Rebecka Evertrue's Arc

Chapter 35 of 66

Rebecka carried the black book back up the bank to the pines. The woman in the gray coat lay in the cut behind them. The sealed packet held coin and a folded map. The book held names. Rebecka thumbed the pages and her stomach dropped. After the first page, the writing changed. Row after row of small tight marks she could not read. A cipher. Ninka's name on page one was the last thing she understood. "I can't read it," Rebecka said. "Whoever comes for my daughter next is in here. I can't see them." Aiyana crouched beside her. "Then we cannot shoot first." Rebecka turned the pages. The marks looked like the script in the dead student's cabin, but tighter, packed close. She reached under her collar for the pendant her mother had pressed on her before the ridge. A small charm strung on a leather cord, runes cut into layered plates the size of a thumbnail. She had used it once, on the letters in the stove. She had not tried it on a cipher. She lifted the cord over her head and laid the pendant flat on the open book. The runes warmed against the paper. The marks did not move. She waited. Nothing. "It reads foreign script," Aiyana said. "Not code." "I know." Rebecka stared at the page. Ninka's name at the top was written plain. Only the entries below were hidden. That meant a key. A key the dead woman had carried, or kept close. She went back down the bank. She checked the coat again. Inner pocket, outer pocket, cuff, boot. In the boot she found a thin strip of paper folded to the size of a coin. She unfolded it. Two columns of marks paired with two columns of letters. A cipher key. She climbed back up and laid the strip beside the book. She set the pendant across both. The runes on the charm brightened. The marks on the page shifted, one by one, into words she could read. She went down the list. A name she did not know. A town three days east. A name she did not know. A trade route on the far side of the ridge. Then, near the bottom, a line that stopped her hand. A name. Not a person. A place. Her mother's cave, described by its old shepherd name, with a note beside it. Two riders already sent. Four days out. Rebecka closed the book and put it inside her coat. She stood. "They sent riders before this one died," she said. "To the cave." "How many days?" "Four. Maybe less now." Aiyana was already on her feet. "Then we ride." Rebecka whistled for the mare. The between-road would take them home before dawn. It would not take them home before the riders.