Chapter 76: Counted Back In

Chapter 76: Counted Back In

The light in the arch was warm, and then it was gone, and Silas walked out onto the public approach with Perrin’s litter in his hands and evening air in his lungs.

It smelled of trampled bread and lamp oil. After the sanctuary, it was the best thing he had ever smelled.

The stalls had been cleared back to the walls. Staff and medics waited beneath floodlamps around the gate. Somebody shouted, "They’re out! Get the boards!" and the waiting people hurried toward them.

Hands took the litter before Silas had finished stepping clear of the light. A medic with a shaved head looked at Perrin’s thigh, looked at the belt still loosely tied above the dressing, and said, "Who packed this?"

"I did," Silas said.

"Fine. Good." And Perrin was gone, carried at a jog toward a line of waiting stretchers.

Behind Silas, the others came through in their close order. Alden, with Bellamy leaning on his shoulder and Dagna close behind. Hesta, still holding the apprentice’s hand. Doran walked out on his own, took three steps, and sat down hard on the paving as if his legs had only been waiting for permission. Two medics went straight to Bellamy and laid him flat, and a third crouched beside Doran and began unwinding the shirt from his arm.

Silas turned in time to see the exit behind them close. The light thinned to a thread and went out, and there was nothing there but broken paving.

Somebody with a list was calling names.

"Solvain."

"Here," Leander answered.

"Korr. Ashmark. Veyris."

"Here," Dagna said, and Tavi and Caelan answered at the same time.

"Arvane. Thale. Sorne. Cross."

They answered. The staff member’s pen moved down the page. "Rooke. Rooke."

"Here," Silas said.

"Here," said Gareth, a beat later.

The woman with the list counted their heads once more and let out a breath. "All ten," she said, mostly to herself.

Then she looked at what Gareth was carrying.

He had come through last but one, ahead of Isolde, with the knife-grinder in his arms, still wrapped in Silas’s weatherproof coat. He didn’t put him down. He waited until two responders came over with a covered stretcher, and then he lowered Corm onto it himself, carefully, as if the body might still feel the stones. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ

"His name’s Corm," Gareth said. "He sharpened knives at the corner stall. The woman there knew him."

The responder nodded and wrote it down. The sheet went over the coat. Gareth stood looking at it for a moment, then turned and walked toward the medic tents. He passed within an arm’s length of Silas and did not look at him.

Silas watched the stretcher go. He thought about Hesta holding the dead man’s hand in the dark, not knowing how long it had been. Hesta tried to sit up when the covered stretcher passed her. The medic beside her stopped adjusting her sling long enough to let her watch it go.

Silas looked away. He had wanted the exit so badly that he hadn’t thought about what came after it for her. She would have to pass that empty stall tomorrow, or whenever they let her go home.

A medic beckoned him toward the tents. He followed, grateful to have somewhere to put himself.

The medic who saw him was a tired young woman with ink on her cuffs. She asked where he was hurt, and he nearly offered his right forearm out of habit.

"That was aching before we went in," Silas said. "It’s stopped."

"Since when?" the medic asked.

"Near the end."

She examined the arm, then his ribs, and turned his face toward the lamp. "No bruising. No swelling. Your color’s better than mine. Your reserve’s scraped nearly empty, though. Did you take a healing draught inside?"

"No," Silas said. He had decided how much to tell them on the way out. "I received a regeneration Trait seed when the realm cleared. It healed me."

Her eyebrows went up. "Which one?"

"A good one," Silas said. "I’d rather not say more than that out here."

She studied him for a second, then shrugged and wrote a line on her slate about a regeneration-type Trait, recently consumed. "Fair enough. Your body’s fine. Your mana isn’t. Eat something and sleep. Don’t use your Talent tonight unless the building’s on fire."

"Wasn’t planning to," Silas said.

On the next bench, Maelin was having her elbow cleaned and pretending it didn’t sting. Alden had his boot off and his calf unwrapped while a medic peered at the bite and said, "Shallow, but you’ve been walking on it. Stop that." Across the tent, Gareth sat with his sleeve rolled up while someone redressed the claw score, staring straight ahead.

The debrief was short, because Voss had clearly decided it would be.

She stood at a folding table with the Association examiner beside her and a staff recorder writing as they talked. Leander gave the account in order, clearly and without decoration. The ambush in the courtyard. The survivor under the stair. The descent. Isolde’s kill on the ramp. The holding room. The guardian.

"Thale killed the guardian alone," Leander said. "Before any of us could strike."

Voss looked at Elyra. Elyra, sitting on an upturned crate and picking dust out from under her nails, said, "It was in the way."

The examiner made a note that seemed longer than four words deserved.

"Korr held the line at every stage," Leander went on. "Ashmark and Veyris covered the flanks and the high ground. Cross and Gareth Rooke cleared the grille and moved the injured. Sorne got inside the holding room through the shadows and kept the captives calm. Rooke’s warning in the courtyard stopped us walking into the gallery drop, and his dart stopped a hunter that would have taken Veyris from behind. He held the slab up with Remote Grasp while we worked at the grille."

The recorder glanced up to confirm which Rooke Leander meant, and Silas gave his first name. Beside him, Alden shifted his weight off his injured leg. Voss noticed and waved him toward an empty crate before continuing.

Silas had sat through meetings in his old life that could have ended an hour earlier. For once, the person running this one seemed as eager to finish as he was. He listened for anything that needed correcting, but Leander was careful. Nobody had to fight for credit.

When the recorder caught up, Voss put down her pen.

"Two seeds?" she asked.

"One to Arvane, one to Thale," Leander said. "Arvane still has hers. Thale gave hers to Rooke, and he took it there."

Every head at the table turned toward Silas.

"A regeneration Trait," Silas said. "The medic has checked me."

Voss looked at him for a long moment. Then she looked at Elyra, who smiled pleasantly back, and seemed to decide that this was not the evening for that conversation.

"Thank you," Voss said, to all ten of them. "You went in when nobody could order you to, and you brought five people home. The academy won’t forget that. Now go and rest. Anyone who needs a medic tonight, call one."

They lingered after being dismissed, checking bags and looking back toward the treatment tents. Tavi left first, at a run that seemed to be mostly habit. Isolde went without speaking to anyone. Dagna clapped Leander on the shoulder hard enough to make him wince.

Silas had reached the path back toward the dormitories when Elyra fell into step beside him.

"You still haven’t told me about Lydia," Elyra said.

He kept walking. "I answered you."

"You said you were lucky." Elyra glanced at him, plainly unconvinced. "You can give me the interesting answer later."

"Later?" he asked before he could stop himself.

"You’re tired." She said it as if he had missed something obvious. "Go home, Silas. I’m patient."

"Thank you," Silas said. "For the seed. And back there."

She smiled at him, and he couldn’t quite return it. He was grateful. He also wanted to reach his room before she decided being tired wasn’t a good enough reason to leave. Fortunately, Elyra turned toward another path.

She waved over her shoulder without turning round.

Patient, Silas thought, watching her copper hair disappear into the crowd. Fantastic. The most dangerous girl in the year is patient.

His communicator vibrated as the missed messages finally caught up with him. Mara’s name filled the screen.

He stopped beside a lamp and typed with both hands.

I’m safe. The medics have checked me. Going to my room now. I’ll call as soon as I’m there.

Her reply arrived before he put it away.

Please do.

Silas picked up his pace.