Ch. 37: What Silence Knows and Ch. 38: A Leash

Chapter 37: What Silence Knows

The first prisoner looked at the empty chair before he looked at Daravan.

When Allandra entered, the man straightened. His hands remained on the table, joined by a short length of chain.

Daravan put the property sketch between them. Five agents had been captured at First Sun. Two had been brought separately for questioning. Neither knew the other was here.

The clerk waited against the wall. Two guards stood beside the door.

“Your companions took Lady Marielle Caern this morning.”

The prisoner looked at him.

“We found this house after she was moved. Have you entered it?”

His eyes went to the drawing. “No.”

“Where were you lodged before First Sun?”

No answer.

“Who arranged it?”

The man’s attention shifted toward Allandra.

“You may answer the Captain,” she said.

He looked back at the sketch.

Allandra took her seat. “No claim has been made for you. No request for your return.”

“You expected one?”

“I am telling you who can decide your conditions here.”

“In exchange for answers.”

“Information we can verify,” Daravan said. “About preparations you took part in.”

Allandra rested her hands on the table. “Cooperation will be considered when your case is decided. It can also improve how you spend the time until then.”

“Time in the yard?”

“Under guard.”

His eyes moved toward the narrow window.

“I would take that,” he said. “I would like to stand outside.”

Daravan waited.

“But you are asking me to purchase it as though I have a life afterward.”

Allandra’s expression changed slightly. “Your sentence has not been decided.”

“Not by you.”

He lowered his eyes to his hands.

Daravan had expected refusals, bargains, perhaps a demand for guarantees they could not give. He looked at the window, then opened the inventory.

“Who issued your prepared charms?”

“We were given what we needed.”

“By whom?”

Silence.

Allandra drew the sketch toward herself. “What were your orders if the attack failed?”

“I was taken.”

“That was not the question.”

“I had no opportunity to follow them.”

“Then you had instructions.”

His jaw tightened.

“Were you to return to your lodging?” Daravan asked.

“No.”

“Were there fallback locations?”

The prisoner looked up sharply, then lowered his eyes.

Daravan recorded the answer about the lodging. The rest remained uncertain.

“Where were you ordered to go?”

“I did not reach it.”

“Where?”

The man leaned back. “You found one house. Find another.”

Daravan thought of Mael’s cuff on the table. The broken timber beneath the shutter.

I will protect you, then.

“What was the next address?”

Nothing.

“Who would have met you?”

The prisoner’s eyes returned to his face. He had noticed something.

Daravan closed the folder. “Return him to his cell.”

One guard took the man’s arm while the other opened the door.

The prisoner stopped beside Allandra’s chair. “Your engineer will learn what your protection is worth.”

Allandra met his eyes. He held hers for a moment, then looked toward the guard.

“You have told us nothing of her location,” she said. “Do not confuse a threat with information.”

The guard moved him on.

“Wait outside,” Allandra told the clerk. “Have the second prisoner brought when we call.”

The clerk withdrew.

Daravan aligned the inventory with the folder’s edge. It was already straight.

“You ended that at the right point,” Allandra said.

“He knows more.”

“Probably. He also knows what you want him to know.”

Daravan’s fingers stopped. “I told her I would protect her.”

“She had an escort. And Watch support.”

“She was taken.”

“Yes.”

Yesterday, Marielle had explained why four guards could not follow her through a glassmaker’s shop. They had agreed on a better arrangement. He remembered being pleased with it.

“Daravan.”

He looked back.

“If you had been there, you would have fought for her,” Allandra said. “You are here. We need what you can do here.”

“Majesty—”

“No,” she said. “Do not title your way out of this.”

His mouth closed.

“You approved a guarded procurement errand for a councilor with legitimate work. The agents built a blood-shadow marker under a poison wound and waited weeks to use it. Both things are true.”

He said nothing.

“You made a decision with incomplete information.”

“Yes.”

“And now you will make better ones with more.”

His breath moved once. Not quite a laugh. “Is that an order?”

“Yes.”

That reached him.

He drew a breath and opened the folder.

“The first prisoner had instructions not to return to his lodging. We need to compare that with the preparations for the men still free.”

“And establish whether he knew their arrangements.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Allandra glanced toward the door. “I will ask the next one about her orders. You have the property and supply records.”

Daravan nodded.

She stood and rang for the clerk.

The woman entered looking at Daravan.

She saw Allandra and slowed enough for the guard behind her to shorten his stride. Then she continued to the chair and sat without waiting to be told.

Black hair fell forward against her pale cheek as she examined the manacles. A narrow strip of linen showed beneath one cuff.

“Another conversation about your drawings?”

Allandra’s hand stopped on the back of her chair.

Daravan remembered another prisoner answering questions with an insolence that had been easier to resent than understand. Serali’s wrists had bled beneath her restraints. They had continued questioning her.

He drew the inventory toward himself. “We have further questions about your supplies.”

Allandra took her seat.

“Your cooperation can affect your confinement,” she said. “You can remain alone below, or give us something that warrants a change.”

“What change?”

“Time outside the cell. Daylight.”

“And what do you call cooperation?”

“Information you know firsthand,” Daravan said. “That we can check.”

He placed the sketch before her. “Have you entered this building?”

“A poor choice.”

“Whose?”

“Yours, if you think they remain there.”

“They do not.”

She looked at him again.

“Who issued the prepared charms you carried at First Sun?”

“We collected what we were given.”

“At your lodging?”

“No.”

“Where?”

She folded her hands.

“Did you meet the person who prepared them?” Allandra asked.

“Would you tell every soldier who forged his sword?”

“No. I would expect him to know where he collected it.”

The woman’s smile disappeared.

Daravan recorded the refusal.

“Your ordinary supplies. Food. Clothing. Who purchased those?”

“We did.”

“How did you avoid being identified?”

“Did you expect us to carry Lyehiran banners through the market?”

“I expect purchases someone remembers. Which shops?”

“Perhaps you should be asking the merchants.”

“Give me one.”

For readers tracing origins, the author's chapter is on . This reproduction was made without approval and should not replace it.

She said nothing.

Allandra leaned forward. “What were you sent here to do?”

The woman’s eyes met hers, then moved away. “Princess Serali Xuiven belongs in Lyehira.”

Allandra held the prisoner’s gaze. “Did you know Serali Xuiven before King Vulmar named her blood?”

The woman’s eyes hardened.

“Did you know her?” Allandra asked.

No answer.

“Did you see her in the palace?”

No answer.

“Did you know the woman you came to retrieve? Or only the title your king decided she carried?”

The chain between the woman’s wrists tightened. She had gripped it.

“She is Lyehira’s,” the woman said.

Allandra’s voice lowered. “She is her own.”

The woman smiled again, but this one had teeth in it. “Under your roof.”

The blow was well placed. Daravan saw Allandra take a deliberate breath before she moved on. “You were sent to take Lady Serali.”

“We were sent to return her.”

“What provision was made if you failed?”

“We did not intend to fail.”

“You are here.”

Color rose in the woman’s face.

Daravan opened the next page. “Lady Marielle Caern was abducted this morning. Three men removed her by magic while a fourth person obstructed the Watch.”

The woman looked up.

“Do you know of any instructions concerning her?”

“Lady Marielle Caern,” she said. “Four doctorates. Crown engineer. Palace infrastructure, city defenses. Weapons development during the war.”

Daravan kept his hands beside the folder. “You were briefed on the council.”

“We were briefed on the people around the princess.”

“Was Lady Marielle a target?” Allandra asked.

“Our assignment was Princess Serali.”

Daravan noted the answer. “Do you know why your companions took Lady Marielle?”

“I know what she is worth.”

“That is not knowledge of their plans.”

“If she reaches Lyehira, someone will want to know which defenses she improved. Where they are weakest. Whether she can reproduce her work.”

Daravan’s pen stopped.

He had left a word unfinished. He completed it before looking up.

Allandra’s gaze moved briefly to his hand.

“And if she refuses?” the prisoner asked.

Neither answered.

“She will, I imagine. Councilor. Noblewoman. Accustomed to being consulted.” The woman watched Daravan. “That may make the adjustment difficult.”

He set the pen down carefully.

He could see Marielle extending the supplier list another inch, waiting for him to stop objecting and take it. Her certainty that she could explain what was necessary and he would eventually listen.

The prisoner leaned back. “You may not recognize what comes home.”

Daravan pressed his thumb against the folder’s edge.

“Did you receive instructions concerning Lady Marielle?” Allandra asked.

“I do not need instructions to know—”

“Then you are describing what you expect. Tell us what you have been told.”

The prisoner straightened.

Daravan released the folder. “Have you received any message since your capture?”

“Do you not trust your guards?”

Allandra sat back. “If you decide to give us the collection point, tell the officer responsible for your cell.”

The woman looked down at the sketch.

Daravan waited, then gathered the papers. “Return her to her cell.”

She left without a final remark.

Daravan waited for the clerk to finish.

“Separate statements. The answers, the questions refused, and what we supplied ourselves. Neither prisoner has established knowledge of today’s movements.”

The clerk nodded and withdrew.

Allandra remained seated.

“She reminded you of Serali,” Daravan said.

“Yes.”

He looked at the closed door. “The dressing on her wrist.”

“I ordered restraint injuries examined when they were brought in.”

“And the night questioning?”

“Stopped. For these five.”

Daravan remembered the orders he had carried out. The guards changed; Serali remained awake.

“I knew her wrists were bleeding,” he said.

“So did I.”

Allandra’s eyes remained on the door. “I kept thinking that if we made her answer, we could stop being afraid of what she might do.”

“These prisoners helped attack the festival.”

“Yes. I still want answers badly enough to justify more than I should.”

Daravan looked down at the woman’s statement.

You may not recognize what comes home.

“She gave us almost nothing.”

“That does not make the rest impossible,” Allandra said.

“I know.”

Allandra stood, then remained beside her chair. Her grip had drawn the skin pale over her knuckles.

“She was here yesterday,” she said. “Explaining why the materials in my stores were unsuitable. I signed the request.”

Daravan remembered Marielle pointing at the decorative glass. “She was right about them.”

“Yes.” Allandra looked toward the door. “I want to hear her complain about them again.”

“So do I.”

Neither spoke for a moment.

Then Allandra released the chair. “Lia and Serali may have made progress.”

“I will have these findings sent to them.”

“Bring them to the workroom. I am going there.”

At the door, Daravan stopped beside the duty officer.

“Copies of both statements to Commander Harrek. Bring the original First Sun evidence inventories and sealed paper packets to the Queen’s records room. We need the collection arrangements checked against the property inquiries.”

“Yes, Captain.”

He waited for the instruction to be repeated, then followed Allandra upstairs.

Pell opened the workroom door after announcing them.

Serali stood beside Lia’s table, her hands resting on either side of a covered dish. She looked first at Allandra, then at the folder Daravan carried.

“Did they tell you anything?”

“A little about their preparations,” Allandra said. “Nothing that gives us Marielle’s location.”

Serali’s shoulders lowered.

“One spoke as though he had already been condemned,” Allandra continued. “I doubt better conditions will persuade him to talk.”

“By us?”

“He did not appear to think the distinction mattered.”

Serali looked down at the dish.

“There were rumors in Naerith. About the king’s elite agents when they failed him. People stopped asking where they had gone.”

Lia set down her probe.

Allandra glanced at Daravan. “We lost Lyehiran prisoners during the war. Killed by their own agents before they could be questioned further.”

He remembered the reports. Names crossed out before anyone had learned enough to make their capture useful.

“Then they may think these cells are only delaying it,” Serali said.

Allandra nodded slowly.

Daravan shifted the folder beneath his arm. The man had looked toward the window when she offered time in the yard. He had wanted it. Daravan believed that much.

“I will review access to the cells. Staff, visitors, deliveries. Medical attendance.”

“Include anyone moved between posts,” Allandra said. “Quietly.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Serali watched him put the statements on the clear end of the table. “They do not know where she is?”

“They gave us no information about her location,” he said. “They knew who she was before First Sun.”

Lia drew the folder away from the sample dishes. “Then we work from that.”

Daravan looked at the dated labels beneath the glass. Material Lia had kept while Marielle complained about an injury that should have healed. Evidence from two rooms they had reached too late.

“Show us what you have,” Allandra said.

Chapter 38: A Leash

Serali moved the copied circles away from Lia’s dishes before Allandra could draw them closer.

“The papers are safe,” she said. “The samples stay on that side.”

Three covered dishes stood beneath Lia’s lamp. Older wound material, blood from Aurrel’s shop, and residue from the cellar. Dates and places appeared on separate labels, with the names of the people who had collected them.

Marielle would have approved.

Serali turned one of the drawings toward Allandra. “This is the arrangement from the shop. The cloth supplied part of it. The rest formed when the mage worked.”

“And this?” Allandra indicated the second sheet.

“The circle in the cellar. Prepared in advance.”

Daravan leaned closer. “Can either tell us where they went?”

“Possibly. Not yet.”

She disliked how often useful questions produced that answer.

“A prepared circle can belong to a larger arrangement,” she continued. “Several places linked before anyone travels between them. Depending on how it was made, using one can leave traces of the others.”

“A destination?” Allandra asked.

“Evidence of a connection. It may not tell me what building contains the other circle.”

“Then what would make it useful?”

“If we find another site, I may be able to compare them. Or distinguish an arrival point from a circle they used to leave again.”

Daravan studied the drawings. “Without disturbing it.”

“If the Watch can preserve it. The marks, their positions, anything laid into them. A careful copy helps, but it cannot preserve every part of a working.”

“The samples matter too.”

“Yes.”

He made a note.

Serali pointed to a repeated group of marks near the cellar circle’s edge.

“These continue beyond what was needed to move someone within the circle. I am checking whether they belong to another connection or to an older use of this one.”

“Something left from preparation?” Allandra asked.

“Or previous transport. I need the rest of the copying checked before I decide.”

Daravan looked toward Lia. “And the wound?”

Lia lifted the cover from the oldest dish. “I am trying to establish what keeps the binding attached to her. Removing damaged tissue would not necessarily remove the spell. Healing over it did not.”

“Does the binding change?” Allandra asked.

“The material collected before the abduction differs from what was left after transport. We already knew activation mattered. I am examining what changed, and whether it remains changed once the working settles.”

“Without drawing on the connection,” Allandra said.

“Without Lady Serali drawing on it,” Lia confirmed. “The responses we have recorded are enough to begin with.”

Allandra looked at Serali.

“I have the diagrams,” Serali said.

“I can see that.”

“They are proving quite capable of occupying me.”

Allandra’s expression softened briefly.

Daravan closed his notebook. “The scene examiners will have instructions to preserve any further circles intact. I will request fuller copies of the cellar markings.”

“And the cloth from the shop,” Lia said. “Keep it apart from the loose samples.”

“I will confirm how it is being held.”

Allandra remained beside the table for another moment. “If you find anything that narrows the search—”

“We send word,” Serali said.

Allandra nodded. There were people waiting for her decisions elsewhere. Serali could feel how much she disliked leaving this room to make them.

At the door, Daravan stopped to speak to Pell. Allandra’s attention remained on Serali until the guard moved aside.

Then they were gone.

Lia replaced the cover.

Serali sat and pulled the cellar drawing toward her.

Cillian had allowed her to study transport arrays, on paper only.

He had required her to account for every boundary, every condition under which the destination remained stable, and every place a careless alteration might send something other than what she intended.

She had accused him of making the subject deliberately discouraging.

He had said she was welcome.

Blood work had been different.

She remembered a book with black binding, found in a lower archive and concealed beneath another text until she could read alone. Cillian had taken it from her before she got very far.

It is magic, she had argued.

It is a leash, he had answered. And you have enough of those.

She had hated him that afternoon. Now, looking at Marielle’s blood beneath Lia’s lamp, she wished she had read faster.

“Serali?”

She looked up.

“You have been holding that page without reading it.”

“Cillian told me to stay away from blood work.”

“You mentioned that.”

“He was less restrained than usual.”

Lia set down her probe. “Did he tell you why?”

“Enough to frighten me. He did not teach me how to construct it.”

“And you wish he had.”

Serali looked at the dishes. “I wish something I know would become useful more quickly.”

Lia considered her, then turned the lens a little toward the light. “Then stay with the transport arrays. I need you to understand those.”

Serali lowered the page.

Across from her, Lia separated another stained thread from the older dressing. She recorded which portion she had taken before placing it in a clean dish.

No haste. No waiting for an answer to arrive by itself.

Serali returned to the diagram.

The shop’s arrangement had needed to seize someone who was fighting to remain elsewhere. The cellar circle had moved a group already held within its boundary. The same binding had been used for both.

She wrote that beside the copies.

Then she marked the places she needed the scene examiner to check again.

It was work she could do.

For a while, she did it.

A knock sounded at the door.

Lia covered the open dish. “Come in.”

Mara entered carrying a folded sheet and a small packet.

Her eyes found Serali immediately. “A courier brought this.”

“From whom?”

“He said family correspondence. Addressed to me.” Mara’s mouth tightened. “I opened it because I thought there might be an explanation of which cousin I was supposed to possess.”

She held out the letter. “It says Lady Marielle is alive.”

Serali stood.

Lia came around the table. “What is in the packet?”

Mara unfolded the wrapping enough to reveal a stoppered vial.

Blood moved against the glass.

Serali took the paper.

Mara’s name appeared at the top.

Place this directly in Princess Serali Xuiven’s hands.

Beneath it, the writing was neat and unhurried.

Lady Marielle remains alive.

Princess Serali Xuiven will attend the old water gate tomorrow at eight bells. Alone. Unarmed. No guard. No healer. No Watch.

If she fails to attend, or if anyone follows her, Lady Marielle will be harmed.

Below the demand was Marielle’s name.

The first letters were careful. The final stroke had dragged unevenly across the page. Beneath it, another mark began something and stopped.

Serali held the sheet closer.

She had watched Marielle write through irritation, fatigue, and Lia’s instructions to put down the pen. She knew the angle of those letters when the injured arm had begun to tire.

“She signed it,” Serali said.

Lia looked at the page. “Yes.”

“She was there when they wrote it.”

Mara stood very still beside the table.

Lia took the vial from her and placed it in a separate tray. “We examine this on its own.”

Serali watched the blood settle.

They had taken it from Marielle. Held something beneath the wound, or made another one, while she sat somewhere without any of them.

“They knew my name,” Mara said.

Serali looked up.

Mara still held the wrapping. Her fingers had tightened around it, creasing the paper. “They knew where to send it. What to call it so I would open it.”

Serali looked at the address again.

They had not simply sent a demand to the palace. They knew who attended her. Who carried her correspondence. Someone whose familiar presence belonged to the rooms Serali had begun to think of as safe.

“Did the courier threaten you?”

“No. He said it was family correspondence.”

“Did he ask you to meet anyone?”

“No, Serali.”

Serali made herself stop asking. Mara’s face was pale.

“I brought it straight here,” Mara said. “But if I had taken it to your rooms, if you had been alone—”

“You brought it here.”

“Yes. And now we take it to Her Majesty,” Lia said.

Serali lowered her eyes to the demand.

Tomorrow. Eight bells.

They had given her a place she knew and enough time to reach it.

For the first time since the guard entered Allandra’s office, someone had named an action that might stop Marielle being hurt.

She could go.

She knew how to leave the palace without a procession. She could put aside her weapons, walk to the water gate, and be where they wanted her before anyone had to argue over a route.

Allandra would refuse.

Daravan would arrange guards. Harrek would position officers. They would all have reasons, and those reasons would be sensible.

The letter said what would happen if anyone followed.

Serali folded the lower edge beneath her thumb.

She could leave a message for Allandra. Explain that she had understood the risks. That she had not mistaken the demand for a promise of kindness.

“I need to be ready,” she said.

Lia looked at her. “For what?”

“The meeting.”

“We have not discussed a meeting.”

“They have given us a time.”

“Yes.”

Serali turned toward the door.

Lia moved into her path.

“I am going to my rooms.”

“With the letter?” Lia asked.

Serali’s hand tightened on it.

“Your rooms are where they expected me to bring it,” Mara said.

Serali looked at her.

“I do not know how much they know,” Mara continued. “I know they expected me to put this in your hands. I will not help them get you alone with it.”

“I am not asking you to help.”

Mara flinched, but stayed where she was. “I know.”

Lia waited.

“They will hurt her if I do not go,” Serali said.

“They may hurt her if you do.”

“If I do what they ask—”

“They have not promised to release her.”

Serali read the demand again, searching for the words she had supplied herself.

They were not there.

The letter informed her Marielle remained alive and that she would be harmed if Serali did not come. Nothing about allowing her to leave.

“They want me,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Then they could let her go.”

“They could. What in that letter makes you think they intend to?”

Serali wanted Lia to move.

The desire was so sharp that she looked away from the healer’s face.

Behind Lia stood the covered dishes. Old blood. Fresh blood. Material taken from places where Marielle had been hurt and moved before anyone reached her.

Cillian’s voice returned with unwelcome clarity.

It is a leash.

The letter gave her instructions and made someone else’s pain the consequence of refusal.

Her shadow had spread beneath the table. She called it back. Her fingers were shaking badly enough to make the paper stir.

“I am not leaving her there.”

“Neither are we,” Lia said.

Mara stepped closer to the table. “Shall I send for Her Majesty?”

Serali looked at her.

Allandra was somewhere in the palace, reading reports and authorizing searches. Daravan had gone to compare the prisoners’ accounts with the preparation records. Harrek’s officers were still in the streets.

Marielle had broken a shutter open to give them something to find.

Serali had stopped considering any of that once the letter offered her a way to act alone.

She took a breath.

“I want to go,” she said.

“I know,” Lia answered.

“I still think I should.”

“Then bring the letter and make that argument with everyone who is trying to recover her.”

Everyone.

Serali looked toward the door again. “We take it to Allandra.”

Lia stepped aside.

Serali unfolded the corner she had bent and smoothed it carefully. Marielle’s unfinished stroke remained beneath the signature.

“Mara, come with us. They addressed it to you. We need to know exactly what the courier said.”

“Of course.”

Lia secured the vial in a separate container. She asked Pell to have a guard remain with the workroom, then collected her notes.

Serali waited beside the door.

She had not stopped wanting to go to the water gate. Telling Allandra would make leaving alone harder. There would be questions she could not answer and objections she did not want to hear.

She carried the letter out anyway.