Isolde said.

She pressed her palm to the bricks. A thread of heat remained at the bottom of the furnace. The ash was less than two days old.

Beren pulled a narrow roll from the cavity.

“Someone got here first.”

Half the document had burned. The rest still held columns for ore, weight, origin, and destination. Beren spread it on a stone table.

“Here,” he said.

He pointed to a mark: nine circles around a vertical line.

“West-9 received a hundred and forty bars of black iron. The order is dated four months before Cendral.”

Isolde read the destination.

“Threshold Containment Project.”

“That was the name for the chains.”

“A hundred and forty bars for one station?”

“The station made short links. Each weighed as much as a man. Then they sent them east.”

Kaoran examined the burned edge.

“The fire started inside the cavity. Whoever found it tried to destroy it inside the wall.”

“They knew the hiding place,” Beren said.

“How many people did?”

“Six in my crew.”

“Did you trust them all?”

Beren smoothed the paper beside the burned edge.

“Oren shared his food with anyone whose shift ended later. Alcen knew my mother by her cough, he’d brought her to find me so often. When they forbade us to leave, Tavra kept the lamp lit until I came back.”

Isolde knew the effort of searching for a warning in gestures that had once let her rest. She looked at the account, still legible in places.

“We’ll write down who could reach the furnace,” she said. “Then we’ll listen to whoever we find.”

Beren nodded. He kept both hands on the roll while Kaoran examined the tracks.

Isolde walked around the furnace. There were tracks in the ash, blurred by the wind. One small boot. Two boots with military hobnails. A dragging line leading to the back exit.

She followed it.

Behind the building, the cleft sloped down to a shingle beach. Isolde found dried blood on a rock and a length of blue rope beneath the ferns. The rope had been cut with a dull blade.

“They took someone,” she said.

Beren tightened his grip on the roll.

“Oren Tal kept this shelter.”

“Related to Oren, the boy from Nydel?”

“Cousins. Most of us haulers in the west share ten family names.”

Rheskan called from the cliff.

The dragon had chosen to follow them overland. Sometimes he disappeared for hours. He returned with images of patrols, bridges, and cages. This time he showed them a black boat sailing close to shore. Four men wore plates beneath fishermen’s cloaks.

Then he showed them a thin plume of smoke two coves to the north.

Beren looked at the plate.

“The second shelter.”

“They’re following the route backward,” Isolde said.

Kaoran pointed to the burned account.

“They know Beren escaped with the key. They want to erase the places before he reaches them.”

“The boat needs an hour to round the headland,” Beren said. “On foot, we can cut through the quarry.”

“Your people left traps,” Isolde said.

“They left paths too.”

Isolde folded the document and put it in a waxed sleeve. She took out three clean sheets.

“Copy the figures you can read. Kaoran will make another copy. I’ll mark the tracks and the time.”

“We’ll lose time,” Beren said.

“We’ll lose evidence if the original gets wet, burns, or falls into Varek’s hands.”

Beren picked up the charcoal.

They finished in seven minutes. One copy stayed in a jar beneath the furnace. Kaoran carried the second. Isolde kept the third with the copper plate. The original traveled with Beren.

They left the cleft through the quarry.

* * *

The path climbed between gray walls. Beren moved quickly, though the shackles had opened wounds on his ankles. Isolde walked behind Kaoran. She could hear the effort he was trying to hide.

“Five minutes,” she said.

“The second shelter is close.”

“Five.”

Kaoran leaned against a rock.

Beren looked toward the headland.

“The boat will get there first.”

“We’ll get there together,” Isolde said.

“Oren could be alive.”

“So is Kaoran.”

The man lowered his eyes.

“I spent years waiting for a door. Now every minute feels stolen.”

Kaoran breathed until his color returned.

“Haste is a tool for whoever erases evidence,” he said. “It forces you to choose badly before you can look.”

Beren sat down.

“Does he always talk like that?”

“When he’s in a good mood,” Isolde said.

Rheskan landed on a needle of stone. He looked at Kaoran and sent an image of a less steep path to one side.

“The dragon suggests another way up,” Isolde said.

Kaoran inclined his head.

“Thank him for recognizing my magnificent physical condition.”

Rheskan blew air through his nostrils.

The side path spared them some climbing. They reached the second cove as the black boat rounded the headland.

The shelter was a coast watch hut built on pilings. Smoke poured through a broken window. Two men were throwing documents into a brazier. A third watched the beach.

A woman was tied beneath the pier.

Beren recognized her braid before he saw her face.

“Tavra.”

The lookout from West-7 was still alive.

Isolde studied the ground. The tide separated the hut from the beach. A narrow bridge joined the pilings to the rock. The boat’s four occupants could come ashore in less than three minutes.

“Beren, go around by the rocks and reach Tavra,” she said. “Kaoran, watch the boat.”

“I can cover the bridge.”

“From here.”

Kaoran accepted the sling she held out.

Rheskan spread his wings.

Isolde shook her head.

“If you show yourself, they’ll burn everything.”

The dragon showed her the boat and a point beneath the water.

“Do it your way.”

Rheskan leaped toward the sea.

Isolde climbed down the rocks.

The lookout heard a stone. He approached the edge with his crossbow ready. Kaoran slung a stone from above. It struck the bow of the weapon and deflected the bolt.

Isolde crossed the bridge.

The first man emerged from the smoke with a red-hot iron. She caught his arm, struck his elbow, and shoved him against the wall. The second tipped over the brazier.

Fire spread across the papers.

Isolde swept the embers aside with her foot. A flame climbed her boot. She absorbed it before it reached her clothes and directed the heat into the damp floor. Steam filled the hut.

The man fled through the window.

Beren was waiting beneath the pier. He knocked him into the water and used Tavra’s rope to bind his hands.

The black boat reached the mouth of the cove.

Rheskan surfaced in front of its bow.

He had swum beneath the hull. He raised his head and pushed the boat toward the rocks without using fire. The men tried to stab him with spears. The dragon struck the water with his tail. Two fell overboard. The others dropped their oars to help them.

Isolde gathered the remaining documents.

Tavra entered the hut with Beren. She had a split eyebrow and rope marks on her neck.

“You’re four years late,” she told him.

Beren held out his arms. Tavra first caught his jacket to steady herself; then she pulled him against her.

“I brought the key,” he said.

She drew his shirt collar aside. She saw the scar and stilled her fingers beside the mark.

“I saved a place for you every time we left.”

“I thought you’d taken the last one.”

Tavra let out a broken breath.

“It was my post.”

The plate struck between them. Tavra saw it and wiped her face on her sleeve. She went to the brazier, pushed a burning beam aside with her boot, and picked up a notebook.

“Bring the dry pages. You can tell me the rest as we walk.”

Kaoran whistled from above.

A patrol was advancing along the inland road.

Tavra raised the notebook she had just picked up.

“This has the transfers. Oren took the mining accounts toward the Pass of the Missing.”

“Is he alive?” Beren asked.

“He was yesterday. The technicians are after him.”

Isolde looked at the road, the boat, and the papers beginning to burn again.

“Take the notebook. We’re leaving by water.”

“The men have nets for the dragon,” Tavra said.

“Rheskan will decide when to move away.”

The dragon drove the black boat’s stern underwater and swam out to sea.

He had made his choice.

Tavra opened a trapdoor beneath the table. A ladder led down to a maintenance dinghy tied between the pilings.

“It fits in the drainage channel,” she said. “It comes out behind the point.”

Beren gathered the documents. Isolde climbed to the road to find Kaoran.

The patrol occupied the top of the quarry. Eight men in gray cloaks descended in two lines. Kaoran had changed position. He waited behind a rock with the sling hanging down and one hand over his ribs.

“The dinghy is under the pier,” Isolde said.

“I counted eight.”

“So did I.”

“The last one has a signal box.”

Isolde saw its blue edge among the cloaks.

“He wants to locate the plate.”

“Or Rheskan.”

A soldier raised the box. The needle inside turned toward the water.

Rheskan was out of range. The needle kept moving until it pointed toward the hut.

“The key,” Isolde said.

Kaoran slung a stone.

The box fell from the soldier’s hands. Isolde climbed down the other side of the rock and spread a band of fire across the ground. Moisture turned the heat into a wall of steam. The patrol lost sight of the descent.

Kaoran entered the hut first. Isolde closed the trapdoor as two arrows pierced the door.

The dinghy moved beneath the pilings.