Chapter 147 Visiting Hours

A Silence flickered over his cot, stopping his breath mid-gasp for exactly one beat before it let him go.

Small Silences kept flickering around the cot like moths, each one swallowing a sound before spitting it back. The Label was trying to finish what the copy started, one patient beat at a time, without hurry.

The infirmary tent smelled of lamp oil and boiled thread, rain drumming steadily on the canvas above him.

The Recovery he bought lay half paid inside him, closing the wound only as far as the Silences allowed.

[ Recovery: -9,000 RF | Balance: 29,106,600 ]

[ Resonance: today’s share spent | Wound: half closed ]

Yukine took the stool beside his cot, spreading her notes across the blanket with the calm of a surgeon. Her cold signet lay against the paper, a ring of frost still faint on the back of his hand.

"He never lived past the duel," she said, tapping the page, "he never had a team."

"Great, so he’s a lonely bastard wearing my face," Riven croaked.

"He is you with everyone subtracted... finished, where you are still a draft."

Yukine drew two columns on the sheet, labeling one Stayed and the other Riven, then filled both with dense script. Under Riven she dutifully listed every name that ever stood beside him, beginning with Mara and ending with her own.

"Drafts can be revised," she said, tapping the longer column, "that is the only advantage you own."

"Revised by who, exactly?" he asked, shifting under the blanket.

"By everyone in that column, armed with a very sharp pencil and a grudge against endings."

"How is our chess game coming along without me?"

"Black is still greedy, white is still waiting, neither of us is in a hurry."

Nix slipped in through a fresh door cut into the tent wall, a stolen apple tucked neatly under one arm. She pressed two fingers to his forehead, drawing something invisible out of it like a loose thread from a sweater.

"Your bad mood, confiscated," she said, pocketing it, "I’m leaving you a joke instead."

"Go on, then," he rasped, tugging the blanket to his chin, "I could use a laugh."

"Why was the dead one so punctual at his own funeral?"

"I give up, why?" he asked, already bracing for the worst.

"He had no other engagements," Nix said, grinning like a thief, "and nobody can bill him for the delay."

Riven laughed before he could stop himself, a ribbon of pain crossing his chest as the Silence flickered. The flickers came less often while he laughed, each gap in his breathing closing as the joke landed.

’My body only stays when somebody’s in the room... I’ve never been this popular.’

Veska entered precisely at the second bell, leaving her spear outside the flap and clasping her hands behind her back. She stood at attention beside the cot, reading carefully from a small card in a voice carved entirely from ceremony.

"Oath of continuity, article one," she read, "I shall not permit you to die without written permission."

"Is there an article two?" Riven asked, eyeing the card.

"Article two states that I counted your breaths all night, they total nineteen thousand and six."

"You counted my breaths, all of them?"

"I counted also," she said gravely, "the last one was my favorite."

Veska folded the card into her breast pocket with surgical care, then saluted the cot and the man in it. Outside the rain thinned, sentries changing shift by the clock as though nothing in the whole Orchard could possibly matter.

"Thanks for the oath," Riven called after her, "that’s the nicest legal threat anyone ever gave me."

Isolde re-stitched the wound without a single word, her needle flashing in and out of the lamplight. She was so extremely careful not to mention the kiss that the silence itself began to blush.

"The stitches will hold now, I added a prayer to the thread," she said, tying off the last knot.

"You didn’t mention the—"

"The earlier procedure was sound," Isolde told the lamp, "I wish that entered in the minutes."

"Noted, minuted and sworn, I’ll even sign the page."

"Good evening," she said, rising far too fast and catching her heel on the stool.

"It’s morning," Riven said, trying very hard not to smile.

"Then good morning, I will return at the next bell, with soup."

Mara came last, ducking under the flap and climbing onto the cot without asking, settling her weight across his legs. Her ears lay flat, her tail wrapped twice around his ankle, her gaze refusing to look anywhere near the wound.

"Nod or argue," she said, staring hard at the tent pole as though it insulted her.

"I’m not going anywhere," he said, "the Silences can queue."

"Say it again," Mara said without moving, "slower this time, with feeling."

"I’m not going anywhere, I promise, I’ll be right here until the rain stops."

He did not argue, the rain filling every gap in the silence while her weight pinned him to the cot. Her claws rested over his ribs without pressing, a quiet warning to every Silence that tried to flicker near him.

’Fine, I’m nodding... I’m nodding so hard it’s getting embarrassing.’

Lucas knelt at the tent flap and pledged his witness, quietly, to a man who never asked for one. Ysabel arrived uninvited behind him, shaking rain from her sleeves, delivering her verdict like a judge from the doorway.

"I witness that you are alive, I intend to keep witnessing it."

"You do not get to lose to anyone but me," she said, fanning herself briskly, "I have you on my calendar for Founders’ Day."

"And do not look so pleased, I am only protecting my investment."

Cassen nudged the leg of the cot with his foot, scowling at nothing, "Beating you is my job... nobody else gets it."

"Careful, golden boy, that sounded almost like friendship."

"It was rivalry, clean it up before somebody sees."

"Wow, a full line-up, the villain’s funeral is better attended than the wedding."

Bram set the bucket at the foot of the cot, steam curling from the rim, "Isolde said bring soup... this was the biggest container."

Pryce limped in wearing a replacement hat even larger than the first, a basket of oranges clutched to his chest. He set the basket on the cot, saluted stiffly, then fled before anyone could ask what the gesture truly meant.

"It is a tax rebate on a debt of honor," Pryce called from the flap, "we shall never speak of it."

A courier in Class One’s colors ducked through the flap holding a sealed note, smiling like a funeral usher. The paper’s gilt edges announced condolences for the villain’s scheduled end, written in Dorian’s tidy hand, perfumed with rosewater.

’Dorian sent condolences to a man who isn’t dead... he wrote that page way too early.’

Isolde swept back into the tent, plucked the note from the courier, then stitched corrections across it in red. She handed it to Lucas, who stamped the margin with a brass chime and wrote a single word, premature.

"Two errors in agreement and one in tense," Isolde said, "the closing is far too eager."

"I will return it to Class One’s fire," Lucas said, "with witnesses."

As the tent emptied, a panel unfolded above his cot without being summoned, the letters pale as breath.

[ Branch available: Syncopation ]

[ Requirement: people who will move on your beat ]

"I have those," Riven said.