Chapter 340: A Place Beside Them

The first person freed from the last command was a dwarf named Orven.

I was outside the infirmary when it happened.

There was no flash through the windows. No shout of triumph.

Evelyn opened the door and sat down on the bench beside me.

“He let go,” she said.

I looked at her.

“Of what?”

“The bedrail.”

Since the rescue, Orven had gripped it whenever he was awake. He had told the healers that holding something made it easier to resist reaching for a weapon.

His hands had begun to bleed.

“The band?”

“Still there. Still dangerous.”

Evelyn leaned back against the wall.

“But he opened his hands when he wanted to.”

I sat with that for a moment.

Then I reached for hers.

Caldris explained it later in the workshop.

The captured baton had given them something the broken wristband could not: an intact example of how a command was written before it reached its victims.

It had also helped them make sense of the escaped woman’s account.

She had fled when a wagon overturned and crushed the hand of the man directing her group. His baton had broken beneath a wheel. Her own restraint had gone cold long enough for her to get away.

“We could not assume the same thing would happen here,” Caldris said. “Breaking this baton might have left the command fixed in place.”

“Or harmed everyone it addressed,” Thesra added.

Instead, they had studied the marks without awakening them.

One section carried an instruction. Another kept that instruction returning.

The bands used pain to punish resistance, but pain was not the whole mechanism.

“Orven told us when the pressure returned,” Thesra said. “There was a rhythm to it. Caldris found the corresponding mark.”

With Orven’s permission, they had worked around his band, laying a separate boundary between the repeating instruction and the part that held it active.

The first attempt had done nothing.

They had stopped when he asked.

After he rested, he asked them to try again.

The second attempt held.

“For how long?” I asked.

“We don’t know yet,” Caldris said. “He is being watched. If the boundary weakens, we need to know before anyone calls this finished.”

I looked at the drawing.

“Can you help the other eight?”

“We can ask them whether they want us to try,” Thesra said. “There are differences between their restraints.”

She moved a second sheet beside the first.

I recognized the older marks from the hospice research.

“Lethan?”

“Elara recognized a similar use of repetition,” Caldris replied. “Her work helped us ask the right question. His prison is much older and far more deeply joined to him. This does not give us permission to attempt the same treatment there.”

I nodded.

One person opening his hands was enough progress for one morning.

Orven agreed to see me after breakfast.

He was sitting upright, staring at a spoon on his blanket.

“Your Majesty,” he said.

“Uriah is fine.”

He glanced toward the door.

“Nobody ever means that for very long.”

I took the chair Evelyn had left beside his bed.

“You can test it later.”

That brought the smallest movement at the corner of his mouth.

The band remained around his wrist. Fine marks surrounded it now, laid on a protective wrapping rather than cut into his skin.

He lifted his hand.

Opened it.

Closed it.

“I tried to stab one of your men.”

“He knows you were being forced.”

“Does he?”

“He asked about you this morning.”

Orven looked down.

“I remember doing it.”

I had no useful answer that would make that memory disappear.

“Would you like to speak to him when you’re both ready?”

After a while, Orven nodded.

Then he picked up the spoon.

His hand shook, but he held it the way he wanted.

I stayed until he finished eating.

Tessa and Harun spent most of that day beyond the castle.

Mary arranged the visits they requested. At their insistence, several conversations took place without any royal official in the room.

They spoke to families in Havenreach, workers receiving their wages, and people waiting for relatives who had not yet arrived.

The following morning, they went through the gate to Westmere.

I joined them for the first part of the visit.

Steward Edric Vale met us with ink on one thumb and a carpenter asking him about roofing timber.

He finished answering the carpenter before bowing.

“Your Majesty.”

“How are things?”

“Better in some places. Wetter in others.”

He pointed toward a roof being stripped of damaged shingles.

“We found the leak before moving the family in.”

Harun looked along the street.

“Are all these people from the same kingdom?”

“No,” the steward said. “We try to keep families and familiar groups near one another when they ask. Sometimes they ask for something else.”

At the mill, Tessa met the man whose sister Melody had been trying to find.

He came down the ladder so quickly that the worker below him swore.

Tessa handed him her letter.

He read the first line.

Then he sat on the lowest rung and read it again.

We left them there together.

Garrick Valewood had brought Julian through to see Tobin.

Their reunion began with an accusation concerning the garden game.

“You moved the circle,” Julian said.

“It rained.”

“The tree didn’t move.”

Tobin folded his arms.

“You weren’t here to draw it.”

Garrick sat on the garden bench and produced two pieces of chalk.

The boys looked at them.

“Work it out,” he said.

I stayed long enough to see negotiations begin.

When Julian followed me toward the gate later, he was carrying a small folded packet.

“What is that?”

“Tobin’s mother made flowers.”

He opened the paper carefully.

Inside were three little cloth blossoms, each sewn from several different scraps.

“For the wedding,” Julian said. “She said she couldn’t send anything grand.”

I touched the edge of one petal.

“Adriana will love them.”

“Should I tell her now?”

“I would.”

He smiled and hurried ahead to find his grandfather.

When the delegates returned that evening, Harun asked for the road map.

He did not ask for the alliance document.

Mary spread the map across the table anyway, looking considerably more hopeful than she had at our first meeting.

“There are families at the hill fort who cannot remain there,” he said. “Not enough water. Too many people for the stores.”

His finger rested on a wooded stretch of road.

“Our scouts can bring them this far. After that, we need wagons for the elderly and the injured.”

Tessa indicated a second route.

“Our villages have boats. Small ones, but enough to move supplies along this part of the river.”

Thor leaned closer.

“Can your boat crews tell us which landings are still safe?”

“Yes.”

“Then we can plan the escorts without guessing.”

The discussion lasted well into the evening.

By its end, we had agreed to prepare a voluntary evacuation from the hill fort and a supply journey upriver. Final numbers would come by messenger. Westmere would ready beds according to the room it actually had, while Concordia checked its own capacity.

Tessa would recommend a mutual-defense agreement to her councils.

Harun would carry the same proposal to the families and defenders at the fort.

Neither could promise the answer.

They could promise guides.

Thor accepted that readily.

Before leaving, Harun looked at her hammer.

“Our fighters know the gullies better than the road. If your people come, they must listen.”

“Good,” Thor said. “I dislike falling into gullies.”

He studied her face.

Then he laughed.

Adriana wore one of the little cloth flowers to supper.

Julian noticed before anyone else.

“You don’t have to wear it already.”

“I wanted to.”

She touched it where it rested against her dress.

“Will you thank Tobin’s mother for me?”

He nodded.

Mirelle watched him settle into his chair, then exchanged a look with Adriana.

I knew that look.

They had discussed something without him.

Julian noticed too.

“What?”

Adriana set down her cup.

“I wanted to ask you something about the wedding.”

His expression became immediately serious.

“I can help with the children.”

“There will be people helping them already.”

“Or carry something.”

“Perhaps.”

She reached across the table for his hand.

“I would like you and Cassia to walk with me. Mother too.”

Julian looked toward Mirelle.

She nodded.

“All of us?”

“All of you,” Adriana said.

For a moment, he looked pleased.

Then his face changed.

“Where Father would have been?”

The room quieted.

Adriana kept hold of his hand.

“I wish he could be there.”

Julian looked down at their joined fingers.

“I don’t know what he would have done.”

“You don’t need to know,” she said. “You can walk beside me as my brother.”

Cassia leaned forward from his other side.

“And remind me to go slowly.”

“You never listen.”

“A serious obstacle. We shall have to practice.”

His mouth twitched.

Then he looked at me and Evelyn.

“Is that all right?”

Evelyn smiled.

“We would like it very much.”

I nodded.

“There is room.”

Julian looked back at Adriana.

“Then yes.”

The practice began the following afternoon.

It lasted almost four minutes before the children joined in.

Carol took Adriana’s free hand.

Garrick attached himself to Julian.

Seraphina decided Cassia required assistance, and Ignatius followed because everyone else was going somewhere.

Lisbeth, seated beside Helena and Mirelle’s abandoned sewing basket, watched the procession with obvious interest.

“You may need a wider aisle.”

“We have a courtyard,” I offered.

Evelyn elbowed me gently.

Helena called the little ones back with the promise of helping arrange ribbons.

They came reluctantly, except for Ignatius, who discovered that the basket contained spools.

Queen Celestine arrived with a folded length of linen and stopped to let the practice procession pass.

Adriana laughed as Cassia attempted a dignified turn with a child still attached to her skirt.

I had seen Mirelle cross Greykeep’s halls with fear in every movement.

Now she stood beside her daughters, correcting Julian’s collar while Helena and Lisbeth argued amiably about flowers.

For a little while, I stayed by the door and watched.

There was news from Aurethar before sunset.

Vaelith had returned safely to the enclave.

Two other dragons had agreed to accompany him back to Greykeep for further talks. They were willing to discuss protecting evacuation routes, though the enclave had made no common pledge.

They wanted to see the roads and meet the people responsible for directing the movements below them.

Thor read that part with approval.

“Sensible.”

Aurethar hoped to arrive before the wedding.

He had underlined hoped.

Mary left the guest arrangements provisional.

Melody’s latest message arrived in the same bundle of correspondence from the western roads.

The elven representatives had requested healers and information about the restraints. The dwarven town had offered a meeting with its council and asked whether we could escort a party carrying injured children out of the threatened passes.

No one was offering an easy war.

They were beginning to tell us where they needed help.

We sat down with the maps again.

Late that evening, Evelyn brought another report from the infirmary.

Three of the nine rescued people were now free of the repeating command, though their bands remained in place.

The others were resting or waiting for further work. One had declined another attempt that day.

“Tomorrow, if she wants,” Evelyn said.

I nodded.

“And Orven?”

“He spoke to the soldier.”

“How did it go?”

She sat beside Adriana on the couch.

“Awkwardly.”

That sounded believable.

“Then they talked about boots. Apparently neither has ever been issued a pair that fitted properly.”

Adriana smiled.

“Did that help?”

“They asked to eat supper together.”

I let out a breath I had not realized I was holding.

On the table lay Julian’s latest page for the family book.

He had recorded the cloth flowers, Tobin’s revised garden boundary, and Adriana’s request.

The final line was written more carefully than the others.

I am walking with my sisters and Mother at the wedding.

Adriana caught me reading it.

“He asked if he could keep the flower afterward.”

“What did you say?”

“That we have three.”

She lifted the little blossom from the table and placed it against my coat.

“One for each of us.”

Evelyn reached for the second.

Outside, the watch changed beneath the lamps. Somewhere beyond our walls, wagons were being readied for another journey.

I held still while Adriana pinned the flower in place.