Ch. 45: Twenty-One Plans and Ch. 46: No Further Negotiations

Chapter 45: Twenty-One Plans

Serali tucked the false box more securely beneath her cloak.

Beside her, Daravan noticed. “Do not grip it so tightly.”

“I am carrying a fake version of Her Majesty’s private grief into a Lyehiran trap.”

“Yes.”

“I feel some tension is appropriate.”

“You are making your left hand less available.”

Serali loosened her fingers. “I dislike when you are correct.”

“So I have gathered.”

They passed beneath a warehouse arch.

The tide was low.

Beyond the arch, black stone steps descended between walls slick with algae. The stair turned beneath the neighboring building before reaching the water.

It was not a good meeting place. Daravan had explained that at length.

Too many hard angles. Too much exposed stair. Old walls capable of hiding one person while obstructing everyone coming to help them.

No clean position for archers.

No clean retreat if Serali was cut off below.

Pell stopped beside the warehouse entrance. Orran crossed to the opposite side, where he could watch the narrow street behind them.

Harrek’s officers waited beyond the adjoining buildings, covering the routes reconnaissance had identified. Bringing them closer would mean putting them in sight of anyone watching the stair.

Serali could not see them, but she knew where they were supposed to be.

Serali had felt Allandra hating the arrangement all the way out of the palace. Distance had not diminished the feeling.

Daravan walked on her right, sword hidden beneath his coat. His eyes remained bloodshot from the charmed sand, though he had picked out every doorway along the approach without hesitation.

Serali glanced at him. “Lia said not to strain your eyes.”

“She said several things.”

“She called you an idiot.”

“She said that several times.”

“With unusual specificity.”

“She takes pride in her work.”

Serali almost smiled.

Daravan paused beneath the arch, looking toward the first landing. He had already checked it. He checked again.

No Marielle.

Serali had known there would be no Marielle waiting politely beside the water. She checked anyway.

Daravan glanced at her. “Breathe.”

“I am.”

“Not strategically.”

His eyes were red, his face exhausted, and he was still somehow unbearable.

Serali looked toward the stair. “How many plans do you have?”

“Approximately twenty.”

“You do not know the exact number?”

“I could count them.”

Serali turned toward him fully. “You are improvising.”

“I am preparing to respond to several contingencies.”

“That is improvising with better posture.”

His mouth almost moved. Then his gaze returned to the stair. “Sometimes a fixed plan is useful only until the first variable refuses to cooperate.”

Serali blinked. “You said that without bleeding.”

“This is not my first emergency.”

“I thought your emergencies were generally arranged into columns.”

“They are, whenever possible.”

“And when they are not?”

“Then one pays attention.”

She considered that. “There is one contingency we have not agreed on.”

Daravan looked at her.

“If there is fighting,” Serali said, “I am going to fight this time.”

“If there is fighting, we withdraw.”

“If we can.”

His expression tightened.

“I heard the part about there being no clean retreat,” she continued. “You explained it very thoroughly.”

“They want you close enough to take.”

“Then we should both object when they try.”

“Lady Serali.”

There it was. The voice he used when he wanted a conversation to become an instruction.

She folded her free hand over the box. “You cannot counter every spell with a sword.”

“You are their objective.”

“And you need a seeing-eye mage if you are going to fight anyone.”

Daravan stared at her. “My sight is adequate.”

“Your sight was adequate when you followed that woman yesterday. Then she changed it.”

His jaw shifted.

“I can see magic you cannot,” Serali said more quietly. “I can stop some of it before it reaches you. I can keep a route open. That is useful even if you dislike the person doing it being me.”

Daravan looked back at the stair.

“No pursuing them alone,” he said at last.

“Agreed.”

“No closing with a blade because you believe you can stop it.”

“I prefer distance.”

“And if I order you to retreat, you retreat.”

Serali hesitated.

Daravan saw. “That is the condition.”

“You do not order it simply because I have started fighting.”

“I order it because our position has become untenable.”

She studied him.

He waited.

“Then yes,” she said. “I retreat when you order it.”

“Even if you think you can do more.”

That was less comfortable. “Yes, Captain.”

Daravan nodded once. “You may engage. Stay where we can support each other.”

Serali let out a breath she had been holding badly. “Strategic enough?”

“An improvement.”

They moved beyond the arch.

“Paying attention sounds like something Marielle would recommend,” Serali said.

Daravan’s expression did not change.

Something else did.

Small. Difficult to name.

Serali regretted the sentence, though she had meant nothing unkind by it.

Daravan answered evenly. “Lady Marielle would recommend it with more complaints about drainage.”

“Yes.”

“She would also point out that the third landing is cracked beneath the outer edge.”

Serali looked down. Her boot was half an inch from the crack.

She moved. “Thank you.”

“Twenty-one.”

“What?”

“Plans.”

Despite everything, a laugh almost escaped her.

Then a voice came from below. “Princess Serali Xuiven.”

The title killed it. A claim disguised as courtesy.

Serali’s shadow tightened beneath her cloak.

Three figures waited on the lower landing.

The limping woman stood to the left, a dark scarf covering her hair. A scrape marked her cheek. Her attention went to Daravan before it settled on Serali.

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The leader stood in the center.

Dark hair. Narrow face. Scar beneath one eye.

She remembered him advancing on her in the square. The descriptions they had gathered afterward merely confirmed the recognition.

A slighter man stood behind them. One hand rested against the wall. The other remained inside his coat.

Likely the mage.

Daravan stopped beside her, leaving the turn of the stair between them and Pell’s position above.

The leader looked toward him. “Captain. This instruction also seems to have been difficult for you.”

Daravan said, “Most criminal instructions are.”

The woman smiled.

Her eyes stayed on him a fraction too long.

Serali disliked her intensely.

The leader looked at the box. “You brought it.”

“I brought what you asked for.”

“Unopened?”

“Yes.”

“Place it on the stair. Then walk down alone.”

“No,” Daravan said.

The leader looked at him. “You are not invited into this exchange.”

“I am not here socially.”

The woman’s smile widened.

“Where is Marielle?” Serali asked.

“Alive.”

“That answers a different question.”

A flicker in the woman’s expression.

The leader’s did not change. “Alive is the only answer you have earned.”

Daravan’s hand remained nowhere near his sword.

The leader continued. “Put the box down. Step away from the captain. We inspect it. If it is what was requested, you receive further instruction.”

“No,” Serali said.

This time the woman’s attention snapped toward her.

The leader tilted his head. “No?”

“You have given instructions twice. Neither included returning her.”

“You bargain poorly for Lady Marielle’s comfort.”

Serali’s shadow stirred.

Daravan spoke before she could do anything satisfying with it. “Lady Marielle’s comfort has not influenced your conduct so far.”

“Her condition can worsen.”

“You have demonstrated that.”

The leader watched him.

Daravan continued. “You have also taken care to demonstrate that she remains alive.”

“For the princess.”

“For leverage. Destroying it does not improve your position.”

Serali kept her eyes on the man beneath the landing’s wall.

His hidden hand moved.

Not far.

“You failed to take Lady Serali at First Sun,” Daravan said. “You failed to isolate her at the water gate yesterday. You exposed two operatives and spent prepared charms escaping.”

The woman stopped smiling.

“Now you have an engineer whose value extends beyond this meeting. I would consider that before reducing your alternatives further.”

Serali understood what he was doing.

Testing where the pressure mattered.

Not promising that they would stop hurting Marielle because the argument was sound.

The leader said nothing.

The slighter man looked toward him.

There.

A response.

Daravan noticed too. “I doubt King Vulmar will reward returning without your target, or the engineer you have taken in her stead.”

The leader’s voice cooled. “You speak confidently about the preferences of a king you have never met.”

“I have met men who punish failure.”

Something in his tone made Serali look at him.

Then the woman shifted her weight.

Serali returned her attention to the landing.

The woman’s right hand hung empty beside her coat now.

Her left was no longer visible.

“You believe you can frighten us into returning her,” the leader said.

“I believe we should discuss terms that actually include her return,” Daravan answered.

“Then send the captain away,” the woman told Serali. “We can discuss whatever you like.”

Serali looked at her. “No.”

“You seem very attached to that answer.”

“You keep asking the same question.”

The leader extended one hand. “The box.”

Serali held it where it was.

“Evidence that Marielle can be returned,” she said. “Then we discuss it.”

“You have heard her.”

“Yesterday.”

The word settled between them.

The slighter man straightened. As his hand emerged from his coat, his sleeve drew back, exposing a cord wound around his wrist. He caught a knot between his fingers.

Pressure caught at Serali’s shadow.

She knew that sensation. The blood beneath Lia’s glass had answered her in the same way.

“Captain,” she said quietly.

Daravan’s eyes stayed on the leader. “I see him.”

“He is casting.”

The woman moved away from the wall, opening space between herself and the leader.

Room to come up the stair.

Room to come at them separately.

Daravan’s hand slipped beneath his coat.

Serali shifted the box into the crook of her arm and freed her fingers.

Stay where we can support each other.

Shadow gathered beneath her boots.

She stayed beside him.

Chapter 46: No Further Negotiations

The mage opened his hand.

Green-black shadow ran across the landing and climbed the stair.

Daravan whistled.

One sharp note. An answer came from above.

Then the limping woman struck.

She came for Serali, not Daravan. Knife low. Fast despite the damaged leg.

Daravan intercepted her. His sword cleared its sheath with a clean metallic flash and caught her blade before it reached Serali’s ribs.

“Still seeing, Captain?” she asked.

“Enough.”

“Disappointing.”

The leader came up the other side.

Serali stepped away from the cracked landing and tore shadow from beneath the stair.

It rose like black water.

His dagger cut through it.

The blade hissed.

Warded.

Daravan had warned her. Warnings were different from watching steel divide her magic as though it were cloth.

Serali moved sideways instead of trying the same defense again.

The dagger struck stone where her shoulder had been.

Behind him, the shadow continued climbing. Narrow lines spread across the steps, connecting at their edges.

One reached her boot.

His fingers tightened around the cord. The pressure sharpened, horribly familiar, and the strand at her boot held fast.

The blood had drawn her magic toward something. He was using that same connection to hold her here.

Serali tore the strand loose. “The steps,” she warned.

Daravan shifted clear of the nearest line without looking down.

Above them, Pell swore. A green-black strand had stretched across the turn, barring the supporting guards from the landing.

Serali could hear boots gathering behind it.

The mage was chanting.

The false box was still under her arm.

Serali threw it.

He flinched.

The box struck his shoulder, bounced onto the stair, and split at the clasp. Folded paper slid across wet stone. The weight inside struck a step with a hard little sound.

His chant broke.

The line above them flickered.

The leader glanced down. “False.”

Daravan, fighting the woman, said, “Obviously.”

Under other circumstances Serali would have enjoyed that.

The leader drove forward again.

She caught his wrist with a loop of shadow. He twisted the dagger against it, severing the loop, but the moment was enough to get her past his reach.

Not far past.

The wall stopped her.

She hated the stair.

Marielle would have hated it more precisely.

“Your engineer asked to speak,” the woman said to Daravan.

Serali heard the change in his sword before she saw it.

A harder strike. Metal ringing against the woman’s blade.

“You heard that part?” she continued. “We thought you would.”

Daravan drove her back a step. “Move away from her.”

The woman smiled. “Which her?”

The leader’s eyes moved toward them.

Only briefly.

Serali saw it because his dagger stopped moving for the same instant.

Then he came at her again.

She wrapped shadow around her forearm and turned the strike outward. The warded edge tore through the outer layer; force cracked against the shield beneath it.

Pain ran to her elbow.

The blade passed her skin.

Missed.

She did not wait to see whether he could correct it.

Shadow struck his knees. He staggered, caught the wall, and kept his feet.

Behind him, the mage lifted his hand again.

Serali dragged shadow across the lines reaching toward her.

They resisted. She could feel his magic holding them in place. Could feel where it pressed against hers.

“Does she know?” the woman asked.

Daravan caught her wrist. She twisted before he could lock it.

“How personally you take your duties?”

He stepped after her.

One step too far from Serali.

The leader saw that too. “Captain,” he said. “She remains with people who will follow my instructions.”

Daravan’s attention shifted.

The woman’s knife crossed his side.

He twisted, but not quickly enough to avoid it completely. Cloth tore. A dark line spread beneath his coat.

Serali’s stomach dropped.

“Focus,” the woman said.

Daravan punched her in the throat.

She staggered backward, choking.

He returned to Serali’s side. “I am here,” he said.

She held the mage’s shadows away from their feet and tried not to look at the blood.

The leader looked from Daravan to the woman.

She was still coughing, but her mouth curved when she met his eyes.

He looked back at Daravan.

This time he addressed both him and Serali. “What happened yesterday need not be the worst of it. Lady Marielle can still be taught what your resistance costs.”

Serali’s shadow faltered.

The mage’s shadow advanced.

Daravan’s shoulder touched hers. “The spell.”

She dragged her attention back.

“You do not have to make her suffer,” she said.

“Then stop giving me reasons.”

The leader’s dagger rose.

Daravan met it with his sword.

Metal shrieked.

Serali took the opening he gave her and drove shadow through the narrowing gap between the leader and the wall.

It struck the mage’s casting hand.

He cried out.

The line across the upper stair broke.

Pell came through it with Orran behind him.

The woman moved to intercept them, forcing Pell to turn his blade before he could reach the landing. Orran took the outer edge, blocking her attempt to climb past.

For the first time, the agents had more than two people to watch.

The mage backed toward the low arch beside the water.

Serali kept pressure on the spell gripping her boots.

It tore unevenly.

Shadow snapped back across his fingers.

He tried to hold it.

Daravan drove the leader down one step, then another.

Serali had seen him fight in practice yards. Efficient. Controlled. Precise.

This was different.

Not uncontrolled.

He gave the dagger no room to reach her. Every time the leader tried to turn toward Serali, Daravan forced him to answer the sword.

Steel caught the leader’s forearm.

Blood darkened his sleeve.

His mouth tightened. He changed hands without dropping the dagger.

The mage spoke another word.

The broken lines lifted from the stair.

Serali felt them pull at her coat, her boots, the shadow she had gathered between her hands.

He was trying again.

Behind her, Pell shouted. The woman had slipped inside his guard, though Orran’s blade forced her back before she could follow the strike.

Serali could not give the mage another moment.

She pulled the shadow beneath the landing into one hand.

She made a spike.

Small. Ugly. Immediate.

She sent it through his throat. For one suspended second, he remained standing, hands lifted, eyes wide.

Then the shadow folded back toward him. The strands holding Serali’s coat snapped loose.

He fell against the edge of the arch and slid onto the wet stone.

Serali stared.

She had killed before, but never like that.

The leader looked at the body.

His face changed once. Fury.

Then he drove Daravan back with three brutal strikes and shouted in Naeric.

The woman moved immediately.

Away from Pell. Toward the water.

Orran’s blade caught her upper arm as she turned.

She hissed, but did not stop.

Something small left her hand and glass struck stone.

Silver-dark smoke erupted across the landing.

The leader became three men, then five.

Each moved differently.

Serali’s shadow struck one and met only damp air.

The woman appeared beside the wall, then nearer Daravan, then nowhere.

“Upper landing,” Daravan ordered. “Retreat.”

Serali’s first impulse was to reach farther.

Catch the real body. Find the woman. Stop someone leaving this stair with the power to hurt Marielle again.

Then she stepped back.

“Pell. Orran,” Daravan said. “With her.”

Serali sent shadow along the rail and the wall, keeping it close to the route instead of striking at shapes she could not trust.

Orran caught a knife on his sword as she passed him.

The woman was there for an instant. Real enough to strike.

Serali snapped shadow toward her wrist and caught fabric.

The woman sliced herself free and disappeared into the distortion below.

Daravan backed toward them, sword held between Serali and the landing.

One figure remained still beside the water arch.

The leader.

His injured arm hung close to his side. Blood fell from his cuff.

He looked at Serali. “There will be no further negotiations, Princess. Decide quickly how much more you are willing to let Lady Marielle suffer in your place.”

On the last words, his gaze moved to Daravan.

Then the concealment closed over him.

Daravan stopped for half a heartbeat. Serali saw his sword shift, and then he withdrew towards her.

Below, metal scraped against stone. A low gate opening somewhere beyond the arch.

Pell started down again as the upper steps cleared.

Harrek appeared at the turn with Watch officers behind him. He sent them toward the water and along the adjoining access before coming to Daravan.

No one waited for the smoke to disperse politely.

The first officer reached the arch and called for a lantern. Another whistle sounded beyond the warehouses.

Serali held her shadow ready until Daravan said her name.

“Lady Serali.”

She looked at him.

“We have this position.”

Only then did she realize her hands were shaking.

The mage lay beside the broken box.

Folded paper clung to the stone. The weight had rolled against the wall.

Allandra’s real grief remained safe in the palace.

Serali remained uncaptured, Daravan remained standing and Marielle was still somewhere else.

Serali looked away from the body.

“You are injured,” she told Daravan.

He pressed a folded cloth against his side. “So are you.”

She glanced at her forearm. The sleeve was intact. Beneath it, the place where the shield had taken the blow throbbed.

She could move her fingers.

She checked twice.

Harrek returned from the lower arch. “The gate opens onto an old water passage. The first team is following. The concealment continues beyond it.”

“Prepared exit,” Daravan said.

“Yes.”

“Both injured. His forearm. Her upper arm.”

“The officers have the descriptions.” Harrek looked toward the body. “And him?”

“The caster,” Serali said. “The restraint stopped when he died.”

Harrek nodded and called an officer over to secure the landing.

Daravan watched the arch.

“If he was their transport mage,” he said, “they have lost that option.”

“If,” Harrek agreed. “We keep watching the crossings either way.”

Serali thought of the samples in Lia’s rooms. The mage’s death could have changed it. She did not know how.

She wanted to be back at the table badly enough to resent the distance between it and the stair.

“Lia needs to examine what remains of the spell,” she said.

“We preserve it,” Harrek answered. “And the body.”

“The cord on his wrist,” Serali said. “Keep it separate. My magic answered it as it answered Marielle’s blood.”

Harrek turned to the officer securing the body. “No one touches it directly. Send it to Mistress Lia.”

Daravan lowered his sword at last. “They may have to move her physically now.”

Harrek looked toward the passage again. “Then they can leave tracks.”

Serali held that thought because this was something they could use.