Maren Goldweaver's Arc

Chapter 29 of 42

They packed in the gray hour before the camp woke. Vera's people gave them a wax-cloth map, dried meat, and two water skins. Maren rolled the map tight and tucked it inside her sleeve. Gisela stood by the tent flap with Kato, who was upright now but still slow on his feet. The cub was somewhere behind the far tents, out of sight. Maren did not go look for it. "You're staying," Maren said to Gisela. "Both of you. Kato can't walk two days." Gisela did not argue. She only said, "Bring her back breathing." Kato nodded once. "Don't die." Maren turned away before her face gave anything up. Losing the cub last night had already scraped her hollow. Leaving her sister in someone else's camp was worse. Outside the tent, Miller checked the rifle strap on his shoulder. Topper stood beside him, sulking, boots half-laced. He had not been asked if he wanted to come. "Two days east," Miller said. "We move." They walked into the trees. The map showed a clerk's boarding house on the edge of a market town. Delia would be there by dusk tomorrow if the manifest schedule held. After an hour, Maren spoke without looking at either man. "She turned on me once already. She'll scream the second she sees my face. I have no way to hold her." Topper snorted. He walked with his hands in his pockets, mustache twitching. "Delia. Tight bun. Cracked glasses she won't replace." Maren stopped walking. "You know her." "I know everyone who signs manifests." He rolled his shoulder. "She owes me. Two years back. A ledger error I buried for her before her supervisor saw it. She'd have lost her post." He smiled under the mustache. "She still owes." Maren's stomach turned. Delia had almost certainly lost the post anyway, after the sealed wing. Because of Maren. And now Topper wanted to press an old debt on top of that. "You'll use that on her," Maren said. "You want her walking back with you, or you want her screaming?" Miller watched Maren. He did not speak. He was letting her decide. Maren thought of the red closure tag. Of her sister's file, lost to the sea. Of Vera's terms. Fail and don't come back. "Use it," she said. "But you speak first. Alone. I stay out of sight until she's agreed." "My pleasure." Topper touched the corner of his mustache. They walked on. The pines thinned toward a cart road. Maren pulled the map from her sleeve and checked the fold. Two days. One clerk. One man she despised, holding the only leash that would keep Delia quiet long enough to move her. She had traded the cub for shelter. She had traded Topper for a mission. Now she was trading her own conscience for a woman she had already ruined once. She folded the map and kept walking.