Valerian looked from the closed ledger to Elena.
“Then Tyler knows where to drive the knife.”
“He knows I kept her alive when the kennel masters wanted her starved.” She pressed her palm over the book.
Beneath her collarbone, the tether pulled in time with her pulse.
Tyler’s letter claimed his blood burned; hers answered with pain, nothing she had to obey.
“I will send two squads.”
“Give me Vane and two fast mounts.” Elena moved away from the table, leaving room between herself and his reach.
“Squads across the river give Cassian his private war. Two women asking after a wagon can come back with something he has to answer.”
“You demand too much rope.”
“You promised I would not be an ornament in this hold. Let me find who handed Mira the freight.”
His jaw tightened.
“Take Vane. If you are not back before the council convenes at noon, I ride south myself.”
Elena left with the ledger’s handoff point copied on a scrap in her pocket.
In the stables, the tall commander waited beside two saddled horses, dull iron plates buckled over her riding coat.
Vane handed Elena the dark mare’s reins, her scarred knuckles brushing Elena’s.
She asked no questions.
Elena was grateful for that much silence.
They rode down the steep switchbacks in total silence.
By mid-morning, the muddy sprawl of Greywater Ford spread along the river flatlands below them.
Neutral trade ground smelled of wet horseflesh, stale beer, and rotted cabbage.
No lord’s standard flew above the iron-sheathed watch gates, but enforcers from three different border packs drank together along the dockside porches.
Elena dismounted behind the salt sheds and drew her hood forward.
Vane caught her gelding’s bridle and matched her stride.
“Where does a dispensary wagon hide in this filth?” Vane asked.
“Look for the second yard behind the river ferry,” Elena murmured, scanning the rows of carts.
“Tyler’s apothecaries use low two-horse wagons with banded wheels. The left rear hub will have three notched rivets.”
Vane glanced sideways at her.
“You know the wagon by sight?”
“I hammered those rivets myself,” Elena said.
“The chief apothecary refused to hire a blacksmith, so I worked the cold iron until my palms bled.”
The wagon stood between two grain haulers beside an abandoned timber dock, three linked leaves faint on its canvas.
A girl in a patched tunic sat near the horse on an upturned pail, gripping a delivery slip with both hands.
Mira’s shoulders were hunched as they had been beneath the mint trays two years earlier.
Elena touched the seam over her own shoulder blade, where Marcus’s strap had left the line meant for the girl.
“Stay by the gate,” she told Vane.
“Let me speak first.”
“The tavern porch has three guild men watching the lane. Make it quick.”
Mud held Elena’s boots as she rounded the rear wheel.
Mira looked up only when Elena’s shadow reached her hands.
“Mira.”
The slip fell.
Mira scrambled backward against the wheel rim, scraping her palms on its rough edge.
Elena crouched and held out an empty hand. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
“Stay with me a moment. I am not here to hurt you.”
“You should be dead.” Mira stared at her face.
“Alpha Tyler said the mountain wolves ripped you to pieces.”
“He lied. Theresa’s ledger names you at the boundary handoff. Who sent you? Who took the freight?” Elena left her hand where Mira could reach it.
“Come north with us. Tell the council what you saw.”
Mira did not take her hand.
Instead, the girl curled into a tight ball, her thin shoulders shaking with violent sobs.
“I cannot go with you,” Mira choked out.
“I can get you inside the citadel,” Elena said.
“Vane is here. You would not make the journey alone.”
“My mother is in the dog runs!” Mira’s voice carried across the yard.
She pulled it down to a whisper.
“Camilla took her, Toby and my little sister. Toby is eight. Mother can hardly get up when the coughing starts.”
“The hangings were stayed.”
“Camilla says that only stops a rope. If I come back without a signed receipt, she opens the mastiff runs.” Mira looked toward the porch.
“If I go to your council, she will know I talked.”
Elena remembered the hounds hurling themselves against their bars.
Valerian held Marcus; he could not keep Camilla’s hand off a kennel door from the citadel.
She picked up the delivery slip.
Mud had soaked the consignee’s name where the paper folded.
“Who took the earlier loads?” Mira named a red-sashed yard clerk and the dispensary porch where he had signed; she had never heard his name.
Elena wrote that description beside the smeared entry.
Elena tore the blank bottom from the slip, leaving the smeared name, stamp and Mira’s description intact in her own hand.
“Elena?”
“Take the ferry west. Find the timber camp cook and say Vane will send for your account. Do not walk into Cassian’s courtyard alone.”
She took the tally charcoal from the wagon’s rear peg and wrote her own name on the back of one piece, acknowledging receipt of the freight.
“Send this with the ferry courier. It tells her I am alive and have found the wagon. That may buy us time.” She put the piece into Mira’s hand.
“Then take the boat west. Do not go back.”
“What about Toby? Mother? My sister?”
“I will pull all three out myself.” Elena closed Mira’s fingers around the paper.
“The boat is there. Go.”
Mira ran down the lane.
At the dock she pressed the paper into the mounted courier’s hand; Elena saw him tuck it into his dispatch pouch and turn south before the girl disappeared toward the ferry.
Elena kept the other torn piece.
Mud had blurred the broken consignee’s name beyond reading.
She had sent away the person who could identify the handoff, and she still had to reach the kennels before Camilla tired of waiting.
“The girl is gone,” Vane called out from the alley mouth.
“And we have trouble.”
Elena spun around.
Three guild teamsters stepped off the tavern porch, heavy iron bars swinging in their fists.
Their leather jerkins carried the Silvercrest crest.
“The runaway Omega,” the brute growled, raising his cudgel.
“The Alpha pays fifty silver marks for her head.”
Vane drew her long sword.
“Behind me, Elena.”
The leader swung his bar at Elena’s head.
Vane caught it on her vambrace, but before she could thrust he pulled back and drove the blunt end into her left side.
Her armor buckled.
Elena heard a crack beneath the plate.
Vane put her sword through his shoulder and drove him down.
The second teamster lunged with a hunting knife, crowding her against the wagon frame.
Elena snatched the wagon’s pry bar.
The third man turned toward her; she struck his kneecap before he could raise his cudgel.
He fell across the lane, screaming.
Beside him, Vane trapped the knife arm against the frame and struck the second man’s temple with her pommel.
The commander stayed upright for another breath, then lowered her sword.
“Vane.” Elena dropped the bar and caught her elbow.
Vane sank to one knee, pressing her free hand to her left side.
“Under the plate. I felt a rib go.”
Elena loosened the buckles and eased the bent armor away.
A bruise spread below the left breast.
She folded clean lining into a pad and secured it with a broad linen strip.
Vane tried to breathe; Elena immediately loosened the knot.
“Against the wheel. Slowly. Again.” She held the pad while Vane followed the instruction.
After several breaths, the commander tested the binding and nodded.
“You cannot fight like this.”
“Then do not give me another fight.” Vane braced a hand against the wagon.
“I can hold the horses. Open the freight before the river guards arrive.”
Elena retrieved the pry bar.
Mira was gone, and with her the name behind the torn slip.
Whatever remained beneath the canvas would have to speak in her place.
She used the pry bar on the heavy shipping crates secured beneath the canvas.
The boards split.
Three bound casks rested in straw beneath the canvas, their bungs sealed with dark wax.
Elena found shipping papers folded under the crate lid and slid them into her coat before bending over the nearest cask.
She wiped grease from its seal with her thumb.
The guild’s three leaves were absent.
So was Tyler’s stag.
A crossed sprig of winter pine lay beneath a snarling, twin-fanged wolf.
Elena rubbed the last smear clear, making herself look at the whole impression.
Lord Cassian’s private house seal.