Silvain Ironleaf's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

They camped in a shallow cave below the mine gate. Silvain built no fire. He watched Thaelis clean his knife by starlight and thought about the pale man in stolen dwarven plate. Thaelis knew that face. He had known it before he ever showed Silvain the ledger. Silvain had let it lie once. He would not let it lie again. "You knew him at the gate," Silvain said. "You knew his walk. His halls." He set his staff across his knees. "I won't march at that man with half a guide. Tell me how you know him, or we split here." Thaelis stopped cleaning the knife. The wolf cub lifted its head. For a long moment Thaelis said nothing. Then he reached into his coat and pulled out a small blue flower, pressed flat, its center still faintly aglow. He turned it in his fingers. "He held a feast once," Thaelis said. "A dwarven hall he took. Long tables. Carved stone. He hung vines and flowers like this on every arch. Made it look like peace." His voice stayed flat, but his hand shook. "I stood at his shoulder. I found his enemies for him. I was his best scout." Silvain kept still. "And the flower." "Someone gave it to me at that feast. Someone I trusted." Thaelis closed his fist over it. "That person sold me to him. He tried to have me killed the next dawn. I ran with his ledger. I've hunted him since." He looked up. "You asked whose side I'm on. I'm on the side that ends him. That's all I have left." Silvain believed him. Not the words alone. The shaking hand. The kept flower. A man does not carry proof of his own betrayal unless it rules him. This was no double agent leading him to a trap. This was a wound walking. "Then I trust the plan," Silvain said. "Because I trust why you made it." He picked up the ledger and opened it to the marked page. The gate. Three men. "He hangs flowers to hide the theft. He steals dwarven halls and dwarven craft. He wants the mountain closed so no one but him moves through it." Thaelis nodded. "That's him." "Then we don't just kill him," Silvain said. "We take the hall back. Open it. Fill it with both peoples, real ones, at one table." He tapped the ledger. "That ends him better than a knife." Thaelis almost smiled. He tucked the flower away. "You'll need the mine's lower door," he said, and turned the page. "I know it. I've stood in that hall." For the first time, Silvain saw the whole map of his guide. No shadows left between them. The wolf cub settled against his boot. Below, the false throne waited. Now Silvain knew exactly whose it had been, and exactly how to take it.