31 #3

The soldier dismounted with his sword drawn.

“Hand over the packet.”

“It’s burning in the chapel.”

“Varek said you’d carry a decoy.”

“Then he knows you’ll find ash.”

The man attacked.

Isolde deflected the blow with her knife. His sword was heavy; he meant to keep his distance. She gave ground to the edge of the terrace. The soldier thought he had cornered her.

Isolde threw her knife at the strap around his knee.

The armor fell away. She moved beneath the sword, struck his thigh, and shoved him against the wall. She took his weapon.

“How many roadblocks toward Caleryon?” she asked.

“Every road.”

“A number.”

“Seven major posts. Patrols between them.”

“Are they looking for my face or my name?”

“Both.”

“The public order?”

“Nameless warrior. Capture alive.”

“The private one?”

The man looked at her.

“Princess Isolde Valarys. Sedition, sabotage, and threat of rupture.”

“Varek keeps the distinction.”

“Until he can show you in chains.”

Isolde removed the soldier’s belt and tied his hands.

“The chapel is half an hour away. Your companions will find you.”

“You could have killed me.”

“Today I need you to tell them what you saw.”

“I’ll say the princess is alive.”

“You’ll say a woman protected an empty packet while people escaped along three routes.”

Isolde left the sword beyond his reach.

She took the southern path on foot.

* * *

Kaoran reached the mill before midnight. Talia hid the certified pages in three sacks of flour. One left for Halver. Another went on to Arkhe. The third remained in the care of a family that had lost two children to C-7.

Lenda came out of the channel with mud up to her neck. The statements stayed dry inside her apron.

Isolde arrived at dawn.

She had covered five leagues, traded cloaks with a charcoal burner, and crossed a checkpoint among a line of day laborers. The seal was still against her chest.

Kaoran was awake in the kitchen.

“Your cutoff time passed three hours ago,” he said.

“The route changed.”

“Injuries?”

“A cut on my leg.”

Lenda sat her on a bench and cleaned the wound.

“Seven major posts,” Isolde said. “The private order uses my name. The public one keeps the warrior.”

“Varek wants to choose the moment to bring you back from the dead,” Lenda replied.

“He’ll be waiting.”

Isolde put Aelyn’s letter and the seal on the table.

Both objects had survived.

Talia closed the shutters. Lenda spread the map beside the bread.

“Nine days by way of the ovens. Charcoal burners as far as Rendal, herb gatherers in the valley, and washerwomen as we approach Caleryon. Each family decides whether to keep its stretch open.”

“Isolde knows how to burn sheets,” Kaoran said.

“She’ll learn to fold them,” Lenda replied. “Orla will receive a signal from the last oven. Aelyn will know we’re on our way when I miss two deliveries.”

Isolde looked for a way out toward the river. Lenda marked it with the charcoal.

“I can split off in Rendal. I’ll reach the laundry if its rooms are still free; if anyone in my family is detained, I’ll go back for them.”

Isolde left Lenda’s name beside the fork.

Kaoran looked at the divided evidence. The Council would have to debate it before Lenda and Isolde arrived. Isolde would wait for news of Darian’s orders; Cael’s seal would remain with the question about the prison until they could demand an answer from him.

Lenda touched Aelyn’s letter.

“She asks you to wait for her signal before approaching the palace. She wants to keep the meeting safe.”

“I’ll wait along the route. Meanwhile, we can help the people erased from the census.”

Kaoran watched her fold the map.

“You’re going in.”

Isolde held the letter and the seal.

She had imagined the return for almost five years.

In the first winters, she saw Darian on the other side of a door.

She rehearsed what she would say to him, how she would receive the surprise on his face.

She had already found him. He had put his hand on her wrist, and she had had to ask him to let go.

Aelyn wanted a little time to sit together.

Ardan opened his eyes. Ydrael had shown a staircase beneath her old rooms. Isolde unfolded the letter beside the map and pointed to the last oven.

Each person needed her to arrive in a different way; she could listen to those needs and still keep the decision.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m going to Caleryon.”

“As Isolde?” Lenda asked.

“Isolde will carry the evidence. The city will receive the nameless warrior first.”

Kaoran nodded.

“What do you need from me?”

“Choose.”

He looked at his walking stick, the green ribbon, and the case in which the black arm had traveled.

“I’ll stay outside the city. I’ll coordinate the witnesses who agree to come and keep an exit open toward Halver. My chest will set the limit. Talia will have the authority to stop me if the bleeding returns.”

“Agreed.”

“I’ll also follow any verifiable news about the old dragon routes.”

Thalyon remained inside that sentence.

“With a way out of your own,” Isolde said.

“With a way out of my own.”

Lenda wrote down the decisions. She made three copies. Talia kept one. Kaoran took another. Isolde burned the third after learning the signals.

The sheet turned to ash in the hearth.

No name remained on it.

* * *

They left the next day.

Kaoran took the Halver road with Talia. He walked to the crossroads and stopped.

Isolde expected one last instruction.

“Eat when Lenda tells you to,” he said.

“Years of training to end with that.”

“It was the hardest lesson.”

Isolde hugged him carefully. She felt the unevenness of his shoulder and the breath that still whistled in one side of his chest.

“We’ll meet at the way out,” she said.

“If we both choose it.”

“We will.”

Kaoran stepped away.

“That sounds like an oath.”

“Then we’ll review it when the road changes.”

“Better.”

He left with Talia.

Lenda gave Isolde a charcoal burner’s gray cloak. It had an inner pocket for the letter and a rigid case for the seal. The transport order was sewn into the hem.

Lenda showed her the first permit. Isolde repeated the name she would have to give at the checkpoints, and they walked toward Rendal.

The first post had a poster showing a woman wrapped in fire. The drawing gave her long hair, an enormous sword, and white eyes. Beneath it, a hundred coins were offered for information.

Someone had written six names from Neraval over the reward.

The guard searched the charcoal cart. Lenda showed a mill permit. Isolde kept her head down.

“Have you seen the warrior?” he asked.

“On every wall,” Lenda replied.

The man looked at the poster and let them pass.

In the second village, they found a new bell. The community had opened two exits toward the woods. A bowl of ash beside the road signaled that information was available. No one waited idle.

In the third, a baker gave Lenda a packet for the C-0 witnesses. Isolde carried flour for an hour and received another permit.

They spent the first night in a shed in Rendal. Five families shared the oven. Tablets for grain, water, and escape hung beside the door, each in a different person’s care.

Farel, the owner, taught Isolde to tell pine charcoal from beech by its weight. The permit called her Sira Venn and gave her work until the load was finished.

In the morning, an inspector plunged a rod into three sacks. Isolde recognized a blue plate beneath his cloak. When the man asked to open the fourth, she had spent half an hour picking out the pieces Farel wanted separated.

“Name and birthplace.”

“Sira Venn. Lower Oris.”

She had passed through the village on the journey west. She remembered nets drying beside the adobe houses and waited for another question.

“What wood are you carrying there?”

“Pine. Catches quickly and gives off more smoke.”