Huge Ajax's Arc

Chapter 81 of 619

Ajax posted Grayson at the top of the stairs and Tucker at the shed door. The woman sat in her chair by the window. Chalam came up from the willows with Elara behind him. He set his satchel on the table and unstoppered his vials one by one. "Five empty," Chalam said. "They fill overnight if I leave them open to the sky. I'll set them on the roof." "Do it," Ajax said. "We open the seat at dawn. I want you full." Chalam climbed to the roof with the vials in a cloth. Elara went with him to line them in the moonlight. Her wrist band caught the light before the glass did. Marco stayed near the woman. He watched her hands. "She sent word to someone before we came," he said. "A week back. A rider took a folded paper south." "Get the name," Ajax said. Marco knelt in front of her and put two fingers on her temple. She did not pull away. He closed his eyes and breathed slow. A minute passed. Then another. "A man at a stone house on the river bend," Marco said. "Two days south. She asked him to send someone to kill her before the seat woke. He never answered." He opened his eyes. "He wears a collar." "Take the memory of us," Ajax said. "All of it. She never saw our faces." Marco held her a while longer. Her eyes went soft, then blank, then settled. When he took his hand back, she was looking past him at the wall. "She'll wake tomorrow thinking she fed the seat this morning," Marco said. "Nothing else." Ajax nodded. "Tucker. Search the house." Tucker went room to room with a lamp. He came back with a lacquered box, a purse, and a short knife with a spiral on the pommel. He set them on the table. "Coin," Tucker said. "Enough to pay the winter men twice. A ring in the box worth more than the coin. And this." He tapped the knife. "Same mark as the doors." Chalam came down from the roof. He picked up the box, held his palm over it, then over the ring inside. "The ring holds a working," he said. "Small. It hides the wearer from a scrying eye for a day at a time. Useful." "Ajax keeps it," Grayson said from the stairs. "The rest we split at the coast." No one argued. By dawn Chalam's five vials were full. He came down the ladder with them cradled in the cloth and set them in his satchel in order. "Ready," he said. Ajax lifted his father's blade and walked out to the shed. The woman stayed in her chair, humming to herself, the tin cup empty on the sill. Marco fell in beside him. "Something on the river answered again," he said. "Closer this time."