Ch. 57: What Carries and Ch 58: I Can Carry You

Chapter 57: What Carries

Allandra left space beside the map for the next report.

Daravan and Harrek were deeper into the runoff by now. She had asked them to send word when they could, knowing there might be stretches of the passage where neither man had a hand free for the stone. That did not make the silence easier to bear.

Marielle had left flour on a stair. That was the last thing Allandra knew she had done. She tried to think of it as Daravan would: a direction he could follow, a mark close enough to the house that they might still catch up. She kept thinking instead about how little room Marielle would have to get clear if they did.

Affection brushed through the bond.

Allandra sent warmth back without lifting her eyes from the map. For a moment she thought Serali had felt her worrying and reached out to reassure her.

Then came the apology.

Allandra raised her head. She had time to wonder what Serali had done.

Then, the bond tore.

Allandra caught the edge of the table. She reached for Serali and found nothing where her warmth had been.

Across the council table, Verya looked up. Hagen stopped unfolding a report.

Something had pulled the connection away.

She gripped the table harder. For one impossible heartbeat, she could find nothing.

There was no warmth, no fear, no Serali.

“Your Majesty?” Verya asked.

Pain struck through the bond. The distance did not lessen the violence.

Allandra drew breath so sharply that Hagen moved toward her.

She was already turning. “Keep receiving the field reports.”

“Allandra—”

“Lia’s workroom.”

She did not wait for him.

Behind her, the council continued moving. She heard Hagen ordering a runner forward. For once, she was grateful he understood that helping did not require following her.

The corridor seemed longer than it had ever been. Servants stepped aside. A guard reached to open the inner door before she reached it.

She ran the last stretch.

Pell turned at the sound. Orran stood beside the workroom door, his hand on the latch.

“Open it.”

He did.

A table had been moved to the side, and there were chalk marks on the floor.

The room was empty. No Serali, and no Lia.

“Neither came out?” Allandra asked.

“No, Your Majesty,” Pell said. “They were working. We heard something—”

Allandra stepped into the marked space.

Serali was still somewhere at the other end of the bond, hurt and afraid.

Lia’s medical bag was gone.

Allandra closed her eyes for one breath.

Then opened them. “Bring the communication stone.”

A few minutes earlier, beneath western Myrae, Daravan had lost the reliable trail.

Not all at once.

Flour survived on the first dry stones. A pale smear marked a corner where someone had turned too close to the wall.

Then the passage crossed a shallow run of water.

Beyond it, boots had disturbed mud in several directions.

There were old marks, new marks, a clean scrape where something had rubbed against brick.

Nothing he could confidently attach to Marielle.

Daravan stopped at a junction. There were three branches.

The left climbed beneath a low arch. The right curved out of sight. The center descended toward the sound of moving water.

Harrek brought the lantern closer.

“Which?” an officer asked.

Daravan looked at the floor again. “Not enough.”

The answer cost him more than it should have.

He wanted the drag mark on the right to be hers. Wanted the darker scrape farther ahead to be a boot correcting for the limping woman’s leg.

Wanting did not distinguish them from everything else that had passed through this junction.

Harrek sent two officers far enough into the branches to listen and examine the next turn.

“No engagement alone,” he told them. “Report back.”

Daravan studied the old reinforcement above the arch.

This network had grown around earlier drains. Passages joined where they should have stayed separate. Private stairs opened onto public channels. Some exits had been closed on paper without being closed in stone.

Marielle had complained about that.

He wished he remembered every complaint.

The officer checking left stopped. “Blood.”

Daravan moved.

Fresh enough to shine beneath the lantern, a bloody handprint marked the wall, then a lower smear.

Someone had tried to keep moving.

A broken cough came from beyond the bend.

They found the operative behind the remains of a drainage brace.

The man from the water gate.

Black hair. Swollen jaw. Both hands pressed against his abdomen.

Blood ran through his fingers.

Harrek crouched first.

The man tried to reach for a knife.

Harrek caught his wrist. “No.”

The man resisted weakly, then stopped.

Daravan looked at the wound. Close. Deep enough to make the amount of blood unsurprising.

Not enough to identify the blade or the hand that had used it.

The operative looked up, recognition arriving through pain.

“Captain.”

Daravan crouched. “Where is Lady Marielle?”

The man shut his eyes.

Harrek moved his hand from the wrist to the wound, pressing folded cloth against it.

The operative gasped.

“Where?” Daravan repeated.

“He will kill me.”

Harrek looked at the blood beneath his hand. “You may have noticed the order of operations has shifted.”

For one absurd second, the man’s mouth moved. Then pain erased the smile before it could fully form.

“Who did this?” Harrek asked.

“Commander.”

Daravan looked toward the passage they had entered from.

The leader had brought him aside, stabbed him, left him here, and continued with Marielle and the woman.

Something had changed within the group while the Watch followed.

“They are not coming back for you,” Daravan said.

A pause, then, barely audible, “No.”

Harrek called the officer carrying the field kit closer. “Help here. Keep pressure.”

The man’s eyes opened again when the officer knelt beside him.

“Your name,” Harrek said.

Silence.

“We need something to call you.”

His breath caught. “Tairn.”

Daravan held his gaze. “Tairn. Where is Lady Marielle?”

This reproduction used a chapter from the author's publishing page without permission; the author's posted version supports their work.

“Main run. Past the chamber.”

“Which way?”

Tairn moved his head weakly toward the passage.

“East. Old overflow.”

Harrek looked at Daravan.

Several branches could put them east of this chamber.

“An exit?” Daravan asked.

“Bathhouse access. If clear.”

“Where does the route turn?”

Tairn tried to answer.

Coughed instead.

The officer adjusted the cloth. Harrek steadied the man’s shoulder until he could breathe again.

“Did he tell you that was the route?” Daravan asked.

A small nod.

“Before he brought you here?”

Another nod.

They had an intended direction, but no proof the leader had kept it.

Daravan wanted a map. Something he could follow without having to decide what had changed since the order was given.

Tairn had no such answer to give.

“Two remaining with her?”

“Yes.”

“Walking?”

“Sometimes.”

Daravan made himself leave that word alone. “They stopped here?”

“Scouting.”

The delay might have reduced their lead.

It might also have let them choose another route.

Tairn’s fingers moved against Harrek’s sleeve. “Tell her.”

Daravan looked back at him. “Lady Marielle?”

A nod.

“Tell her what?”

“Sometimes…” His breath caught.

Daravan waited.

“Sometimes there are choices.”

The words were barely there.

He did not know the conversation that had come before them. But he knew Tairn had helped take her. Had remained with the people holding her. Was now bleeding because their leader had decided he should not continue.

That did not erase what he had done.

It made the message something Daravan would carry if he could.

“I will tell her.”

Tairn caught another breath. “Do not let him take her.”

Daravan looked at the hand gripping Harrek’s sleeve.

There were answers that might have made the man feel better. Promises Daravan could not yet justify.

“No,” he said.

Tairn closed his eyes.

Harrek looked toward the officer. “Keep him awake if you can. Assistance is coming.”

He sent another man back with the location and instructions for the team holding the house.

Daravan stood.

The officers checking the junction returned.

One had found recent movement down the central branch. Another had found a door open along the right.

Neither had seen a captive and neither could promise the marks belonged to the group they were following.

Daravan listened to both accounts.

East overflow. Bathhouse access if clear.

The main run could take them toward it. So could the passage behind the open door, if the older connection remained usable.

He tried to place the construction sequence in his head.

Original channel. Later extension. A service crossing above the settling chamber.

Two possible routes.

One wider, easier for carrying someone.

One shorter, if its narrow section had been altered.

Harrek unfolded the copied drainage plan beneath the lantern.

The junction was there. So was the original channel. The service connection appeared as a broken line terminating at a property boundary.

“Closed?” Daravan asked.

“Not surveyed beyond this point.”

He looked at the floor again. A smear might have been made by someone dragging an injured woman, or by a worker shifting equipment through the water.

The flour had led them out of the house. Here, it had been washed into a system built to carry things away.

Daravan pressed one finger beside the uncertain connection on the plan, then removed it.

The ink could not make the missing information appear.

The agents might.

Marielle might.

Every minute spent establishing it here was a minute they could use elsewhere.

He could choose a branch and send men along the other. Could reach the bathhouse too late. Could pass an adjoining chamber while they waited silently beyond it.

His eyes still burned when he held the lantern close to the old marks on the wall.

He lowered it.

“The outer teams need the bathhouse access,” he said. “And the overflow exits. Quietly.”

Harrek took the paired stone from his coat.

Daravan looked at the center passage again.

Then something struck stone farther inside the network.

Not a footstep.

A heavy, abrupt impact.

The sound rolled through the adjoining passages and left him uncertain of the distance.

But not the direction.

He raised one hand and everyone stopped.

A voice followed. Words lost to the echo.

Then a sharper voice. It was female, and familiar enough to make him listen harder.

Metal rang against stone.

Daravan drew his sword. “That way.”

Harrek was putting the stone away already.

The officer beside Tairn remained where he had been assigned. The others moved behind Daravan.

He took the center passage at a run.

A voice carried around the next bend. Harrek caught Daravan’s sleeve just before they reached it.

“One thrust each,” he said, keeping his voice low. “The driver. Jasson. Tairn. I think he missed the kidney this time, but he didn’t stay to make sure.”

Harrek drew his sword.

“If he has a knife on her, we don’t wait to hear his terms,” Harrek said. “The first opening you get, take it.”

The voices came again.

Daravan didn’t have to calculate the route now. He followed the sound.

Chapter 58: I Can Carry You

The shadow was wrong. Marielle saw it gather against the tunnel wall, where no lamp stood close enough to account for the shape.

Then two bodies crashed out of it.

Serali struck the brick shoulder-first. Lia landed partly across her, rolled, and produced language Marielle had previously heard from soldiers whose injuries required sawing.

For one impossible heartbeat, no one moved.

Marielle’s mind supplied a single coherent thought.

That was not a proper transport circle.

Serali lifted her head. Black hair covered part of her face. Shadow ran beneath her hands in restless streams. “Marielle.”

The sound of her name broke something loose.

She tried to answer but the gag prevented it.

Lia pushed herself upright. Blood marked one palm. A silver thread joined her wrist to Serali’s.

Vaelis stared at her. Then at Serali.

“Does Avalusia often send old women on rescue missions, Princess, or are you improvising poorly?”

Lia looked up from one knee. “Come closer and find out.”

She cut the silver thread between their wrists before trying to stand.

The Commander moved, yanking Marielle against his chest. The knife came beneath her jaw.

She stopped breathing.

Vaelis drew her blade and shifted wide.

“Do not,” Serali said quietly.

The Commander tightened his grip. “Princess Serali Xuiven.”

Of course.

Serali tried to stand. Made it halfway before her arm failed to hold her against the wall.

Lia caught her elbow. “Slowly.”

“I am fine.”

Lia looked at her, arching an eyebrow.

Serali did not repeat the claim.

They had done this deliberately. Marielle could not decide whether that made it better.

The Commander’s gaze moved toward the shadow fading where they had appeared. “You crossed through the anchor.”

Serali said nothing.

“Then you can provide another route.”

“No,” Lia said.

His eyes returned to Serali. “You came willingly.”

“Do not mistake recklessness for surrender.”

“Serali,” Lia said.

The Commander pressed the knife closer.

A thin sting opened beneath Marielle’s jaw.

Serali froze.

Lia’s expression changed. No humor now. “Keep still, Marielle.”

She was trying.

Trying had become insufficient in several important areas.

“You will come with us,” the Commander told Serali.

Vaelis moved toward her exposed side.

Lia moved with her.

Not like a palace guard, but like a battlefield medic who had survived long enough to recognize which dangerous person needed stopping first.

Marielle looked down.

Her ankles were free. Her wrists remained tied. The Commander held the rope as well as her body.

A connection.

Connections transferred force.

She twisted her wrists inward, pulling against his grip.

He compensated.

She dropped sideways and his knife hand shifted as he caught his balance.

Serali struck. Shadow hit his wrist. The blade rang against stone.

Marielle fell hard enough to lose all useful awareness of her hip.

Vaelis lunged and Lia intercepted her with the medical bag, driving its weight between the woman’s knife and Serali.

The bag struck the wall.

Serali’s shadow wrapped the Commander’s arm.

He cut through it with another knife. Of course he had another knife.

Marielle tried to roll away, but his hand caught the back of her blouse.

She kicked, connected with something, and he swore. Excellent.

Serali came forward too quickly. Her leg buckled.

The Commander saw.

Marielle tried to shout a warning through the gag.

Lia threw something and a packet burst against his face.

Salt.

He recoiled.

“You threw salt,” Serali said.

“I had it.”

Vaelis came at Lia again.

Lia drew a short knife.

Marielle tried to get one knee beneath herself. Her bound hands slipped on the wet floor.

The Commander hauled her upward by the rope.

Then boots sounded around the turn.

Daravan appeared with his sword drawn.

He saw Serali, Lia, the knives and then Marielle.

Everything in his face stopped.

She had seen that expression when a support brace failed with workers beneath it.

The moment after fear and anger became insufficient.

The Commander pulled her back against him. His second blade settled beneath her jaw.

Daravan stopped. “Marielle.”

She could not answer.

So she looked at him. Obviously.

Harrek reached the turn behind him. Watch officers spread along the ledge rather than crowding the opening.

The Commander said, “The princess comes, or the engineer dies.”

Daravan looked at the knife, then at him. “Tairn is alive.”

Marielle went still.

So did the Commander.

Vaelis looked toward him, only for a heartbeat before she turned back on the approaching guards.

“You are lying,” he said.

“He gave us his name.”

Tairn was alive.

Marielle had seen the blood, had heard the single set of returning footsteps, but she had not seen him die.

The Commander’s attention shifted toward Harrek.

Marielle drove her heel onto his foot and dropped all her weight.

Serali’s shadow struck at the same instant.

The blade dragged across Marielle’s throat as she fell.

Heat opened beneath her jaw.

Hands caught her before her head struck stone. Lia.

“Hold still.”

Marielle tried to speak, but the words came out wrong around the gag.

“Do not.”

Lia pulled the gag free.

Marielle dragged in a breath. Folded cloth pressed against her throat, and pain became enormous.

She made a sound she would have preferred not to make.

“Breathe,” Lia said. “No words.”

Serali knelt beside them, one hand against the wall. Blood ran from her nose. A short end of silver thread remained knotted around her wrist.

“Marielle.”

Relief and horror stripped her face of every other expression.

Marielle looked away.

Unfortunately, that meant seeing Daravan.

His sword lay near the wall. She hadn’t seen him lose it. Now he had the Commander backed against the brick, both hands locked around the wrist that held the knife.

The injured forearm did not stop the Commander. Neither did the blood on his sleeve.

Marielle could not speak, but she tried when the blade turned toward Daravan anyway.

Lia’s hand steadied her head. “No.”

Serali looked up. Shadow lashed across the tunnel and the knife skidded sideways.

Daravan used the opening. Shoulder into the Commander’s chest. One leg behind his knee.

The man hit stone hard enough that Marielle felt the impact through the floor.

He tried to rise but Daravan drove him flat.

A Watch officer kicked the knife clear. Another caught his wrist.

Iron closed around it. Then the other.

The Commander bucked once.

The irons held.

For the first time since First Sun, the man with the scar beneath his eye was no longer moving toward an exit.

Captured, alive.

Marielle was surprised by how much she regretted the second part.

While the officers closed the irons, others closed in on Vaelis. She moved her hand inside her coat.

Something small struck the wall and broke. Prepared magic spread through the damp air.

Then the lanternlight bent.

Three figures moved where Vaelis had stood.

One ran toward the overflow. Another lunged toward Serali. A third remained perfectly still.

Harrek swore. “Do not trust the figures. Watch the water!”

An officer moved to the side passage.

Another cast a net across the ledge. It caught an image that broke into smoke.

A knife flashed through the distortion and severed the rope.

Vaelis appeared for one heartbeat beside the water channel.

Blood marked her sleeve. Her weight favored the injured leg.

She looked at Marielle, then Daravan. “Remarkable court.”

She dropped backward into the channel. There was a splash, then silence.

Harrek sent officers down-channel at once, keeping others between the captive Commander and the remaining exits.

Lanterns swept the water.

No woman surfaced within their light.

Daravan remained over the Commander.

The restrained man looked at Serali. Even now, something like satisfaction crossed his face.

Daravan hit him once.

“Captain,” Harrek said.

His fist remained clenched.

“Alive is more useful.”

For a dangerous moment, Daravan did not move.

Then he stood.

The Commander remained restrained, bleeding, and alive because usefulness was one of the most irritating forces in existence.

Daravan turned toward Marielle and dropped beside Lia.

“How bad?”

“I am controlling the bleeding.”

“Her breathing?”

“She is breathing. I need her still.”

Marielle wanted to establish that she was trying.

Lia saw the attempt form. “No speaking.”

Daravan’s gaze moved from the cloth at her throat to the bindings.

“May I?” he asked.

For a moment, Marielle could not work out which permission he meant.

He touched the rope lightly.

She nodded.

His knife carefully cut the cord away from her wrists and the pressure vanished.

Marielle stared at her hands. They remained where someone had put them until she moved one finger.

Then another.

Daravan supported her injured arm before it could slip against the floor.

No restraint followed the touch, no instruction to preserve her usefulness.

She looked up at him.

He was still there.

Harrek gave orders behind them. The Commander was searched. The passage held. Another lantern was brought forward for Lia.

Serali sat back against the wall, shaking, but kept her hand close to Marielle’s knee.

Lia examined beneath the edge of the cloth, then replaced the pressure.

“We need to move her,” she said. “With support. I stay at her throat.”

Daravan looked at Marielle. “I can carry you.”

It was not a hand already lifting her. It was an offer.

She nodded before she could begin crying and complicate the answer.

Lia guided the movement. Daravan lifted her slowly, keeping the injured arm supported and giving Lia room to maintain pressure.

Marielle’s right hand found the front of his coat.

She held it.

He did not tell her to let go.