Jessica's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

The freed prisoners scattered into the hills by nightfall. Jessica stayed in the broken yard with the three ledgers pressed to her chest. She had the truth in her hands. It still freed no one for good. The magistrate sat in his seat. His guards would hunt the forty again by morning. No court would hear a fugitive. The moment they saw her face, they would chain her and bury the books. Rowan walked over with his brother at his side. The man was thin and bent from the cells. Rowan had not left his side since the doors came open. "You're thinking of the gold palace," Rowan said. It was not a question. He read her face the way he read tracks. "The high court sits there," Jessica said. "Above the magistrate. They could end this. But they'll arrest me at the steps." She held out the ledgers. "You're on no list for this. Your name isn't the one they want. File the charges, Rowan. Walk in where I can't." Rowan took the books. He weighed them in his huge hands. "They'll ask how I got them." "Tell them everything. The vault. The fire. The forty names." She tapped the top ledger. "Your brother is in there. That's your standing. You're a wronged man seeking justice, not a fugitive." His brother spoke for the first time, voice cracked. "They took me off a market road. No trial. Nothing." He looked at the books like they might bite. "If those pages say that, let them hear it." Rowan did not waste words. He nodded once. "Then I go." They traveled through the night. The great white bear carried Rowan and the ledgers across the valley. The black dragon flew low above them, its wings pushing wind through the grass. Jessica rode its scaled shoulder as far as the city's edge. There she stopped. The golden palace rose ahead, its domes catching the first gray light. Guards stood thick at its gleaming doors. "This is where I turn back," Jessica said. "They know my face. Not yours." Rowan slid down from the bear. He looked at the beast, then the dragon, then Jessica. "Keep them close. If I don't come out, come get me." "I will," she said. She meant it. Rowan walked to the palace doors alone. The bear and dragon stayed back with Jessica among the trees. Guards crossed their spears when he reached the steps. Rowan did not slow. He held the three ledgers up high where they could see. "I'm here to charge a magistrate with false imprisonment," he said. His voice carried. "Forty people. Proof in my hands. I want the high court." A guard reached for him. An older officer in palace colors raised a hand and stopped it. He had heard the word magistrate. He had heard forty. He took one ledger, opened it, and his face went still. He turned a page. Then another. He looked at Rowan a long moment. "Come inside," he said. The doors closed behind Rowan. Jessica waited in the trees with the bear's warm flank against her back. The dragon lay coiled and quiet. The sun climbed. She did not know what happened in the gold halls. She only watched the doors. They opened near midday. Rowan came out. His hands were empty. For one cold second Jessica thought they had taken the books and thrown him out. Then she saw his face. He walked straight to her and gripped her shoulder. "They read every page," he said. "The court believes it. They're sending their own men for the magistrate. Not his guards. Theirs." He let out a breath he had held all night. "The forty are pardoned. Every name. Yours too, Jessica. They struck the fugitive order. You're free." Jessica's knees loosened. The bear steadied her. She had carried those books since the vault burned. She had run with them, bled for them, and could not open a single door with them. Rowan had carried them through the one door that mattered. The magistrate was dragged from his seat within the week. The cells he had filled stood empty. The forty went home. Rowan returned to his brother, and the trap-lines, and a quiet life no list could touch. The bear and the dragon went back to the glowing tree beyond the valley. Jessica walked free in daylight for the first time in weeks. She had set out to free the falsely imprisoned and set the world right. The world was not perfect. But the innocent were home, the guilty man was caged, and her name was clean. That was enough. She had kept her word, and the work was done.