Page 24 of Zenith Court

The evening courier arrived an hour later with the count nobody wanted. The chain had held twelve houses in spring. Seven remained, and two stood inside districts the decree’s riders were searching farm by farm. Whether we moved or waited, the safe road to the Court was shrinking.

“Two travel lighter than six,” Kieran said. “And I’d rather see the Court before it sees me.”

“Four days,” Jonah said. “We map the approach and come back. Four.”

No one offered a better plan. They packed by lamplight while water continued over the weir. At first light, Kieran and Jonah would ride toward the Court, and two of the three lines at my wrist would stretch toward it with them. Above us, Tam slept with the repaired thread steady in his arm.

13

Kieran

We left before dawn, at the hour bakers keep. I chose to take it as a blessing from the only church I attend.

The yard was gray and the horses borrowed. We rode out in plain wool, with bread and apples in the saddlebags and papers underneath swearing I was Corven, a wheat buyer for the Dunmore mill. Hale checked his girth twice. I checked mine once and told him I’d checked it twice.

My hand went to my right shoulder before we cleared the gate, an old habit from three years spent counting down. The old countdown was gone. I counted the hours ahead instead, every one mine to spend.

Hale and I had three hand signs left from the Tower’s lower corridors—halt, eyes, ride—and a standing argument about saved lives. By my count, I led four to three. He disputed it weekly.

“Four–three,” I said an hour in.

“Three–three. The gallery doesn’t count. You’d have made the stairs without me.”

“I’d have made the stairs as a smear, Hale. An artistic smear, but a smear.”

“Three–three,” he said. That settled it for another mile.

The country changed by degrees. Farmland gave way to hazel scrub, the road climbed, and a stone-lined channel appeared beside the verge. I watched it for half a mile before I saw what was wrong.

“Watch the water,” Hale said. “It’s leaving.”

It was. Streams gather downhill. This one ran away from the high ground ahead, and so did the next. Every channel poured outward from the same valley, spokes from a wheel. The Court took no water in. It only sent water out.

Somewhere past the second milestone, Hale said, “You didn’t count that one.”

“I did.”

“Not aloud.”

“I don’t count aloud.”

“You did in the Tower.”

“At the Tower, I thought I was dying.”

“You were.”

“Thank you. I’d worried I was being dramatic.”

I noticed he had taken the outside of the road again, riding between me and the open slope. “You always take the outside.”

“Better line of sight.”

“You did it in the salle too. Stood where they put you and watched everyone else.”

He looked ahead before answering. “Yes.”

“No one put you there today.”