28 #4

“Half. She said the other half was for my shame.”

A healer remembered that Tavra learned the doses, then argued about the taste.

A man from the southern district said she had watched over his sick daughter for three nights.

Oren spoke of the quarry and the six shots that kept the exit clear.

Kaoran described the precision with which Tavra respected a limit when it belonged to someone else.

Beren listened until Ena touched his arm.

“Your turn.”

He took out the sheet from West-7.

“Tavra carried twenty-three names.”

The representatives came closer.

“Varek can find one list,” Beren continued. “Six will be harder.”

He divided the names. Four traveled with the north. Four with the river. The gardens took four more. The southern district received four. The workshops kept four. The last three stayed with the people from the tunnel.

“Who keeps the whole?” the scribe asked.

“Each district learns the others’ names when it reaches the next shelter,” Beren said. “In two days, everyone will be able to reconstruct it.”

“You know them,” Ena said.

“Yes.”

“The commission could capture you.”

Beren folded the original sheet.

“That’s why I’m no longer the only one.”

He handed the paper to the girl who had spoken first.

“Read it to the end.”

The girl began. She stumbled over the third surname. A woman from the river helped her. At the seventh name, another voice joined in. When they reached the eleventh, Beren closed his eyes. Tavra had died before hearing it at the quarry.

This time they went on.

Twenty-three names crossed the hill. The voices changed with each district. The list reached its end whole.

Then they said Tavra Keral.

Isolde felt Rheskan’s bond as a distant warmth. The dragon remained beyond the mountains, attentive to another part of the network. Ydrael waited beneath his chains. The people of Neraval had built the ceremony with a door, stones, and a shared list.

They lowered the body. Beren kept the crossbow. He placed a headless arrow on the blanket.

“She said weapons rested unloaded,” he explained.

The girl from the tunnel left a piece of charcoal.

“So she can find the routes.”

Each group added a stone. Six large stones closed the top. Small ones filled the gaps. Ena carved the name with a chisel. Beneath it, she wrote the evacuation count: 804.

“The date is missing,” the scribe said.

“Put the times,” Ena replied. “First bell: doors closed. Third: tunnel exit. Sixth: full count.”

“That sounds like a report.”

“It is.”

Isolde drew the junction on the map. She marked the routes that could approach it and the exits still open. She added the grave’s location to the six districts’ copies.

“If a patrol moves the stones, the signal changes,” she said. “Three piles beside the path will mean the place is watched. An arrow stuck in the pine will point to the safe route.”

“The grave will become part of the system,” the old man said.

“Tavra would have wanted it to be useful,” Beren replied.

Ena put away the chisel.

“She’d also have wanted food. We’ve been here an hour.”

The groups returned to the carts. The people responsible for counting passed along each line. Tools, blankets, and sacks changed hands according to the limits written in the sawmill.

Beren stayed beside the stones for a moment.

Isolde waited several paces away.

“Her mother’s house had a box,” he said.

“It will stay where Tavra chose.”

“The house burned.”

“The place still exists.”

Beren looked at the roads.

“I’ll go back when I can do it without bringing soldiers behind me.”

“You can choose company.”

“Ena knows the garden.”

Isolde nodded.

Beren slung the crossbow over his shoulder. Before descending, he touched the carved name once.

On the path, six children repeated the twenty-three names in groups. They corrected one another. The list had already begun to outlive its custodians.

The six groups left at noon.

Isolde walked with the southern district as far as the first crossroads. She helped push two carts and checked a man’s broken leg. When the group reached the agreed signal, its representative took charge of the route.

“Where will you go?” Ena asked.

“To the Three Needles.”

“Varek is waiting for you.”

“He’s also expecting eight hundred frightened people in his wagons.”

Ena handed her Tavra’s map.

“The house beside the garden was hers.”

“I know.”

“The commission burned it after closing the quarry.”

Isolde thought of the box beneath the stairs.

“Tavra asked for it to stay there.”

“Then it stays.”

Ena followed her group.

Kaoran waited at the crossroads with Oren. Beren carried the crossbow. The master’s breathing had regained its rhythm.

“Six groups, twelve exits, and eighteen people with authority to change plans,” Kaoran said.

“Every shelter knows its limit.”

“And the legend?”

Isolde looked at the empty road where Neraval had disappeared.

“She comes when she can. No one stands waiting.”

Kaoran opened the map of C-0.

“Sixteen days until synchronization.”

Isolde wrote Tavra Keral beside the quarry route.

Then she marked the Three Needles.