Chapter 57: Those Who Fled

The painter asked Ignatius to remain still.

Ignatius took this as encouragement to leave.

He crossed the nursery carpet in six determined steps, lost his balance against Lexander’s knee, and looked back at the painter with obvious satisfaction.

Seraphina applauded.

The painter lowered her brush.

Io covered her mouth.

“I did warn you.”

“Your Majesty, I have painted hunting dogs.”

“Were they cooperative?”

“No.”

“Then you have relevant experience.”

The portrait had been intended as a quiet morning’s work.

By the end of the first hour, the painter had sketched two empty chairs, one abandoned shoe, and a remarkably accurate likeness of Shadow.

The cat had not been invited to participate.

She was the only subject taking the task seriously.

Lexander lifted Ignatius onto his lap.

“Try this.”

Seraphina immediately demanded to be lifted too.

Io gathered her up and sat beside him.

The children settled.

For perhaps eight breaths, the room became exactly what the painter needed.

Then Atreyu appeared at the door.

Lexander knew before he spoke.

Another report.

Another road.

Another group of people who no longer had somewhere to go home to.

“How many?” he asked.

“Two hundred and nineteen in the first group. More behind them.”

Io’s hand tightened against Seraphina’s back.

“Can we receive them?”

“Yes,” Atreyu said. “The eastern hall is ready. I wanted you to know before the gate opens.”

Lexander nodded.

“Tell the kitchens.”

“Already done.”

The painter looked down at her unfinished work.

Io glanced at the page.

“Keep that.”

“Your Majesty?”

The sketch held both children in their parents’ arms.

Lexander had turned toward the door. Io was looking at him.

Neither was smiling.

“It’s part of the year too,” she said.

The first families arrived before noon.

They came through the transit gate carrying bundles whose shapes told their own stories.

Blankets wrapped around cooking pots.

A tool chest held together with rope.

A little girl carrying a birdcage with no bird inside.

Concordia’s officers checked names against the lists sent from Havenreach. Healers stood near the receiving hall, and warm food waited beyond them.

There were questions.

There was order.

Nobody was hurried past a missing child.

Lexander stood beside the gate captain while a woman tried to explain that her husband had been sent with a later group.

“His name?” the captain asked.

She gave it.

Then gave it again, as though repetition might keep it from being lost.

A clerk wrote it down and sent the inquiry through to Greykeep.

The woman watched him go.

“I can wait here.”

“You can sit inside,” Lexander said. “We’ll bring the answer to you.”

Her eyes moved to his coat.

Then his face.

She began to bow.

He stopped her gently.

“There’s soup getting cold.”

She looked beyond him toward the hall.

Only then did she seem to notice the smell.

By afternoon, the council chamber contained two maps of Havenreach, one of Concordia, and a list of supplies that had already been amended four times.

The new construction golems were working across Havenreach.

Five hundred had been shaped.

Two had required correction after a misunderstanding involving an occupied bathhouse.

Loki read that portion of the report twice.

“I regret missing it.”

“The bathers don’t,” Lexander said.

Across the table, Concordia’s Castellan studied the deployment records.

“Additional supervision remains necessary.”

“For the golems?”

“For several of the people directing them.”

Atreyu made a sound that might have been a cough.

The work itself was no joke.

Kingdoms were burning.

Families who had expected to die in the homes where they had been born were arriving at Greykeep with nothing more than whatever they could carry.

Havenreach could build quickly.

It could not build infinitely.

Concordia had completed houses standing empty while their owners waited for relatives to arrive. It had workshops with room for more hands, public halls that could shelter families, and farms within reach that had not yet been stripped by war.

The decisions took the rest of the afternoon.

Food went first.

Then blankets, cooking vessels, medicines, and teams of carpenters who volunteered to cross for a fortnight.

Stonemasons followed.

Several brought apprentices.

The treasury would pay their wages. Havenreach would not be asked to negotiate each roof beam while its receiving halls filled.

“And those who stay here?” Io asked.

“Family rooms where possible,” Atreyu said. “We’re avoiding the separation of households.”

“Work?”

“Offered after they’ve rested.”

“Good.”

A councilor shifted in his seat.

“There are people who will argue that this is becoming an obligation without limit.”

Lexander looked at him.

“It has limits. Food, beds, clean water, people to help. That is why we’re counting them.”

“And if more come than we can house?”

“Then we send an honest number to our allies and arrange the next place before the wagons arrive.”

The councilor glanced at the map.

He did not object again.

Io crossed to Greykeep the following morning.

Evelyn met her outside the preserved district.

The gold around her eyes remained even in the gray daylight.

Io had seen the change before, but she still found herself looking.

Evelyn noticed.

“What?”

“You seem brighter.”

“I slept.”

“That cannot be the entire explanation.”

“No. But I’m giving it some credit.”

Adriana stood beside her, a folded plan beneath one arm. Silver touched her irises as a group of healers passed toward the old hospice.

Her engagement ring caught the light when she adjusted the papers.

Io embraced Evelyn, then Adriana.

“How is Cassia?”

“Planning an escape from bed,” Adriana said.

“Successfully?”

“Her boots have been confiscated.”

“An inspired measure.”

“Mirelle has experience.”

They walked together toward the Open Hearth.

The recovered kitchen was busy.

People sat at long tables, some eating, some simply warming their hands around cups. Near the entrance hung the two rules that had become the room’s promise.

Everyone eats.

Work is not the price.

Io paused beneath them.

Then she asked permission to have the same words painted in Concordia’s receiving hall.

Amaya answered before anyone else could.

“Yes.”

Uriah was carrying stone.

Lexander found him beneath the preserved district with his sleeves rolled back and pale dust caught in his hair.

Eleanor stood nearby, directing the placement of a foundation block.

“Another finger’s width.”

Uriah moved it.

“Too far.”

He moved it back.

Lexander waited until Eleanor was satisfied.

Then he said, “I hear you’ve been promoted.”

Uriah straightened.

“To stone carrier.”

“Important stone,” Eleanor said.

“Thank you,” Uriah replied.

She was already looking at the next block.

Seventeen separate supports were being prepared.

One for each person held beyond the frost door.

Lexander had read the account that morning.

Seventeen sleepers linked together.

Memories of winter defeats forced into them until waking could release those remembered disasters as living workings.

Lethan, the seventh, had answered.

He wanted to leave.

He did not want them to wake him yet.

That distinction had stayed with Lexander.

He looked toward the closed passage.

“Othellos built it to learn how you would try to free them.”

Uriah nodded.

“Every time I used winter near it, it recognized me more clearly.”

“Then you carry stone.”

“For now.”

Lexander heard what lay beneath the answer.

The frustration.

The shame that sometimes attached itself to being powerful and still unable to do the thing in front of you.

“Thor keeps telling me where to put my feet,” he said.

Uriah looked at him.

“During training?”

“Usually. Once during a council meeting.”

“That sounds less helpful.”

“She thought I might kick a minister.”

“Were you going to?”

“I hadn’t ruled it out.”

Uriah laughed.

It faded quickly, but the strain in his shoulders eased.

Lexander stepped beside the next block.

“Where does this one go?”

“You don’t have to—”

“I’ve brought craftsmen. Food. A list of things our physicians can supply.”

He set his hands against the stone.

“For the next ten minutes, I can also help push.”

Eleanor pointed.

“Both of you. Carefully.”

They obeyed.

Inside the Open Hearth, Evelyn explained what the healers needed.

Separate bedding.

Warm rooms that could be adjusted for each patient.

Attendants prepared to wait.

Lisbeth had sent notes and offered time. Soren and Ilyen were already working with Mirelle and the Living Saint on the medical preparations.

Elara remained beyond their reach, appearing when she could through the silver basin.

Nobody spoke as though she had been freed.

Nobody confused the returned Living Saint, working among them, with the imprisoned woman still carrying a burden they did not yet know how to remove.

Io listened.

Then she looked at Evelyn.

“And you?”

Evelyn blinked.

“What do you mean?”

“What do you need?”

Adriana answered.

“For someone else to ask that often enough.”

Evelyn gave her a look.

Adriana held it.

“I’ve become difficult.”

“You were difficult before.”

“Then I’m improving.”

Io smiled.

She was glad of the easy affection between them. Glad, too, that Evelyn could lean against someone without first explaining why.

“The twins’ birthday is in three days,” Io said.

Evelyn’s expression changed.

“Oh.”

“You haven’t forgotten. You have seventeen patients waiting behind a door and half the world coming through your gates.”

“I wanted to come early.”

“Come when you can. Both of you. Uriah too.”

Adriana glanced toward the passage.

“We will.”

“And Mirelle, if she can leave the infirmary. Cassia’s invitation includes permission to remain in a chair.”

“That may ruin it for her.”

“Then don’t tell her until she arrives.”

The birthday clothes required one final alteration.

Helena stood in Concordia’s nursery with pins held between her lips, inspecting Ignatius’s sleeve.

He inspected her pins.

“No,” she told him.

He smiled.

“No,” she repeated.

He turned toward Lexander.

His father shook his head.

“I cannot help you against your grandmother’s tailoring.”

Helena looked up.

“I’m not his grandmother.”

From the chair by the window, Lisbeth said, “You’re altering his sleeves while scolding his father. The distinction is becoming technical.”

Io laughed.

Helena removed the pins from her mouth.

“I see the company you keep has not improved.”

“Not at all.”

Seraphina sat on the carpet, looking at her new shoes.

She could remove them.

Putting them back on remained an unresolved challenge.

One shoe vanished beneath the chair.

She stared at the gap.

Lexander saw her fingers begin to glow.

“Seraphina.”

She looked at him.

He held out his hand.

“Show me.”

For a moment, she hesitated.

Then she pointed.

He knelt, retrieved the shoe, and placed it in her lap.

The glow faded.

Io had gone still.

Lexander kept his voice ordinary.

“There it is.”

Seraphina hugged the shoe against herself.

“Papa.”

He smiled.

Across the room, Io let out a breath.

They would record it later: she had stopped.

For now, they let it be a father finding a shoe.

The portrait was finished the day before the birthday.

The painter had abandoned all hope of symmetrical composition.

Ignatius stood between Lexander’s knees, one hand gripping his father’s finger.

Seraphina leaned against Io, barefoot, reaching toward her brother.

Io’s sleeve was wrinkled.

Lexander’s collar was slightly crooked.

Neither child looked at the painter.

They looked at each other.

When the cloth was lifted from the frame, Io did not speak.

Lexander moved closer.

The likeness was good.

Better than good.

It held the weight of Ignatius’s body as he trusted his father to keep him upright. It held the quiet smile Io wore when she was watching the children instead of the room around them.

Seraphina’s hand was open.

There was no flame painted around it.

No gold around Ignatius.

No crowns.

“Is it acceptable?” the painter asked.

Io reached for Lexander’s hand.

“Yes,” she said.

Her voice barely carried.

“It is.”

On the morning of their first birthday, both children woke before dawn.

Lexander considered this an ungrateful way to commemorate a year of devoted care.

Io reminded him that they had also kept them awake on the day they were born.

“Consistency,” he murmured.

Ignatius stood in his cot, holding the rail.

Seraphina was sitting in hers with her blanket over her head.

“Where’s my daughter?” Io asked.

The blanket moved.

Lexander looked gravely around the room.

“Gone. We should inform the guards.”

A small laugh came from beneath the cloth.

Io pulled it back.

“There you are.”

Seraphina reached for her.

Ignatius began bouncing against the rail.

They lifted them together.

Outside, the first light touched Concordia’s roofs.

A year earlier, Lexander had entered a bloodied room and found his family alive.

For a long time afterward, every happy moment had carried the shape of what might have happened.

That morning, holding his son, he let the memory come.

Then he looked at Ignatius’s face.

“One,” he whispered.

Ignatius touched his nose.

“Yes. That too.”

The city celebrated without requiring the children to sit beneath everyone’s attention.

Extra bread went to the receiving halls.

The kitchens prepared sweet buns for the schoolchildren and families in the eastern residences.

Music played in the central square.

The banners were modest compared with the union ceremony.

Io had been firm about that.

Money that could become blankets did not need to become a second layer of decorative silk.

The private gathering took place after the twins’ morning rest.

Fulla checked the room.

Atreyu checked the guards.

The Castellan checked the building.

Loki checked the cakes.

“For poison,” he said.

“You’ve eaten half a slice,” Lisbeth replied.

“A thorough examination.”

Thor arrived with the padded hammer.

Io looked at it.

Thor stopped.

“It has passed inspection.”

“Whose?”

“Mine.”

“No.”

Bruni appeared behind her carrying two wooden animals large enough that neither child could swallow them and smooth enough to satisfy Fulla’s most suspicious inspection.

A horse for Ignatius.

A dragon for Seraphina.

Thor looked wounded by the immediate approval they received.

Uriah came through the gate with Evelyn and Adriana shortly before noon.

Carol and Garrick accompanied them, dressed for the occasion and carrying gifts they had been persuaded not to open.

Mirelle followed.

Cassia remained in Greykeep, under orders to rest, but sent a parcel and a note insisting that she had chosen not to attend because first birthdays were beneath her dignity.

Julian brought it.

Nobody believed the note.

Evelyn embraced Io carefully so neither would crush the children between them.

“Happy birthday to them.”

Then, more quietly, “And well done to you.”

Io closed her eyes for a moment.

“Thank you.”

Adriana knelt to greet Seraphina.

Her silver light remained faint.

“May I see your dragon?”

Seraphina considered.

Then held it out.

For perhaps a second.

“That is a fine dragon,” Adriana said before the offer expired.

Uriah had already been recruited to retrieve Ignatius’s horse from beneath a table.

Lexander watched him emerge.

“Welcome to the celebration.”

“An honor.”

“There will be more furniture to crawl under later.”

“I should have worn armor.”

“Thor tried that once. She got stuck.”

From across the room came an offended denial.

It was too quick to be convincing.

The gifts were opened slowly.

Lysandra had brought a cloth book whose pictures she and her friends had helped stitch.

There were animals, flowers, a little house, and a dragon that Aurethar insisted was badly proportioned.

“You’re holding it upside down,” Loki told him.

Aurethar, occupying the open garden doorway, gave him a long look.

Carol presented Seraphina with a soft doll.

“This yours.”

Seraphina took it.

Carol waited.

Then pointed at herself.

“Mine home.”

Evelyn smiled.

“That’s right. This one stays with Seraphina.”

Garrick gave Ignatius a wooden cart.

He demonstrated the wheels.

Then demonstrated them again.

Ignatius pushed it away.

Garrick retrieved it with the patient determination of a teacher whose student had misunderstood the purpose of education.

No power moved.

No old force answered the giving.

They had all been reminded.

Today, the presents could simply be presents.

There were two cakes.

One candle on each.

Thor watched Seraphina’s candle with the concentration she usually reserved for hostile armies.

Io sat with her daughter while Lexander held Ignatius beside her.

Everyone sang.

Some well.

Loki chose confidence over accuracy.

At the end, Io leaned close.

“Blow.”

Seraphina stared at the candle.

Its flame bent toward her.

The room quieted a little too quickly.

Io touched her daughter’s hand.

“With me.”

She blew gently.

The candle went out.

Seraphina looked at the smoke.

Then at Io.

“More.”

Laughter broke the tension.

Ignatius reached for his own candle and was intercepted by Lexander.

They blew it out together.

Fulla removed both candles.

The cakes survived.

For approximately another minute.

Then Seraphina discovered icing.

Ignatius discovered that cake could be squeezed between his fingers.

Thor declared the whole event a tactical success.

Uriah and Lexander found themselves standing near the garden while the children ate.

Beyond the wall, the city bells rang the hour.

“How is Lethan?” Lexander asked.

“Still waiting.”

“And the supports?”

“Being built.”

Uriah looked down at the stone dust still caught beside one fingernail.

“I used to think waiting meant I hadn’t done enough.”

Lexander glanced toward the room.

Evelyn and Adriana sat close together. Mirelle was helping Garrick cut a piece of cake. Carol had decided the cloth book required everyone’s attention.

Io held a napkin beneath Seraphina’s chin and laughed when it proved entirely inadequate.

“What does it mean now?” Lexander asked.

“That sometimes someone else gets to decide the pace.”

They stood quietly.

Then Uriah said, “I almost didn’t come.”

“I know.”

“There’s so much—”

“I know.”

Lexander looked at his friend.

“I’m glad you did.”

Uriah nodded.

Inside, Ignatius dropped his spoon.

Three adults reached for it.

Loki arrived first and appeared unbearably pleased with himself.

The afternoon did not last long.

That had been part of the plan.

Visitors left before the children grew miserable. The music continued in the square. The receiving halls served supper.

At the gatehouse, a relief wagon waited while the royal visitors returned to Greykeep.

It carried bedding, dressed stone fittings, and cloth requested for the new preservation chambers.

Lisbeth’s medical notes traveled in a sealed case.

Mirelle took charge of them.

Evelyn kissed Io’s cheek.

“Come when you can.”

“I will.”

Adriana lifted a hand in farewell.

Carol waved her whole arm.

Garrick announced that Ignatius had learned the cart.

Nobody disputed it.

Then the gate cleared.

Lexander watched the relief wagon pass after them.

A birthday had happened.

The work had continued.

For once, neither had required the other to disappear.

That evening, the palace became quiet early.

Seraphina fell asleep against Io before her dress was fully unfastened.

Ignatius resisted until Lexander carried him through the room three times.

On the fourth circuit, his head settled.

Lexander stopped beside the new portrait.

The painted children were already a little smaller than the ones they held.

He looked at Io.

She had noticed too.

For a moment, sadness passed between them.

Then Seraphina sighed in her sleep.

Io smiled.

“One year.”

Lexander nodded.

“One year.”

They laid the children down.

Fulla had placed the birthday clothes in a basket to be cleaned before Io stored them in Eski.

The little wooden dragon stood beside the cloth book.

Ignatius’s cart waited on the carpet.

Beyond the nursery, the Castellan moved through its nightly checks. Farther away, wagons crossed into Havenreach, where seventeen new supports were being prepared for people who had waited too long.

Lexander lowered the lamp.

Tomorrow there would be another report.

More arrivals.

More work for both cities.

Tonight, their children had reached their first birthday.

He took Io’s hand, and they stood beside the cots until neither felt ready to leave and both decided they did not have to.