The price of silence

Vhaelyn was waiting for Zaelyra to explain why she kept the old roll.

The blackened fragment still rested at the end of the line. The ink stain took over the seal of the Matron, but no order or name accompanied it. The sign confirmed that someone had seen the map; it did not say who or why.

"Did you know this map existed?" asked his sister.

"No."

"And this annotation?"

"No. I had heard the name. Not these words."

"You still took the roll."

"Yes."

"Why?"

Zaelyra looked at the map she had brought back. "Because someone wanted to make a road disappear and failed to erase everything."

"This is not proof."

"No. This is a reason not to destroy what remains."

Vhaelyn closed his eyes for a brief moment. When she reopened them, her anger had given way to something more difficult to read.

"The Matron will not punish ignorance. She will punish a threat. Nym Varr is one of them now."

"He didn't threaten anyone."

"He found a map that our House made disappear. Sometimes it's worse."

The spider went up along its thread and disappeared in the crack between two stones. Vhaelyn took the blackened fragment without touching it, using the edge of his dagger.

"She wants to see you alone," she says. "Rhylor is already with her."

"You're not coming?"

"I'm already here."

Zaelyra understood. Her sister would not accompany her, but she would not let her in without knowing what was waiting for her.

"What did our mother say?"

"Nothing. That's what worries me."

"And Nym?"

"The lower annex. The healer bandaged his ankle."

"Do we question him?"

"Not yet. The guards are waiting for Mother's order."

Zaelyra slipped her thumb under the lanyard of her case. "You asked them to wait?"

"I reminded him that you had to ask him questions before we took him to the temple."

"It's not the same as protecting him."

"No. Vhaelyn did not try to soften the answer. "This is what I can do without pretending that the House will obey me if Mother decides otherwise."

They went down to the annex by a service staircase. The steps were wide enough for two people, but Vhaelyn walked behind her sister, as if she left her the first place without wanting to give up her guard. At the bottom, a young soldier stood in front of the door. He seemed to be waiting for a question to which he already knew the answer.

"A minute," said Vhaelyn. "He's hurt."

The soldier looked at his novice badge. "The order was to keep it here."

"That's what we do."

He hesitated, then opened the inner grille without removing the outer bar.

Nym was sitting on a stone bench, his ankle bandaged and placed on an inverted box. He had been given back his empty bag. His tools and the wire he had used to test the air were missing. He had replaced them with a frayed strand torn from the edge of his sleeve. He held it between two fingers, but did not place it against any wall.

"You're back," he said.

"I have to talk to my mother."

"And the map?"

"I have it."

"This is not what I asked for."

Zaelyra looked down at the case. She had first wanted to keep the roll because it could explain a censored road. Then she had discovered the name of Drizzt, and the parchment had ceased to be just a piece to be examined. She did not yet know what she was looking for in this note. She knew she wasn't ready to return it.

"I won't entrust it to you," she says. "Not yet."

Nym looked at the case, then his face. "So, for the moment, it's you who chooses what we have the right to know."

"I want to understand what it contains."

"Me too. But there are people in my house who are waiting for a measure."

"I can't promise you that we'll let you leave today."

"I didn't ask you to promise that. Just tell them I was on my way to check a draft, not to steal their secrets."

Vhaelyn crossed his arms. "You understand that this distinction may not be enough."

"I understand. I still ask that she be registered. Nym put the frayed thread back in his sleeve. "The registers know very well how to keep the accusations. Let them also keep my answer."

Zaelyra nodded. She could not return him either her map or her freedom, but she could at least not let the guards turn her silence into a convenion.

"I'll say it."

"So you have something to ask your mother," says Nym. "Ask him who decided that a road should no longer appear on the maps. Not only who erased the line."

The question followed Zaelyra as she went up the stairs.

Vhaelyn led Zaelyra to the old map corridor, without accompanying her to the door.

"You just said she wanted to see me alone."

"She wants it. This does not mean that you have to go without knowing what can await you."

"And what awaits me?"

"A question whose answer will cost you something."

Zaelyra looked at the guards stationed at the entrance. They didn't pretend not to listen; they had learned to listen without turning their heads.

"You could come with me."

"I could. Then Mother would talk about you as a child protected by her sister."

"What if I prefer to be protected?"

"You can prefer it. But you have to choose it, not that I decide it by pretending to do you a favor."

Vhaelyn handed him the blackened fragment, taken in the map room. "Keep it. Do not show it to the guards and do not leave it in the room."

"Do you think he's proving something?"

"I think he survived someone who wanted him to disappear. That's enough for us to pay attention."

A maid passed by with a platter of cups. She slowed down in front of the two sisters, then continued on her way without greeting them. Vhaelyn waited for his steps to move away.

"Do you remember the East Gallery? She asked.

"The one where Father had brought us back without following the marks?"

Zaelyra remembered her father leaning over a leaf, his hand covering half of the features. He asked him to find his way from the distances, never the name of the streets. She thought he wanted to make it a test. Rather, he taught him not to depend on his voice.

She saw a low gallery where three arches resembled each other to the point of deceiving the eye. His father had turned the map against the wall and asked them to enter without following the marks. Zaelyra had counted her steps. Vhaelyn, who already knew the names of the corridors, had protested that they were deprived of half of the indications.

"The field doesn't know what you've learned by heart," he told them.

At the third arch, Zaelyra had heard water behind the wall. The plan didn't say anything. She wanted to add a passage; her father had stopped her.

"Note the sound. Not the gallery you imagine."

Vhaelyn had taken back the pencil and marked the place with a temporary sign. She didn't say her sister was right. She had only kept the map open while Zaelyra added the warning.

Since then, Zaelyra was wary of too sharp lines. Vhaelyn, for her part, remembered above all that an uncertain indication could send someone to a danger.

"He was right," she said.

"He was right about the maps. For the rest, he was wrong like everyone else."

"You say it as if you resented him."

"I resent him for leaving questions for our mother and for leaving us the work of living with her."

Vhaelyn didn't look down. She had never talked about their father with this frankness. Zaelyra wondered if the disappearance had been a departure, a death or a decision that the House had arranged under an easier name.

"Do you know anything about his disappearance?"

"No. I asked Mother. She told me she didn't know where he was."

A group of servants passed at the end of the corridor, carrying a box whose hardware jingling at every step. The two sisters waited for the noise to move away.

"Did you believe her?"

"I believed her when she said she didn't know where he was and that she was afraid of him. I didn't believe her when she hinted that this fear was enough to silence us."

Zaelyra observed her sister's profile. "So you think he started on his own."

"I think Mother didn't know where he was. It's not the same thing."

"You always have a distinction ready."

"Distinctions prevent assumptions from passing off as facts. It was you who taught me that, with your maps."

"I taught you to mark the places you hadn't checked."

"And I remember it. Vhaelyn pinched the silver thread at the edge of his sleeve. "I don't know if he died, if he fled or if someone prevented him from coming back. I don't want to choose the answer that would hurt me the least and call it the truth."

Zaelyra's anger moved, without disappearing. She had taken her sister's caution for acceptance. It was perhaps easier than admitting that Vhaelyn also refused to let the House write the end of their story alone.

"So why not look?"

"Because we do not yet know which door leads to him and which leads to those who would like to silence us."

"What if the wait is already a decision?"

"She is. Vhaelyn supported his gaze. "I will not claim the opposite."

Above them, a lamp sizzled. A maid stopped to change the wick, then resumed her journey. The light flickered, strengthened, and the features of the map regained their contours.

"I'm not asking you to give up the question," Vhaelyn continued. "I ask you not to let the first stranger who came use it to take you where he wants."

Zaelyra thought of the name written on the back of the parchment, and the ease with which he had drawn her attention away from the hand that had traced it.

"Maybe that's already what's happening."

"So go to Mother's house knowing it."

The fragment wrinkled in Zaelyra's palm. She flattened it carefully, then slipped it under the lining of her sleeve. The paper was so light that she hardly felt it against her skin; yet, she kept her wrist closed.

The guards opened the door of the gallery. Rhylor was already standing inside, near the big map. He didn't look at Zaelyra, but she saw his hand leave the apple of his dagger.

Vhaelyn took a step back.

"I'll stay here," she said. "Not because I refuse to help you. Because this time, you have to come in with your own questions."

Zaelyra passed the threshold. The door closed behind her.