Chapter 79: The Price of Passing

"I could register under your name. Temporarily."

Wind moved through the tall grass beside the wagon.

"No," Kōya said.

Lyra blinked. "No?"

"No."

"You don’t even know what I was going to say."

"I know enough."

"Kōya, please."

"No."

"If we don’t do this, they might separate us at the gate."

"Then I’ll deal with them at the gate."

"And if they throw me in the dungeons?"

"Then I’ll tear the dungeons down and get you out."

"And if the whole garrison comes for you?"

"Then I’ll fight the garrison."

"You can’t fight an entire territory by yourself."

He looked at the iron gate. "No." His voice stayed low. "But I can fight every person who tries to put a hand on you."

"That’s not enough to survive here." She touched the crest. "It was never about whether you can beat them. This is still on my skin. If we go through that gate without a registered owner, they will read it, and they will arrest me."

Her fingers were trembling against her neck.

"I never want to be someone’s property again," she said, and her voice cracked down the middle.

"I know."

"But if pretending to belong to you for one hour gets us through that gate..." She looked up into his eyes. "Then I’ll do it."

Kōya gripped the reins until the leather creaked. He hated it, and the hate had nothing to do with her. A system that could steal a person’s freedom and then demand paperwork to prove she deserved it back. That was what he was being asked to sign his name to.

He looked at the crest one more time.

"It’s temporary," he said.

"Temporary."

"You don’t have to obey me."

"I know."

"You don’t owe me anything."

"I know."

"You can leave my side whenever you want."

"I know."

"And the day we find a way to cut that crest off your skin, it’s gone."

Lyra touched the mark. "Yes."

Neither of them smiled. They had agreed to a compromise with a system they both hated, and it tasted exactly like one.

"Come here," Kōya said, and held out his scarred hand.

Lyra slid along the seat until her shoulder touched his. He stopped his palm a finger’s width from the crest, never touching her skin, and closed his eyes. He pushed his senses out through the gap.

The magic in the ink was malevolent, and it was wound tight as wire. It ran into her nerves, and possibly deeper, into the soul itself. If he tore it out carelessly he would not be freeing her. He would be crippling her. He felt the structure hum against his palm, patient and ugly, and he did not like how well it was built.

He drew his hand back. "I can’t remove it safely right now."

"I know."

"I’ll handle it later."

She nodded. "Later."

They urged the horse forward. As they neared the gate the crowd closed around them. Merchants bellowed orders, guards tore open crates and pawed through the straw, wagons rolled under the stone archways one after another. Everywhere Kōya looked he saw the same machinery. Iron chains. Rusted collars. Stamped contracts. People lowering their eyes whenever a guard walked past.

His jaw locked. Heat climbed under his skin, and he felt the Aura wake.

Lyra felt it too. "Don’t." She held his gaze. "Don’t let them make you this angry before we’re even inside."

Kōya forced out a breath, and the heat went back down. "You’re right."

She smiled faintly. "I’m learning."

"So am I."

The wagon reached the front of the line. An armored guard stepped up with a ledger tucked under one arm.

"Names."

"Kōya."

The guard looked past him at Lyra. "And hers?"

Lyra hesitated.

"Lyra," Kōya said.

The guard’s eyes went to the dark crest on her neck. "Registered slave?"

"Yes."

Lyra stared at her knees.

The guard nodded and held out a sheet of parchment. "Registration form."

Kōya took it and read the bold print. Temporary ownership transfer. Territory travel authorization. Declaration of responsibility. Every printed word made his stomach turn, and he signed his name under all of them anyway.

The guard stamped the page. "Keep her under control while you’re in Slane."

Kōya met the man’s eyes. "She isn’t an animal."

The guard frowned. His hand dropped toward his sword hilt.

Lyra’s fingers closed on Kōya’s sleeve. "Please. Let’s just go."

Kōya held the stare for one more second. Then he shoved the stamped parchment back into the guard’s chest, hard enough to make the man step back, and snapped the reins.

The wagon rolled through the iron gate, and the Slane Territory opened ahead of them.

They drove in silence down the paved road. The noise of the checkpoint faded behind them, and the cliffs fell away. Then Lyra jumped down from the moving wagon.

"What are you doing?" Kōya hauled on the reins and the horse stopped, blowing.

She landed on the stones and turned to face him. "The main city’s a short walk from here."

He looked past her. The road ran on toward distant buildings, pale against the mountains. "You know the way?"

"Yes."

She was smiling.

The afternoon sun was bright, and the wind pulled at her dark hair. For the first time since he had met her, nothing in her face was braced for a blow. No flinch waited behind it. She lifted one hand and squinted against the light, and the gesture was so awkward and so ordinary that Kōya forgot, for a moment, what road they were on.

He sat on the wagon seat and watched her.

He had seen Yuna in her more than once. The bright smile. The dark eyes. Sometimes the stubborn tilt of her head in an argument had been Mirei’s. He had never wanted Lyra to turn into either of them, and some part of his mind had gone on checking anyway. Looking for ghosts. Looking for the people he had failed to save.

Now, in the sunlight, he saw only Lyra.

A girl who had been hurt and had survived it. A girl who could still laugh. She was standing in the middle of a road, covering her face with one hand because the day was too bright.

Kōya smiled.

Lyra noticed. "What?"

"Nothing."

"You smiled."

"I did no such thing."

"You definitely smiled."

He looked past her, to Slane squatting against the mountains in the distance, and the smile went out of him. The people who had built the machine that took Lyra were in there. The path to Mizuki was in there. So were the people responsible for what had been done to both of them.

Kōya stepped down from the wagon, one hand settling on Stormfront. "Let’s go."

Lyra fell in beside him.

They walked the last stretch of paved road together. Behind them the iron gate ground shut, and he heard the bar drop. Ahead, past the outer walls, a second gate rose against the mountains, taller than the first, with guards on every ledge of it.

His name was already in a ledger, written beside hers.