The price of Kethra

Kethra was waiting in the old rope storage. She had cleaned the blood from her face, but her forehead remained swollen. The copper rope rested between his boots.

"You sold our road," says Zaelyra.

"I sold a road that no longer existed."

"You sold our names."

"I didn't know them all."

"But you gave mine."

Kethra does not deny. "Yes."

Frankness displeases him more than a lie.

"Why?"

"I had a debt with a broker in Bregan D’aerthe. He didn't ask me to kill anyone. He asked me for information that should have no value. I thought I could choose what it was worth."

"You could have refused."

"Yes."

"You could have warned us."

"Yes."

"Why didn't you do it?"

Kethra looked at the copper rope at her feet. "Because the broker showed me the Saira loop. He knew where she had been found, who had carried her and how many times she had been repaired. He had details that a kidnapper would not have invented by chance. I wanted to believe that it meant that she was alive."

"And you chose the interpretation that suited you."

"Yes."

"You knew that the price would be paid by others."

"I knew there was a risk. I told myself that I was controlling it because I had chosen the piece of map I was delivering."

Zaelyra put the list in front of her. "How many times have you done this?"

"Sell a road? Several. Give names? Never before this time."

"How can I know?"

"You can't."

Kethra finally took out the belt buckle. The metal had been split near the spin. A clumsy repair had left two uneven welding points.

"Saira was repairing her own things," she says. "The left point is his. The one on the right, mine. We had to replace the entire loop when we had enough money."

"You had to?"

"We had planned to leave the forges together. Not towards the surface. Just to a city where no one knew our debts."

She folded her fingers around the metal. "I didn't sell this loop. I didn't manage to throw it away either."

Zaelyra understood that this memory could be true without making Kethra trustworthy. She didn't ask him to prove it. There was nothing to check in the way she held the piece of metal.

"You're going to keep looking for her?"

"Yes. But I won't ask you to help me."

"Good."

"You don't believe me?"

"I think you want to find her. I don't know yet what you will do to achieve it."

Kethra put away the buckle. For the first time, she did not try to turn uncertainty into bargaining.

Kethra put in front of Zaelyra a list of names crossed out with black lines. She had recovered it from the leader of the mercenaries.

"You can keep her," she said.

"It's not a gift. You won't pay for your betrayal with a piece of paper."

"I didn't say I would pay. I said I had to. It's different."

Kethra explained that the broker had demanded proof of passage: the marks recorded on the Veyr road. She had given him a copy of the official route, the one that led to a cul-de-sac. But she had also confirmed that Zaelyra was traveling with Nym. This precision had allowed the pursuers to recognize their group.

"You delivered enough to make us spottable and not enough to stop them," says Zaelyra.

"Yes."

"And now what do you want?"

"Nothing."

"No one risks their life for nothing."

Kethra looked at the door. "I want you to know that the road I sold did not come from you. She came from me. That's all."

Zaelyra took the list. "You won't be alone in deciding if your debt is paid."

She went through the crossed-out names. Some were accompanied by a date, others by a simple question mark. Two people present at the relay were not there; several names told him nothing.

"Do you know where they got this list from? She asked.

"Part of it comes from the passage registers. Another was added by hand. I don't know who wrote it."

"Did the crossed-out names die?"

"Or found. Or removed from the search. The line does not say which one."

Zaelyra closed the sheet. She refused to copy it into the common map. Names and paths would not be kept together. If one fell into the hands of mercenaries, the other would remain unusable.

"You could burn her," said Kethra.

"Then no one would know that they were wanted."

"What if the list puts them in danger?"

"It will remain separate from the routes, in a place that families can find without us."

Kethra did not offer a cache. For once, she let Zaelyra decide without offering a price.

"I didn't expect you to forgive me."

"Good."

Kethra showed him a trapdoor to the reserves. "The mercenaries will try to enter through the mushroom conduit. They found the opening. If you move the families now, you will avoid the first assault."

"Why warn us?"

"Because a relay full of deaths brings nothing to anyone."

Zaelyra didn't know if she should believe her. She checked the trapdoor herself, then organized the travel of the families. Kethra did not insist on being thanked.

In the hallway, Vhaelyn was waiting.

"You're going to let her go? She asked.

"No. But I will listen to him as long as his information is verifiable."

"It's a difficult line to keep."

"That's why you have to trace it."