24 #4

“That gives him a weapon.”

Beren set down the vessel.

“Would you rather he believed something else?”

Isolde thought of Cevran beneath her knife. One movement would have ended the captain’s pursuit. The collapse would have buried Luma and Kaoran while she recovered the seal.

“I want to be in time for both,” she said.

“No one reaches two places during an avalanche.”

“Whoever rules will have to decide that every day.”

Beren looked toward the room where Darel was helping unload the blankets.

“Then they’ll need people who can reach where their own legs can’t take them.”

Isolde looked at the room full of wounded people, guilty people, survivors, and copies.

The word still weighed on her like someone else’s crown.

Sera approached with the copper ring in her palm.

“My father says he gave up Lighthouse House to find me.”

Alcen sat beside the wall. The rope had returned to his waist after the descent. Tavra held the end.

“That’s true,” Isolde said.

“How many people were inside?”

“Nine.”

“Did anyone die?”

“Everyone got out. The House burned. We lost shelter, tools, and documents. Tavra can tell you who will need to be warned.”

Isolde had heard rumors of raids in Caleryon. She would wait for confirmed names before adding a dead person to Alcen’s account.

Sera looked at her father.

“Did you know the commission would attack?”

“I knew they would search the place,” Alcen replied. “Cevran promised safe passage for civilians.”

“You worked for him. You knew his promises.”

“He had your ring.”

“You could have asked the people in the House for help.”

“I thought they’d stop me handing over the key.”

“They could have chosen with you.”

Alcen lowered his head.

Sera closed her hand around the ring.

“What happens to him?” she asked Isolde.

“Tavra and the people from the House will decide what they need. Your father can offer information, reparations, and testimony. They retain the right to refuse.”

“You don’t decide?”

“He betrayed them.”

Tavra tightened the rope.

“I’ll decide when we reach the others.”

Alcen looked up.

“I accept.”

“You have no alternative,” Tavra said.

“I could try to escape.”

“With two bruised ribs and an angry daughter.”

“It would be a short attempt.”

Sera sat facing him.

“I want the whole story before I go with you.”

Alcen began with West-4. He described how he engraved seals on plates, how Varek transferred technicians after each phase, and how Cevran showed him the ring. He admitted sending the signal from the lighthouse before checking whether Sera was still alive.

Two technicians in the locked room listened through the door. One asked to speak.

Tavra let him out with his hands tied.

“Cevran ordered us to show him the ring,” he said. “Sera was at the upper post. If Alcen cooperated, we intended to transfer her to C-0. There was never an order to release her.”

Alcen closed his eyes.

“I suspected.”

“You’d spent years watching how they treated their prisoners,” Sera said.

“I had a chance.”

“And you clung to it out of fear.”

“Yes.”

Sera set the ring between them.

“Fear explains the path. The people in the House paid for it.”

Sera brought a clean cloth to her father. When he tried to take her hand, she left it on the bench between them.

Isolde felt Darian’s fingers seeking her wrist in the marsh again. Alcen would have to answer to the people of the House; she would still have to face Darian again. Both conversations remained open, with different wounds.

She moved away to bring ink. Sera kept her place opposite Alcen and waited for him to go on speaking.

Oren brought paper. He recorded Alcen’s testimony and the technician’s. Sera added where she had been held, what she had heard, and which guards she had seen. Tavra signed as custodian. Enya confirmed the presence of the family used as bait.

“The copy travels with us,” Tavra said. “Another stays at the medical post.”

“The third goes to West-4,” Sera added.

Alcen looked at his daughter.

“Will you come with me?”

“As far as the families from the House. After that, I’ll choose.”

“I understand.”

“Start now.”

Tavra loosened the rope a handspan.

“On the journey, you’ll guide, cook, and answer every question. If you hide another route, I’ll leave you tied up at the next post.”

“I accept.”

“Your acceptance doesn’t erase anything either.”

“I know.”

Beren added Sera’s name to the list of people freed. He separated Alcen’s under a different category: witness under civilian supervision.

Isolde studied both lines.

She had saved the father and the daughter. Survival opened a conversation that death would have closed. It also left work, pain, and risk for those traveling with them.

The choice in the pass kept costing them after the rescue.

Before dawn, the healer came out.

“He’s breathing better. The fever will decide the rest.”

Isolde went in.

Kaoran slept. Luma’s green ribbon was still tied to the stretcher. Isolde moved it to his wrist.

Outside, snow covered Cevran’s road.

The seal was traveling toward Caleryon. A copy waited for it there.

Isolde stayed beside Kaoran until he opened his eyes.