Chapter 853: Corvyn di Myrrhvale

Trafalgar and Rhosyn didn't say anything until they were well away from Nerith's office.

They walked until the corridor emptied out, past the last servant carrying a tray, and stopped in a narrow side passage lined with tall windows. Beyond the glass the ocean sat dark and heavy against the dome, broken only by the faint lines of light running along the outer structures. Trafalgar checked both ends of the passage before leaning back against the wall.

"It doesn't add up," Rhosyn said.

"No. It doesn't." Trafalgar kept his voice down. "Lyren told me The Tide invited Lucard. Formally, in writing, through the proper channels, months ago. He was very specific about it. Nerith just sat there and told us he's Ilyra's observer."

"Those aren't the same thing."

"They're not even close." He rubbed his thumb along his jaw. "So either one of them is wrong, or the two things are connected and nobody's saying it out loud."

Rhosyn folded her arms. "Either way we finally have something. A gap. It's more than we had this morning."

"It is." Trafalgar's eyes drifted toward the water outside. 'Two people from the same family, both of them convinced they know how a Vaelion got in here, and both of them giving me a different answer.' "What do you think? The Tide using a thirteen-year-old to keep a Vaelion parked down here for months, nice and legal. Does that sound like something worth doing?"

"It sounds like something," Rhosyn said. "I don't think it's the murder."

"Go on."

"A Great Family can't get near someone like Nyssara. Not to kill her." She said it flatly, the way she said most things. "She's been dead two years. Nobody reaches a woman like that from outside, and down here you don't reach anything the normal way. Five rings, sealed tunnels, checkpoints on every gate. Whoever did it was already inside."

Trafalgar was quiet for a second.

"You're right," he said. "Someone inside did the work. The question is who was standing behind them." He pushed off the wall. "Come on. We've still got most of the day, and I'd rather meet the rest of them before anyone has time to prepare a face for me."

The transport tunnel between rings was a long stretch of reinforced mana-glass with the ocean pressing in on both sides, and the checkpoint at the far end took longer than the ride itself. Two guards read Trafalgar's observer seal three times before waving them through, and neither of them managed to do it without staring.

The second ring hit them the moment the gate opened.

Where the castle district was quiet and spread out, this place was loud. Broader streets, heavier buildings, and water running through everything. Transport channels cut between the blocks in wide straight lines, and the docks themselves sat along the outer edge, a row of enormous pressure locks built directly into the dome wall.

Trafalgar stopped for a moment to look at it properly.

Submarines came in through the locks one at a time. Each vessel slid into a flooded chamber, the outer gate sealed behind it, and then the water drained out with a sound Trafalgar could feel through the ground before the inner gate opened and the thing rolled forward on rails, dripping, into the loading yards. Cranes swung cargo out of the hulls. Nagas moved through the channels alongside the walkways, faster in the water than anyone was on foot, hauling lines and calling numbers up to the crews.

"They run the whole city's supply through here," Rhosyn said.

"They run the whole city's everything through here." Trafalgar watched a crate come down onto a stack. 'And Corvyn's people control all of it. No wonder Nerith looked tired.'

He found Corvyn without needing to ask.

The man was standing at the edge of the third lock with a crate on one shoulder, shouting something at a crew twenty meters below him, and he was easily the largest person Trafalgar had seen since arriving in Meraval. Not tall in the way Lyren was tall. Wide. Built like the cranes behind him, with dark green hair cut short and scales running heavy down both forearms.

He put the crate down when he saw them coming, and he looked pleased about it.

"Well." Corvyn wiped his hands on his coat. "Trafalgar du Morgain. Another one of the Eight Great Families down here with the rest of us."

"Trafalgar du Morgain," Trafalgar said. "This is Rhosyn."

"Corvyn di Myrrhvale, fourth of five, and the only one who does any actual work." He grinned. "You came in yesterday, yeah? On the long route. Sorry about that. My sister keeps promising to open the second Gate and then keeps not doing it."

"It wasn't that bad."

"It's terrible and everyone lies about it." Corvyn jerked his chin toward the locks. "You want a tour? I can give you one. Nobody else will, they'll all sit you in a room with tea and talk at you for an hour."

Trafalgar found himself almost smiling. 'Damn it. He's likeable.'

"Later, maybe."

"Later, then. And you drink with me when you do. Both of you." He pointed at Rhosyn. "That one especially. She looks like she'd win."

Rhosyn didn't answer, but something in her expression shifted half a degree.

"Admiral."

The word came from behind Corvyn, and the change in the yard was immediate. Two dockhands who had been drifting closer went back to their crates.

The man who stepped up beside Corvyn was older, shorter, and completely unremarkable until you looked at his face. The left half of it was burned, old scarring pulled tight from the jaw up past the eye, and the eye had survived it. He wore no armour and carried nothing.

"Kesh Varlan," he said. "You met Toran this morning."

"I did."

"He speaks well of the breakfast." Kesh's tone gave away nothing. "How long do you expect to stay with us, Lord Morgain?"

"As long as the succession takes."

"Lady Nerith explained the situation to you this morning?"

"She explained her half of it."

"Mm." Kesh nodded slowly, as though that answer had been useful. "Then you'll want to hear the other halves. There are several."

Someone came up the walkway before Trafalgar could answer, a lean man in a commander's coat carrying a slate of manifests, and he stopped a respectful distance back.

"Sorn," Kesh said without turning. "Later."

"Sir." Rhavel Sorn glanced once at Trafalgar, and went back the way he came.

He turned back to the locks instead, said something short to Corvyn about the fourth lock schedule, and Corvyn agreed to it without appearing to notice that he had been told rather than asked.

Trafalgar watched that happen and filed it away.

'Seems like Corvyn leads The Tide, but in truth Kesh runs it.'