28 #2

“Your district has a guide. Follow her.”

The first evacuation bell rang from the gardens.

A hundred people had entered the tunnel.

The second came from the quarry.

Beren and Tavra had opened a gap.

Cevran heard both.

“Burn the marks in the northern district,” he ordered.

The technicians drove rods into the ground beside the first houses.

The blue paint on the doors began to burn.

Fire climbed the wood.

The commission was setting Neraval on fire with its people inside.

Isolde climbed onto the rim of the well.

She removed the cloth from her face.

The square saw her.

Cevran raised a hand toward the cores.

“Alive!”

The technicians deployed plates among the crowd.

Isolde spread her arms.

The fire on the doors answered.

Eighty-six marks burned in different streets. Isolde reached the ones by the well first: she recognized the blue paint, the oil feeding each flame, and the current the technicians had connected to the cores.

She pulled the heat upward.

Two doors went dark. Then six more. Fire followed the same paint across the lintels, tearing away burning splinters that fell into the streets. A woman put them out with her blanket; two children dragged a bucket to her.

Isolde sought the next group of marks. Her legs shook on the well’s rim. She saw Ena pointing toward the river district and gathered the flames from those doors before they reached the roofs.

Neraval’s sky filled with fire.

The houses she could reach stopped burning at the lintels. Neighbors kept bringing out cloth and water. She held the column to give them that time.

Isolde held the flames above her head. Heat opened a circle around the well. People backed away. Cevran ordered the cores to absorb the column.

The plates lit.

Fire pulled at Isolde’s shoulders.

“Now!” she shouted.

The district representatives struck bells, pots, and doors. Groups left the square through six streets. The girl’s father ran toward the granary. Ena head-butted one of her guards and broke free of the other.

Isolde turned the column toward the cores.

Cevran smiled behind his mask.

“Give it to me.”

The plates absorbed the fire.

Isolde cut the connection.

The accumulated energy kept pouring in. The runes turned white. The technicians tried to remove the rods.

“Get down!” Isolde shouted.

The first plate split.

A wave of heat swept across the square. Isolde directed it upward. Windows shattered. The cores fell onto the stone. Cevran was hurled against a wagon.

Fire scattered through the air like a red storm.

Those still in the square saw the warrior’s face in the light. Isolde heard Ena’s name and the exit streets being shouted. She climbed down from the well amid the noise.

Ena reached the well.

“Sixty-three people are still inside the houses.”

“Have they changed their minds?”

“Fifty-eight. Five still refuse.”

“Take the fifty-eight through the tunnel.”

“And the others?”

“Tell them where we’ll be. Their door stays open until we close the route.”

Ena nodded.

Leth gathered the soldiers beside the bridge.

“The woman with the fire has attacked the transfer! Anyone who flees is an accomplice!”

An old woman raised her document.

“You called us accomplices before she came.”

She tore the paper.

The people around her did the same.

Fragments filled the square.

Isolde ran toward the granary. Wagon three was still there. The father pounded the lock with a stone. The children inside screamed.

Isolde melted the lock. She opened the door.

Nineteen children climbed down. The girl found her father. The soldiers guarding the wagon had abandoned their post during the explosion.

“Old well,” Isolde said. “The guide wears a yellow ribbon.”

The man took two children by the hand. Other adults appeared to help.

The evacuation continued without waiting for Isolde.

That was what she needed to see.

The third bell rang from the quarry.

Then it stopped.

Isolde felt the change.

She ran toward the northern gardens.

* * *

Tavra had opened the quarry at nine twelve.

The gap allowed one person through at a time. Beren waited on the other side, organizing the descent into the forest. Oren copied names to check each group.

The first soldiers arrived at nine fourteen.

Tavra delayed them with two apple carts. She tipped the wheels into the alley and kept helping elderly people through the gap.

“Fifty-six,” Beren counted.

“A hundred and twenty still coming from the southern district.”

“The tunnel can take them.”

“It has children inside.”

A bolt struck the wall beside Tavra.

The soldiers climbed over the apples. She shot one in the leg and reloaded.

“Close the quarry!” Leth shouted from the street.

Two technicians carried a plate to the collapsed rock. They drove it into the stone.

The gap began to contract.

The core drew the stone inward. Beren wedged a bar between the edges.

“It’s closing!”

Tavra saw a group of old people round the corner. Four handcarts followed.

“Hold the bar.”

“I need help.”

Tavra put away her crossbow and pushed from the other side. The gap stopped closing.

People passed beneath their arms.

Leth advanced with his shield raised.

“Tavra Keral,” he said. “Your father would have handed over the channels.”

“My father charged to open them.”

“The commission will pay for your house.”

“It’s been empty twelve years.”

Leth attacked.

Tavra released the bar to deflect his sword. The stone closed a handspan. Beren shouted her name from inside.

She pushed again.

Leth raised the blade once more.

An old man threw a basket in his face. Tavra struck his knee and knocked him down.

“A hundred and sixty-eight,” Oren counted.

“How many left?”

“Thirty-seven.”

Tavra breathed through her teeth.

The bar was beginning to bend.

Isolde appeared at the end of the street.

Leth picked up his sword.

Isolde threw a stone wrapped in fire at him. It struck his shield and melted the strap. The captain dropped the metal before it burned his arm.

“Come through!” Tavra shouted.

The group from the southern district reached the gap. Isolde took her place beside the bar. The stone pushed with the core’s weight.

“I’ll hold it.”

“It takes two,” Tavra replied.

“Then we both hold it.”

The elderly began passing through.

Cevran entered the street with four technicians. They carried another core on a platform. His mask reflected the fire in the sky.

“Increase pressure,” he ordered.

The gap closed a finger’s width.

Isolde and Tavra pushed.

The bar creaked.

“Twenty-nine,” Oren counted from the forest.

Leth took a crossbow from one of the soldiers.

Isolde saw the movement.

“Tavra!”

The bolt crossed the street.

Tavra turned her body. The point entered beneath her ribs.

Her hands stayed on the bar.

Isolde threw fire at Leth. He flung himself behind a wall. The flames struck stone and returned to the sky.

“Go through,” Isolde said.

“There are still people.”

“Beren can hold it from inside.”

“The bar is bent. If I shift my weight, it falls.”

Dark blood covered Tavra’s coat.

“Twenty-one,” Oren counted.

Cevran inserted a second rod.

The pressure doubled.

Isolde felt the plate like an open mouth behind the rock. She could fill it with fire and break it. The explosion would close the gap on the people passing through.

She waited.

A woman pushed the last handcart. It carried a man who had chosen to stay. His house key hung around his neck.

“I changed my mind,” he said as he passed Tavra.

“Good timing.”

Tavra lost breath as she answered.

“Thirteen,” Oren counted.

Leth fired again. Isolde raised a wall of fire. The bolt burned and fell. Cevran used the core to pull at the barrier. Cold entered Isolde’s arms.

Tavra slipped.

The stone closed another finger’s width.

Isolde bore the full weight for one heartbeat. Tavra regained her footing.

“Seven.”

The last people were the five who had decided to stay and two guides who had gone to find them. They passed through one by one.

“Zero!” Oren shouted.

“Now you,” Isolde said.

Tavra shook her head.

“The bar falls when I let go.”

“I’ll stay.”

“They need your fire to break the plate.”

“I can do it from here.”

“The explosion will bury you.”

Isolde caught Tavra around the waist with one arm. She held the bar with the other.

“When I count to three, jump.”

“You never obey your own plans.”

“One.”

“My mother’s house has a box under the stairs.”

“Two.”

“Leave it there.”

“Three.”

Isolde pushed Tavra through the gap.

Beren caught her on the other side.

The bar fell on Isolde’s shoulder. The stone began closing. Cevran charged the core to its limit.

Isolde released fire into the plate.

The pressure caught the first burst of flame. She sent another. Then a third, narrower and deeper. The runes turned white.

Isolde slipped into the gap.

The plate exploded.

The wave hurled her toward the forest. Beren caught her by her clothes. The collapse sealed the quarry behind her legs.

Stones and dust filled the air.

On the other side, Cevran shouted orders. The exit was gone.

“Tavra,” Isolde said.

Beren knelt beside her. The bolt had pierced her side. Oren cut the shaft and pressed cloth around the wound.

“We need a healer,” he said.

Tavra pushed his hand away.

“It went in too high.”

“Shut up,” Beren replied.

“Kaoran will be proud.”

Isolde knelt.

“We’ll take you to the shelter.”

“Take Neraval.”

“The guides are doing it.”

Tavra looked at the groups descending through the forest. Each district kept its count. The children from the tunnel appeared among the trees. Ena raised a yellow flag from the southern path.

“It worked,” Tavra said.

“Yes.”

“My house is still there.”

“The box will stay under the stairs.”

“Good.”

Tavra sought Beren’s hand.

“West-7 had twenty-three names when it closed.”

“I have them.”

“Repeat them.”

Beren began.

Tavra listened to the first six. Her breaths grew shorter. At the seventh, she squeezed Isolde’s fingers.

“Let the legend learn routes,” she whispered.

Beren kept counting.

Tavra died before the eleventh name.

He finished all twenty-three.

Isolde held her hand until the end.

* * *

Neraval reached the three shelters before nightfall.