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I can carry it away now. By morning, the market will have to let me.
DAUREK
Vai brings her bag to the release.
I have known she would. Edrin asked her to bring the marriage papers and bank receipts. Still, when she puts the bag down beside her chair, I notice that the strap is shortened for walking.
The council party has taken the northern meeting room. Edrin sits at the table with his two witnesses beside him. He is a narrow human man with white hair and spectacles he keeps pushing up with the back of his wrist. The escort waits near the western door. Reivaka has brought the checked papers for the independent living grant.
Neimura is absent.
Vai sits opposite me. The green dress is fastened to the throat. I can see the small closed scrape above her cuff when she takes out the old contract.
Edrin compares it with the council approval, then puts them together.
“You both know why we’re here,” he says. “I need to hear whether anything has changed since these terms were agreed.”
“Nothing,” I say.
He looks at Vai.
“No.”
“The debt remains paid. Your original sixty silver and the allowance money are yours. The separate grant covers travel and six months’ living expenses, whether you leave the Ilden or remain here.”
Vai nods. She has read the terms. I wish knowing them already would make it easier for me to hear them aloud.
“Does either of you require anything else before I complete this?”
I could ask for time after the hearing. I could ask her to visit the house by the lake before deciding about Karath. She looked so tired last night that I wanted to put every choice away until she had slept.
“No,” I say.
Edrin waits for her answer.
“No.”
We sign. The witnesses add their names. Edrin seals the release, records the cancellation beside the old contract and gives Vai her copy.
“That ends the marriage,” he says. “The market’s copy goes with the council courier today. You can travel with this one immediately.”
Vai bends over the page. Her lips move on a line near the bottom. Then she looks at Edrin.
“I don’t have to come back here to sign anything else?”
“No.”
She laughs once, holding the paper away from the table as though someone might take it back by mistake.
I have waited since her first morning here to hear her make that sound.
The escort steps forward. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Vai puts the release and the bank papers into her bag. She takes care with the corners. I watch because looking at the strap is worse.
When she stands, I stand too.
She comes around the table and stops in front of me.
