Ch. 55: Compromised and Ch. 56: The Connection

Chapter 55: Compromised

The sewer was familiar. This was the first good thing that had happened to Marielle in several hours. Objectively, it was not a very good thing.

Tairn was carrying her over his shoulder. Her hands were tied. Her mouth was gagged. Her arm hurt, and the blood rushing toward her head made the passing brickwork difficult to appreciate.

Still, they were in the old Western runoff. She recognized the brick.

That was not a sentence many people could say with confidence. Marielle considered it one of her better qualifications.

Tairn adjusted her weight before her head struck a projecting stone.

He did it carefully enough that Vaelis noticed. She walked behind them, one sleeve dark around its dressing. Her injured leg made an uneven rhythm on the narrow ledge beside the water.

The Commander stopped at a junction.

Marielle could see only part of it from her current position. Newer mortar on one side. Older brick beyond. A cold current of air through the passage ahead.

A settling chamber, perhaps.

She looked toward it before remembering that her face had become a source of information.

Vaelis laughed softly. Marielle looked elsewhere too late.

The Commander examined the passage and continued along the route he had chosen.

A whistle sounded faintly beyond the masonry.

Everyone stopped. The Commander listened, then spoke in low Naeric. Marielle caught north, something about an opening, and an instruction to wait.

He looked at Tairn and switched to Solvari. “Keep her quiet.”

Then he went ahead alone, moving faster without them.

His footsteps faded.

Vaelis indicated a chamber beside the main run. “Here.”

Tairn lowered Marielle against the wall, steadying her until she could keep her feet beneath her. He also eased her injured arm away from where the binding pulled across it.

Vaelis watched all of it. Marielle wished he would notice.

“You are compromised,” Vaelis said.

Tairn’s face closed. “No.”

“You gave her water. Apologized. Objected when I stopped her at the lift.”

“You had already stopped her.”

“And you hesitated when we tied the gag.”

He said nothing.

Vaelis stepped closer. “Now you put her down as though she were made of blown glass.”

“She is injured.”

“She is leverage.”

“Useful leverage.”

Marielle disliked that it hurt to hear Tairn define her that way.

Vaelis looked at her, then back at Tairn. “She is not some harmless woman we happened to take from a street.”

Her hand closed around Marielle’s upper arm, above the dressing.

Marielle tried to pull away, but the wall stopped her.

“She works for the Blood Queen.”

Allandra. The name felt obscene applied to the woman who smiled into her tea when Everly stole a honey bun.

But Marielle knew it had not come from nowhere.

Marielle had heard the stories of the queen in battle. Avalusia sang about some of them.

Lyehira had buried the other side.

“I know whose council she sits on,” Tairn said.

“Do you know what she built?” Vaelis’s grip tightened.

Marielle breathed through her nose.

“Lady Marielle Caern. Fortifications. Siege systems. Alchemical delivery mechanisms.”

Marielle went still.

Vaelis smiled without humor. “You did not know we knew.”

Of course Lyehira kept files.

Avalusia kept files. Of commanders, ministers, mages, shipwrights. People whose names mattered because the things they made mattered.

Engineers.

There was a file with her name on it and beneath her name, someone had catalogued her work.

“The cold-weather shipments,” Vaelis said. “The Avalusian shells stopped cracking in storage.”

It had been the casings, not the shells.

The shells had been fine. The binding lacquer separated when the temperature fell far enough, making the inner seal unreliable.

Marielle remembered solving it.

It took nine days and several failed tests. She remembered the satisfaction when the first casing stayed intact.

She had not been satisfied with the explosion. She had been satisfied it functioned.

“After that, they could leave them on the line overnight,” Vaelis continued. “Ready when our people came within range.”

Marielle stared at the wall. The mechanism had behaved exactly as designed.

“Stop,” Tairn said.

Vaelis looked at him. “Stop what?”

“Your hand.”

She pressed harder. Marielle made a sound against the gag.

“This hand?”

Tairn moved forward.

Vaelis released Marielle abruptly, then caught her bound wrists and forced them upward.

Pain pulled through both shoulders.

“She builds the Blood Queen’s walls. Improves the weapons that kill us before we reach them. And you apologize because her bandage is uncomfortable.”

Marielle nearly objected.

She made them more reliable, safer for Avalusian crews. It was not necessarily a redesign of the weapon itself.

She caught herself. There were dead people inside Vaelis’s sentence, and her mind was correcting the engineering vocabulary.

She knew performance estimates: range, failure rates, material consumption.

Casualty reports went elsewhere, but they existed. She had simply not needed them to solve the next problem.

Vaelis lifted her wrists another fraction.

Tairn caught the woman’s arm and everything stopped.

“Let go,” Vaelis said.

He did, immediately. But he had intervened.

“She has blood on her hands too,” Vaelis said.

Marielle looked at Tairn.

For one horrible heartbeat, she wanted him to deny it.

He barely knew her, he had helped abduct her, and Vaelis was not entirely wrong.

“That does not make this right,” he said.

His limit then. He hadn’t said she was innocent.

Vaelis stared at him. “Our grandparents remembered the valleys before Avalusia stole the spring,” she said. “Our parents learned which villages burned. She works for the queen whose name we learned beside the names of the dead.”

Tairn said nothing.

Marielle could reject that accusation; the stolen spring, the curse on the land, but she could not reject the casing revision.

Vaelis twisted her wrists again.

“Enough,” Tairn said. “We have her. She is restrained. Hurting her because you hate what she represents is not the mission.”

“You think you are being professional.”

“Yes.”

Vaelis lowered Marielle’s hands and the relief was immediate enough to be humiliating.

“We are taking her to King Vulmar,” she said.

Marielle had known that since the cellar.

Had feared it while the cloth covered her face. While she lay in the hamper. While the Commander agreed that punishment would not make it preferable.

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Vaelis was not telling her something new, she was asking Tairn to stop pretending not to understand it.

“What exactly are you preserving?”

“She has information,” he said.

“And when she refuses to give it?”

His mouth tightened.

Vaelis smiled. “Vulmar will do worse than I ever could.”

Marielle’s stomach rolled.

Vaelis’s hand rested beside the dressing again. She did not have to press.

Tairn said quietly, “That does not make this right.”

“It makes this irrelevant.”

“No. What happens there is his choice.”

“And that absolves you?”

“No.”

Vaelis went still.

So did Marielle.

Tairn looked at her then. “I am responsible for what I do before we arrive.”

He still meant to deliver her.

“You are compromised,” Vaelis said.

“No one ordered you to hurt her.”

The silence changed and Tairn looked like he knew he had said too much.

Marielle knew too.

Footsteps returned from the passage.

The Commander entered alone, water darkening the lower edge of his coat.

“The upper outlet is watched,” he said. “We use the next access.”

Vaelis looked at Tairn. “And he is becoming a problem.”

The Commander’s gaze moved between them. “Report.”

She gave it: the pantry; the punishment he had interrupted; his hand on her arm.

Tairn’s face became carefully empty.

“You objected?” the Commander asked.

“The harm was unnecessary.”

“Did it interfere with moving her?”

“Yes.”

The Commander looked at Marielle. She could not arrange her face quickly enough to hide what she had heard.

“Then move her,” he told Tairn.

Tairn bent and lifted her. Deliberately rough this time. His shoulder struck her stomach; his grip on her legs tightened until she stopped shifting.

It was a performance.

The Commander led them onward.

Marielle watched the wall pass beside her.

She could still feel the pride of the successful casing test and could not put it anywhere that made Vaelis’s accusation disappear.

A projecting patch of mortar passed close to her bound hands. She brushed it with her fingers.

On the next uneven patch, she dragged harder. Flour remained in the rope. Grime came away beneath her nails. A small pale streak marked the wet wall.

Tairn felt her move.

His arm tightened but he said nothing.

Vaelis stopped. “There.”

The Commander came back.

Saw the mark and wiped it away with his glove.

Then he looked at Tairn. “You noticed.”

“She was shifting.”

“Yes.”

The Commander waited.

Tairn did not improve the answer.

“Put her down.”

Marielle’s boots struck stone.

Vaelis took her arm.

The Commander looked toward a side branch, then back at Tairn. “With me. Scout ahead.”

Tairn’s face changed. It was a slight change, but Marielle saw it. For a moment, she thought he would refuse.

“Yes, Commander,” he said.

Two sets of footsteps disappeared around the bend.

Vaelis held Marielle beside the wall.

Water dripped. Somewhere beyond the passages, Myrae continued existing.

A short sound came from the side branch. Then silence.

Marielle stared at the turn.

Only one set of footsteps returned.

The Commander’s uninjured hand was wet with fresh blood. He wiped the dagger against his coat before putting it away.

Tairn did not follow him.

“Move,” the Commander said.

Vaelis did not ask a question.

Marielle understood. She could not make herself believe Tairn was still alive.

Tairn had wanted a limit. The Commander had shown him one.

Vaelis pulled her away from the branch, the grip on her arm tightening.

Chapter 56: The Connection

Allandra entered Lia’s workroom too quickly to disguise her urgency.

“They found the holding room,” she said. “Lady Marielle has been moved.”

Serali straightened. “Where?”

“Below the house. Concealed service access, then what appears to be a runoff passage. She left marks for them.”

Relief hit first.

Marielle had done something and Daravan and Harrek had found it.

Then Allandra continued. “Jasson is dead.”

Lia’s hand stopped beside the covered sample.

Serali had seen him in the palace, carrying the leather case while Harrek reviewed the plan.

“Did he signal?” she asked.

“We don’t know, there was an unregistered sound ward on the house.”

Allandra’s voice remained controlled, but the bond did not.

Serali felt fear and anger, and something quieter beneath them that Serali did not want to name while Allandra had to keep speaking.

“Daravan?”

“Following. Harrek with him. Officers hold the house and the exterior approaches.”

Serali looked at the blood. The newer sample lay beneath glass inside the marked space. The other vial remained sealed beside it.

Lia had changed the arrangement after the westward response became harder to hold. They had not found a better answer yet.

“Let me try again,” Serali said.

Lia looked at Allandra, then nodded and moved the newer sample beneath the glass, laying the recovered cord beside the dish.

Serali caught one of its knots between her fingers. The mage had held it that way at the tide stair. She sent a narrow thread of shadow toward the blood.

The pull steadied. West first, as before. Then it dipped beneath the level she had learned to expect.

“Down,” she said.

Lia watched her hand. “Withdraw.”

Serali drew her shadow back and let go of the knot.

They adjusted the dish and tried once more.

The pull was the same. It wasn’t the image of a tunnel, or the sound of Marielle’s voice. It was enough to support the field report.

Allandra looked between them. “Underground.”

“Consistent with it,” Lia said. “We cannot identify the passage.”

Serali looked at the covered dish. “What happens when Daravan catches up to them?”

Allandra paused a moment before answering. “If they think they can still get her out, they’ll keep her alive.”

“And if they don’t?”

“They killed the driver when he became a liability. They killed Jasson before he could get back to us.” Allandra’s fingers tightened against the table. “We have to consider that they may kill her rather than let Daravan take her back.”

Lia looked down at her notes. “Even if they mean to keep her alive, she’s bound and injured. If there’s fighting in a narrow passage, she can’t get herself out of the way.”

“Can we warn him?” Serali asked.

“He knows.” Allandra touched her hand. “He’ll try to reach her before they know how close he is.”

Serali nodded. She trusted Daravan to do that. She couldn’t trust the passages to give him the chance.

Allandra touched her hand briefly. “She made sure they could follow her.”

Serali nodded.

A servant appeared at the doorway with a message for the Queen. Allandra read it, then looked back at Lia. “Keep working. Send me any useful change.”

She squeezed Serali’s fingers once before letting go.

Then she returned to the people waiting for orders.

The door shut.

For a few minutes, knowing that Daravan was following remained enough.

Serali and Lia repeated the examination. Recorded the response. Stopped when the pressure became difficult to separate from Serali’s own magic.

The lamp needed trimming. Lia did it, then returned to the table.

Serali looked toward the door whenever footsteps passed.

No new report came.

Somewhere beneath Myrae, the agents were carrying Marielle through passages whose turns she could not see from this room.

She knew that Daravan was moving too, but that did not settle what happened when he came close enough to frighten them.

The next response was weaker.

Serali leaned forward.

“Do not,” Lia said.

“I have not done anything.”

“Then continue doing nothing.”

Serali drew her hand back, more slowly than she wanted to. “It is fading.”

“It is less clear,” Lia corrected. “It could be the water, the stone, wards or damage to the spell. We do not know which.”

“Or something happening to Marielle.”

“Possibly. You cannot choose that explanation because it frightens you most.”

Serali pressed her palms against the table. She wanted Lia to be wrong.

“The leader said there would be no more negotiations.”

“He wanted you to act on that.”

“He also meant it.”

“You do not know how much of the threat he intended to carry out.”

“I know he carried out the last one.”

Lia looked at the covered blood. The silence was worse than another objection.

“If she slows them,” Serali said, “if they think carrying her will get them caught—”

“She still has value to them.”

“For now.”

Lia did not pretend that was an answer she could dismiss.

Serali looked toward the old dressings, covered at the far end of the table. Everything they had learned had come too slowly.

That did not make it useless.

It made her want to do something terrible with what it had finally given them.

“Daravan cannot follow this connection,” she said.

“He can follow blood, footprints, and every structural insult Marielle has managed to leave in her wake.”

Serali looked up.

“She is not helpless,” Lia said.

“I know.”

“Do you? Because you keep looking at that blood as though it is the only part of her still speaking.”

That landed too accurately.

Serali took a breath. “I am not trying to replace what they are doing.”

“Then what are you trying to do?”

Serali looked at the cord. “The first time the blood pulled hard enough, I felt it reach past the table. I’ve been wondering what would happen if I let it take more than the thread.”

“How much more?”

“All of me.”

Lia went very still. “How long have you been thinking about this?”

“Since you told me to withdraw the first time.”

“And you didn’t tell me?”

“I wasn’t going to try it.”

Lia looked at her. “And now?”

“Now I think I can reach her before they decide what to do with her.”

Lia stared.

“The connection moved her, maybe it could move me,” Serali explained.

“Marielle was moved through prepared circles, under the control of a blood mage.”

Serali gripped the cord. “This can reach her.”

“That does not establish a safe path.”

“I did not say safe.”

Lia came around the table. “You are talking about forcing transport through damaged Lyehiran blood-work.”

“Yes.”

“Through someone else’s wound.”

“Yes.”

“With no prepared destination.”

Serali swallowed. “Yes.”

“That was not a list of advantages.”

“I know.”

“You do not practice blood magic. What you do have is enough knowledge to recognize danger. Not enough to tell me what this spell will do when you give it more than a thread of shadow.”

“I know that too.”

Lia looked at her for a long moment. No comforting answer formed between them.

Serali could hurt Marielle by trying. Could put herself exactly where the agents had wanted her. Could reach nothing at all.

She understood those possibilities.

She could not make understanding them feel like a reason to remain here.

“I want you to help me hold it steady,” she said. “As far as you can.”

“And if I cannot?”

“Then we stop before it opens.”

“You believe you will recognize that point.”

Serali looked down.

Another limit she could not honestly promise.

Lia saw the answer. “We should tell the Queen.”

Serali felt the bond, warm and close despite the rooms between them.

Allandra trusted her and Lia to keep working.

“She would stop this,” Serali said.

“Probably.”

Neither of them called that unreasonable.

“I am going to try,” Serali said quietly.

Lia looked toward the door. “If I call Pell and Orran?”

Serali’s eyes went to the cord. It was within reach.

“You’d start before they got through the door,” Lia said.

Serali could have denied it. She didn’t. “Yes.”

“And if I went to fetch Allandra, I’d come back to an empty room. If you managed it. Worse, if you hadn’t.”

Lia stood still for a moment. Then she crossed to the shelves and took down her bag.

Then she grabbed bandages, sealed water, and instruments already wrapped for use.

Serali watched her pack them. “What are you doing?”

“Making sure you don’t try it in the time it takes me to open a door.” Lia added some jars to the bag. “You are not going without me.”

“No.”

Lia looked up. “That is an interesting word for you to discover now.”

“You cannot come through this with me.”

“You have just told me you intend to arrive beside an injured prisoner whose captors are becoming desperate.”

“Yes.”

“If that is urgent enough to justify going, it is urgent enough to bring a healer.”

Serali shook her head. “The crossing itself—”

“I heard my own objections.”

“Lia, they could still be with her.”

“I’m counting on it. Serali, I was a field medic before I was the royal healer. I’ve spent more time under fire than you have.”

“I am not asking you to fight.”

“Good. I generally had my hands full getting people out while someone else did the fighting.” Lia tucked another roll of bandages into her bag. “Can you keep them off us and stop Marielle’s bleeding at the same time?”

Serali had no answer she believed.

“I can help you steady the crossing,” Lia said. “And when we get there, you can leave her injuries to me.”

She closed the bag.

Serali wanted to argue. She wanted Lia safe in the room where everything had labels and the door opened into a guarded palace corridor.

“Allandra needs you,” she said.

Lia’s expression softened by one degree. “Allandra needs you alive more than she needs my obedience.”

Lia returned to the table. “Help me clear this space.”

The preparation took longer than Serali wanted.

She did what Lia asked anyway.

They moved the second table. Secured the other samples. Lia marked a space on the floor and adjusted the wards already protecting the workroom.

No attempt to recreate a spell neither of them understood.

Support for the magic Serali could shape. A boundary Lia would try to hold while the connection answered.

Pell and Orran remained beyond the closed door. Neither knew what the preparations meant.

Serali looked toward it once, then back at Lia.

The healer took a length of fine silver thread from a drawer and tied one end around Serali’s wrist.

“What is this?”

“An attempt to keep us together.”

“An attempt?”

Lia looked up. “You wanted me to phrase the risks honestly.”

She tied the other end around her own wrist, leaving enough length between them to move.

Serali watched her secure the knot. It was a small precaution against a danger neither of them could measure.

Lia stepped into the marked space with her bag and took Serali’s hand.

The silver thread hung between their wrists.

“Together,” Lia said. “You do not pull away if it hurts.”

Serali nodded.

She reached for Allandra first. She sent affection through the bond and waited long enough to feel Allandra’s warmth answer.

Then she sent the apology.

Allandra’s attention sharpened. Serali felt it as distinctly as if she had turned toward her in the room.

Serali took the knot in her free hand.

West. Down.

The pull caught. This was where she had always held the rest of herself back.

Lia’s grip tightened. The silver thread brushed Serali’s wrist.

Serali let the rest of her shadow follow the first strand. When the pull reached for her again, she went with it.