Chapter 171: Nobody Ever Told Us How

The meeting room was one floor down, and I knew who was inside before the guard opened the door. Not through any magic: through irritation. Some people have a presence. Lyssairia had always had an accusation.

There were four people in the room. Three I didn’t know. The fourth I did: cat ears, golden eyes, older, not by much, but enough. Lyssairia Veyra stood by the window in dark formal clothes that looked expensive enough to be diplomatic and practical enough that she could still kill someone in them.

She looked at me, and I looked at her, and for a while neither of us said anything. Four years was a long time. Apparently not long enough to improve her expression.

Her eyes went down to Dream Haven, and back to my face. "You still carry a pillow."

"A better one."

"Of course it is."

I looked at her ears. "You still have those."

Elizabeth made a sound behind me. Lyssairia stared at me, and then one corner of her mouth moved, very slightly.

"Still annoying," she said.

"Still violent?"

"More."

"Unfortunate."

"For you."

That sounded right. For the first time since I had read Mia’s note, something in my chest loosened, a little.

Lyssairia looked past me at Elizabeth, and then at James, Sophie and Daphne, who had apparently followed us down because nobody respected privacy anymore. Her eyes moved over all four of them, and then came back to me.

"Five," she said.

I frowned. "What?"

Her expression changed, only slightly. "My mother said all of you."

I understood. She had counted: one, two, three, four, and me. Five.

"Yes," I said.

Lyssairia nodded once. "Good."

The room went quiet. Then she looked at the folded paper sticking out of my pocket. "She found you, then."

"Her rider did."

"And the thirteen?"

"Safe when we left."

"Safer now."

I thought of Saera, and South Reed, and the mark, and Marrowfield, and suddenly there was too much to say. Lyssairia saw that too, and pointed at a chair.

"Sit."

I looked at the chair, and then at her. "You sound like your mother."

Her eyes narrowed. "No. She asks politely."

I sat. Some instincts had survived reincarnation. Others had survived Lyssairia.

She took the chair across from me. "Start with Merrow."

I leaned back against Dream Haven. "That’s a long story."

"We have time."

I looked at the three beastkin I didn’t know, and at my classmates behind me, and back at her. "No, we don’t."

Her eyes sharpened. She remembered me too.

"Saera of the South Reed line," I said. "She told me to give you a message."

Everything in Lyssairia’s face stopped. Not dramatically; completely. Behind her, one of the Cats turned his head.

"South Reed?" she said.

"Yes."

"What message?"

I took the folded list of thirteen names out of my pocket and laid it on the table, and set Mia’s note beside it.

"The striped mark is on human soil," I said. "I saw it in Marrowfield. Then at Merrow’s estate. Then on the road."

The room had gone very quiet. Even James understood. Lyssairia looked down at the thirteen names. She didn’t touch the paper.

"You’re sure it was the same mark?"

"The same shape."

"Three curves."

"Around a narrow center."

One of the beastkin behind her swore softly. Lyssairia looked at him, and he stopped.

"What did Saera say it meant?" she asked.

"That men came first, and then people disappeared. Sometimes slavers, sometimes soldiers. She didn’t know enough to tell me which."

Lyssairia closed her eyes for a second. When she opened them, she looked older than she had when I came in. Not four years older; just tired.

"Did she name the broker?"

"Tavrek."

That got a reaction: small, but real. Lyssairia sat back.

"You know him," I said.

"Yes."

James moved behind me. I heard it, and so did Lyssairia. Her eyes went to him.

"Who is he?" said James. He had apparently decided introductions were optional.

Lyssairia looked at me. "He’s exhausting."

"I heard that," said James.

"Good."

She turned back to me. "Tavrek isn’t important."

"Saera thinks he is."

"Saera knows what he did to her."

"That’s usually important."

"It isn’t the same thing."

Half an answer, and a dry look. Four years had accomplished nothing. I leaned back.

"You haven’t changed."

"Neither have you."

"I got taller."

"Barely."

James laughed. I would deal with him later.

Lyssairia looked at the list again. "Tavrek sells access."

"Routes to people."

Her eyes snapped back to mine. "She told you that?"

"Yes."

That mattered; I could see it. "What does it mean?"

Lyssairia was quiet, and I waited. She had always hated being waited out, and I had years of practice at doing nothing. Her fingers tapped the table once.

"Tavrek doesn’t build roads," she said.

"I assumed."

"He learns which roads are unguarded. Which villages have weak patrols. Which clans are moving. Which families have no one powerful enough to ask questions afterwards. Then he sells what he knows."

Nobody behind me moved.

"To slavers," I said.

"Sometimes."

"Soldiers."

"Sometimes."

Saera’s exact answers. I didn’t like that. "Who else?"

Lyssairia looked toward the closed door. "People who need someone to disappear."

It wasn’t an answer, but it was enough of one. "And the mark?"

Her expression hardened. "It means the route has been sold."

I looked at her. Marrowfield. A wall. Merrow’s crate, his carts, the road between two hills. Four places, and it wasn’t a faction’s mark at all, or a clan’s symbol. It was a route. A transaction. Something cold settled behind my ribs.

"The convoy," I said.

Lyssairia’s eyes sharpened. "What?"

I stood up, too fast, and Dream Haven slid off the chair behind me. Elizabeth caught it before it hit the floor. I barely noticed.

"The mark was on Merrow’s carts, and on the road they’d marked. And they had copies of our convoy route."

Lyssairia was already on her feet. All the laziness had left the room. "The First Princess’s route?"

Elizabeth stepped forward. "Yes."

Lyssairia looked at her properly for the first time, and then at me. "Who else knows?"

"Renn. The Crown magistrate. Fort Halden has the report."

"Did they know what the mark means?"

"No."

Lyssairia turned for the door, and I caught her wrist. She stopped, and so did everyone else in the room. I let go at once; that had been a poor choice for my survival.

"Saera said sometimes soldiers," I said.

"Yes."

"And Tavrek sold them after they’d already been taken."

She looked back at me. "Yes?"

"So whoever took them first might not be whoever bought the convoy route."

A pause. Then she nodded. "Correct."

No certainty. I hated how relieved that made me.

Lyssairia opened the door. Two beastkin guards straightened outside, and she spoke to them in their own language, fast, and both of them moved at once, one down the corridor and one toward the stairs.

Elizabeth came to stand beside me. "The Crown needs to hear this."

"It does."

James was already moving. Sorel would kill him if he used Spatial, so I pointed at him. "Walk."

He glared at me, and walked. Sophie picked up the list of names, carefully. Daphne picked up Dream Haven from Elizabeth and handed it to me, and I took it.

Lyssairia looked back from the doorway, and her eyes went to the pillow once more. "Still useless?"

"Extremely."

"Good."

Then she looked at the five of us, and her expression changed in the small way I remembered. All of you, this time. She counted once more, and nodded.

"Stay that way," she said, and left.

I stood there holding Dream Haven. James looked at me.

"What?"

I knew what he was asking. Tavrek, the mark, the sold route, the convoy: too many pieces, and not enough answer. I sighed.

"We should find Renn."

For once, nobody argued.

***

Renn heard all of it standing up. So did the colonel who commanded Halden’s garrison, a square, grey man named Dunmore who looked as though he had already been handed one emergency too many that week, and so did a thin official from the Foreign Office who wrote faster than anyone I had ever seen. Lyssairia told them what the mark meant. I told them where I had seen it. Elizabeth told them which route it had been sold for, and nobody in the room needed to be told whose route that was.

It took less time than I expected. The road we had been meant to take was already behind us; whatever had waited between those two hills had been waiting for a convoy that never came. What worried Colonel Dunmore was what came next. Whoever had bought the First Princess’s route once knew where she had been going, and by now they would know she had arrived. Patrols on the eastern approaches were doubled before the sun went down. Riders went back toward Merrow’s estate, two of the Crown’s and two of Lyssairia’s, to warn the magistrate. And at Lyssairia’s request, with the Foreign Office official’s pen moving the whole time, the Crown agreed to bring the thirteen to Halden under escort, where the people who would have to vouch for them already were.

"My mother will bring them," said Lyssairia.

"She’ll leave the estate?" asked Elizabeth.

"She has the thirteen. Where they go, she goes."

It was dark by the time anyone let us leave. Renn walked us back to the officers’ residence himself, which was either a courtesy or a precaution, and told us all to sleep in the voice of a man who no longer expected to be obeyed.

***

I didn’t sleep.

That hadn’t happened in a long time. Dream Haven was spread across the bed exactly the way I liked it, the room was quiet, and nobody was knocking. I lay there anyway with my eyes open, listening to the camps beyond the walls, and every time I closed them I saw a forest.

[Host.]

’I know.’

The System didn’t say anything else. It was the kindest thing it had done all week.

Some time after midnight there were two knocks, light and quick. Not Sorel, and not Elizabeth.

"You’re awake," said Lyssairia, through the door.

"I could be asleep."

"You were always bad at pretending."

I got up. She was standing in the corridor in plainer clothes than before, and the Academy guard at the far end was watching her very carefully while pretending not to.

"Walk with me," she said.

"No."

"Then sit with me."

That was a better offer. At the end of the corridor a narrow balcony looked out over the western wall, and we sat on the stone there, close enough for the guard to see us and far enough that he couldn’t hear. Below us the camps had burned down to scattered fires. Beyond them the ridges were black, and beyond the ridges, somewhere, was the forest.

Lyssairia said nothing for a long time, which I appreciated. When she spoke, she didn’t look at me.

"We knew they didn’t come back. Your side sent word that much: three of ours dead near the border, and the boy alive." She paused. "Nobody ever told us how."

So that was why she had come. In the meeting room I had wondered why she hadn’t asked. Now I understood that she had been waiting until there was nothing urgent left in the way.

"Garron," I said.

Her ears went flat, and came up again slowly. "I know that much."

"Do you want the rest?"

"I chose Nyra," said Lyssairia. "I want the rest."

So I told her. I didn’t make it into a story; I didn’t know how, and I didn’t think she wanted one. Garron’s soldiers had found us after three weeks on the road. For a while, against the soldiers, we had been winning. Vessa had actually said so, with blood on her face that wasn’t hers, and Nyra had told her no, they were only surviving the soldiers, and Nyra had been right. Then Garron himself had stepped forward.

"Vessa went for his neck," I said. "From behind, with a poisoned blade. For one second I thought she’d done it. He caught her by the throat without turning round." I stopped, and made myself go on. "He lifted her off the ground. She was kicking. Then she wasn’t."

Lyssairia didn’t move.

"Nyra went at him after that, faster than I’d ever seen anyone move. He broke one of her daggers, and then his axe went across her." I looked at my hands. "I caught her. I was healing her. The wound closed. That’s the part I still don’t understand. The wound closed, and she stopped breathing anyway."

"What did she say?"

"’Run.’"

Lyssairia made a small sound that wasn’t a word.

"Caelum was last," I said. "His chest was already crushed. He came back anyway, with half a spear, and hit Garron across the face with it. It was the only time I saw Garron’s head move." I could still see it. "He smiled at me. There was blood on his teeth. He told me to run too."

"Did you?"

"No."

Something that was almost a laugh started in her, and didn’t get far. "No. You wouldn’t have."

"I told Caelum not to die protecting me," I said. "Before we left the cave. He said he would endeavor to protect me without dying."

"Caelum always kept his promises."

"Not that one."

The fires below had burned lower. Somewhere in the camp, a horse shifted and blew.

"Did they run?" asked Lyssairia.

"No."

"Not even at the end? When it was obvious?"

"No."

"Did any of them try to leave you?"

"No."

That was what broke through. Not the axe, or Vessa’s throat, or Nyra dying in my arms. Lyssairia had been sitting with her back straight and her hands folded the whole time, the way she had stood in the meeting room, and when I said no for the third time, she bent forward and put her face in her hands. She didn’t cry. I didn’t think she would let herself, not here, on a human wall, in front of a human guard. She only stayed like that, bent over, breathing, for a long time.

I didn’t say anything. I had learned a long time ago that some things can’t be healed, and that sitting beside them is the most anyone can do.

Eventually she straightened. Her eyes were dry, and very tired.

"Then they did what we asked them to do," she said.

"I wish they hadn’t."

She looked at me for the first time since we had sat down. Whatever she had been about to say, she didn’t say it. She looked back out at the black ridges instead, toward the forest neither of us could see.

"Before you left the cave," she said after a while, "Vessa bet Nyra a month’s pay that she’d steal your pillow inside a week."

I turned my head. "She stole it inside three days."

"I know. Nyra never paid."

"Nyra never paid anyone," I said, though I had no way of knowing that, and Lyssairia made the almost-laugh again, and this time it got a little further.

We sat there until the last of the fires below had gone out. She didn’t leave, and neither did I, and for once I didn’t think about sleep at all. Tomorrow, her mother would bring the thirteen. Tonight there were only the three.