Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 520 of 619

Chalam and Marco sailed home on the next tide. Ajax met them at the dock with Aldric and waited to hear the plan was done. But Marco stepped off the deck with his jaw set, and Ajax knew the news was not clean. "The old man armed," Marco said. "All four houses are fighting now." He rubbed his bracelet the way he did when a thought sat wrong. "But there's a woman. She got out of the north quarter before the doors closed. She's not with any house. She's hunting us alone." Ajax led them to the council hall. Tucker was already there, drying his hands behind the bar he had run for years. Kael stood by the door, one hand loose near his knife the way it always sat. Ajax laid it plain. "A woman is coming. She knows the letters were forged. If she reaches the other houses with proof, the quarrel ends and they turn on us together." Aldric spoke first. He did not soften it. "Then she can't reach them. And she can't reach a ship. If she boards one, she's eight days from doing harm and we lose her." "She'll come to Silvermoor," Marco said. "She read the woman we wiped. She thinks the landing is there. She wants to see the dock with her own eyes." Tucker leaned on the bar. "Then we let her come. A woman alone looking for a dock. Marco reads her at the gate. Kael takes her before she says a word to anyone who matters." Kael nodded once. "I can hold the gate quiet." Ajax weighed it. He did not want another wiped mind sent out to sell him later. This one knew too much and had chosen to hunt. "No wiping," he said. "She came to end us. We end her." They sailed north the same night. Marco stood at Silvermoor's gate the next dawn, reading every face that passed. Kael waited inside the arch with his back to the stone. Chalam kept a vial ready in case she wore a charm like the fifth keeper had. By midday Marco lifted his hand. "Her. Gray cloak. She's counting the shops and looking for water." He listened a breath longer. "She's sure the dock is here. She means to leave tonight and carry it north." Ajax gave the nod. Kael crossed the yard in four steps. He took her by the arm and turned her through a shop door before she drew a full breath. It was done inside without a sound. Chalam found no charm on her, no ring, nothing to warn another soul. They burned her cloak and her papers in the hall hearth. Aldric watched the pages curl. "That's the last one who knew," he said. "The houses fight each other now. No one left to tell them different." Ajax stood over the fire. The woman was dead. The lie would hold. Silvermoor would trade free while four houses tore at each other across the sea, and his brotherhood held both islands unwatched.