Chapter 228: Ash Spine Anchors

The old demon roads sat waiting to be combined into one invading road, while Ash Spine towered over the camp of Maelor’s army, with three anchor fires burning red around it, fed with cinderstone, chain oil, and tribute tags, and supply tents and prisoner pens stationed between the anchors, where marchers stood lined up behind them, all of them being led down the crown road, while the recon team watched from atop the ridge.

Kethra pointed to each anchor on the camp map. "There are three anchors, one on each road leading out of this camp. The north anchor leads to the old fort road, the south anchor leads to the trade ruins, and the west anchor leads toward the freeholds, and all of them connect to the central platform."

The former crown scout told them about exit lines the forced marchers weren’t aware of. "There are exit lines leading out of this camp, but Maelor keeps them concealed so his people believe they only have one road to follow."

Calder, Sable, and Veyra laid out their three copies of the map, and Tessa bent over them. "Then we begin with information. Once we know the exit lines, we can mark them."

Austin Veyron watched Maelor below them on the central platform, his portable crown flame lit above him, and it would have been simple to jump down and devour the flame before sunrise, but that would also have ignited the connected anchors if Maelor had built his last line right.

Veyra noticed where his thoughts had gone and leaned closer on the rock until her knee touched his. "Name it."

"The crown flame."

"And what would it make?"

"The fire’s new owner."

"Then smaller," Sable said, keeping her crown shard concealed beneath her cloak. "We reveal the exit lines before we touch the flames."

They infiltrated the camp through the dry riverbed, with Rin taking point and marking safe passages through the supply lines while Tamsin brought up the rear, and Kethra and the former crown scout guided them to a tent filled with supplies, where a supply keeper counting cinderstone by candlelight looked up when Tessa walked in.

"My name is Domas. If you’re stealing supplies, then take the food and leave the tags."

"We want to know what you know," Tessa said. "Will you speak with us?"

Domas glanced toward the red anchors. "I’ll tell you the supply count. Maelor says we have ten days’ worth of food and three days of water, but that’s false, because we only have four days of food and one of water if the marchers keep walking. The supply tags cover up the low numbers, because panic leads to control."

Calder wrote the supply count on a blank piece of paper. "How many would leave this camp if they knew about the exit lines?"

"Most of them. Some of the Tithe army aren’t forced to be here, but the rest of the camp is led to believe every other road is cursed."

Kethra showed him the exit lines on the map. "They aren’t cursed. They just aren’t lit."

"If we post these, Maelor will say we deserted."

"If you decide to post them," Tessa said, "we’ll keep the exit lines open."

Domas took the blank piece of paper. "Then I decide to post the true supply counts and the exit lines."

A notice went up near the camp’s water supply.

FOOD SUPPLY: FOUR DAYS. WATER SUPPLY: ONE DAY.

EXIT LINES: NORTH RAVINE, SOUTH TRADE CUT, AND WEST DRYBED.

NO TRIBUTE TAG NEEDED TO LEAVE CAMP.

Word spread throughout the camp until the guards at the north anchor became aware of it, men and women in red and black armor carrying chain staffs, while a line of fire burned across the anchor behind them.

THE ANCHOR BELONGS TO THE CROWN.

The guards attacked, and Rin clawed one of the chain staffs out of a guard’s hands while Tamsin defended with her spear, pushing another guard away from the exit-line notice, and Veyra crossed the supply lane and cut through the red fire trying to reach Domas’s supply count.

Austin Veyron knew why the anchor claimed to belong to the crown, and the fact that Maelor had lit it didn’t make it the crown’s, because it was a road sign built on top of old road lines to trick everyone around it into believing one road was the only one to follow.

"Target," Austin Veyron said. "The anchor-belongs-to-the-crown claim. Not the anchor, the camp, or the exit lines."

"Witnessed," Veyra said.

"Witnessed," Sable answered.

Austin Veyron pressed his white root chain into the north anchor flame.

DEVOUR opened, and the claim tasted like a road sign chained to one army’s destination.

THE ANCHOR BELONGS TO THE CROWN.

He consumed anchor.

The anchor flame faded but didn’t die out, its red road line dividing into several ordinary road lines across the map copies, so that the camp and its marchers could now see the north exit line, and they began walking toward it.

After the fight, Rin landed next to Veyra, catching her breath, and Veyra automatically reached over with her good hand and rubbed the ash off Rin’s face with her thumb, and Austin Veyron couldn’t help himself. "You missed one." Veyra glared at him, then kissed the side of Rin’s mouth where the ash still remained, and Rin’s tails puffed out in happiness.

Maelor looked up from his central platform as his portable crown flame burned brighter above him. "You’re making leaving seem easy," he called to the team. "Every road outside of my crown will starve."

"Every road inside of it will demand tribute," Kethra answered.

Ash Spine shook from below, and Nyra stood near the north anchor stone with her heart shard trembling from the intensity. "There’s a source below us. The crown flame isn’t the one igniting the last line, it’s awakening the source beneath the ridge."

A voice came through the stone, not Maelor’s but older and slower. "I have been sleeping under your roads. I am the Ash Spine source, and the crown has chained my breath to its flame."

The red anchor flames turned toward Austin Veyron, and the source let him see himself devouring Maelor’s portable crown flame and ending the ritual, so that the old roads went dark and there was no invading road, and then he saw the camp workers and marchers still chained to the anchor tags, and he understood that if he devoured the flame, they would be devoured too when their claims broke.

"Devour the crown," the source said, "or save your people from the road."

DEVOUR wanted to answer, because the source made the decision seem easy, which was exactly what the crown wanted him to think.

Veyra didn’t look away from Austin Veyron. "Name it."

"Devouring the flame before it can take more people."

"And what would it make?"

"The person who calls every other risk acceptable because I want certainty."

"Then smaller," Sable said, pressing her crown shard against the north anchor stone. "We ask the source to show us the hidden lines, not the crown’s."

Nyra expanded her heart shard’s boundary around the stone, and the voice below them shook as another pattern appeared under the red flames, thin black lines running from the workers’ and marchers’ tribute tags to a pit of ledgers beneath the central platform, because the crown flame wasn’t holding the people hostage, Maelor’s tribute tags were.

"The source is showing us the wrong thing to devour," Nyra said. "If Austin Veyron devours the flame, the tags will panic. But if we break the tag claim and reveal the exit lines, the flame has nothing left to hold them with."

Tessa wrote what they had found on the West Rift slate, Calder added the camp’s supply count, and the response came back.

KEEP EXIT LINES OPEN. BREAK TAG CLAIM BEFORE FLAME. RIFT IS STABLE FOR THE NEXT TWO HOURS.

Under it, smaller, was a single initial that Austin Veyron would have known anywhere, and his hand went to the slip over his heart before he could stop it.

Knowing the rift was stable didn’t make things any easier for the people in Maelor’s camp, but it gave them time to get out before sunrise, and Domas climbed on top of a supply crate and held up the true supply count. "The north ravine is open, the south trade cut is open, and the west drybed is open. Take what food you can, and don’t wait for a tribute officer to call your name."

Some of the marchers began to run while others stood frozen, looking toward Maelor’s platform, and a family with two small children made their way to the north ravine, followed by three drafted guards, though not everyone left the camp, because some members of the Tithe army formed a barricade around the central platform and chose to follow the crown.

Kethra watched the marchers split. "This is what he doesn’t want to happen."

More guards appeared from the south anchor, handing out new tribute tags to the people trying to leave, and Austin Veyron could see the claim burning on the new tags.

THE TAGGED BELONG TO THE ROAD.

Rin grabbed his arm and pressed her head against his shoulder. "Don’t be dumb," she said. "I want that night I’m owed."

He didn’t go for the crown flame just yet, and when Sable fell in on his other side and slipped her hand into his, he let her lead him toward the exit line instead.