Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Her back pressed against the wall, Calya closed her eyes. Against the sound of Lowe calling after her. The pounding of his fists against the window. Each landed like a blade through her heart, or whatever tenderness she’d allowed to grow in its place.
Safely out of view, Calya finally let fall the cold detachment she’d mustered to stand against him.
She’d thought she’d hardened herself off.
Been toughened by past failures. Learned not to feel so that other people’s actions never mattered enough to reach this level of hurt.
Anadae’s running off to Sylveren and how she’d hidden the decision from Calya for so long.
Their father’s repeated opposition and rejection and denials of every attempt Calya made to grow the company, and all with Mother’s blessing.
Gods, the hiring of Wembly, because apparently Calya couldn’t be trusted to manage Helm Naval even though she’d demonstrated her competence and commitment over and over again.
Each time, those bitter disappointments had felt like betrayals. After all, what could be worse than family’s lack of faith?
Lowe.
Nothing in her life had ever hurt like him. Everything else, everyone else, had been little more than Calya’s stung pride. But he…
She’d lied in turning him away. He’d found the cracks in her stone heart and let some light in.
Carved a little space. But he couldn’t claim it for himself, not in the end.
She couldn’t let him. Not if it meant letting this opportunity—HNE, defeating the Coalition—slip through her fingers.
She chose the emptiness of denying him instead.
The sharp crackle of the window’s defensive enchantment activating made her recoil. Lowe’s hiss of pain pierced her even from across the room, had her reaching out—
Calya closed her fingers, making a fist. She remained in the hall, the doorway mere inches from her fingertips. It would be nothing to go to it, to look out and see him and try again. Two steps. He was still there, waiting for her.
What have we done to each other?
Slowly, Calya faced the doorway. Let her fingertips brush the edge of the crudely shaped frame, just out of sight.
Then, exhaling roughly, she forced herself to walk away.
He’d be back. He’d return with whatever firepower he could muster and put the entire site to the torch.
She had no intention of going down with the Coalition’s sinking ship, but she hadn’t chosen this path for fucking giggles, either.
A one-woman army, if needs must. She’d get what she needed, and Lowe…
They’d have to see where they fell after. See if there was anything left.
The hallway grew darker as Calya moved farther from the observation room.
There were no torches here, only chill stone as she followed the pathway.
It felt like she was moving gradually down, eventually rounding a corner.
The hall ended at another door, but this one was slightly ajar, emitting light from within.
Calya softened her footsteps and quieted her breath, taking measured inhales and soundless, open-mouthed exhales despite her rapidly beating pulse. She crept up to the door and peeked in.
Empty. It was an office, or as close to one as she was likely to find in this cobbled-together site.
The furnishings were as plain as those of the containers out in the clearing, but there were more of them.
More supplies and equipment—though all showed signs of having been searched.
Organizers toppled, spilling writing instruments and random other tools across the desk.
Books left open with pages falling out; others had been tossed onto the floor.
Calya pushed the door open wider and sidled into the room, ears straining for any sound of company. None came, the office’s previous occupant seemingly long gone.
She approached the desk and began picking through what was left.
The desk itself was still plain, barely more than rudimentary boards and nails slapped together with milk crates for shelves and drawers.
But the recordkeeping materials were of quality.
Notebooks with finer papers, stab-bound but with stronger waxed thread and many neatly sewn signatures.
The ones out in the container “offices” were more like clumsily made pamphlets in comparison.
A toppled jar that had served as a bookend betrayed the fact that many of the notebooks on the shelf were missing.
So, too, did the crate drawers that had been left out of place.
Calya leafed through the notebook still on the desktop.
It was newer, only a few pages filled, and those had been ripped out.
What scraps remained held numbers that meant nothing to her without context.
She picked up the jar, intending to set it upright before moving on.
The jar itself was unremarkable, heavy and not very uniform in a manner that suggested poor skill rather than deliberate artistic choice.
A few pieces of gravel had spilled out, but when she gave the jar a shake, the remaining stones within rattled with muted thumps.
Upending the jar over the table, Calya poured out the last of the gravel. A single wax seal fell out as well.
She stared at it, at the sterling silver color, the lustrous finish the likes of which only one institution was allowed to use. Rumor had it that the mage who’d made the formula had been… discouraged from ever speaking of the process, and any attempts to recreate it were silenced.
Calya didn’t need to see the sigil to know that it was from the Coalition, but beyond the scales and coins, a third element was embedded in the mix: a key. Only a member of the Coalition’s seven ruling councilmembers used the tripartite seal.
With a shaking hand, she picked up the seal, her fingertips brushing against irregularities on what should’ve been smooth wax on the back. Flipping it over, she found a date from three months ago scratched into the surface.
She peered into the jar and dug out a dozen more seals.
Only one other was from the Coalition’s council, the rest a mix of colors but all bearing the Avenor family crest. Every seal had a date etched onto it, going back to shortly after the war.
There was no consistency to the frequency of the seals.
The oldest was from a few years back, then there were several starting eighteen months ago, spanning the time when Anadae had broken off her engagement to Brint and gone back to school.
The frequency dipped again, with only two since the summer.
Calya sat on a stool beside the desk, lining up all the seals in chronological order.
None of the dates meant anything to her, no matter how she wracked her brain.
Not holidays or anything newsworthy, at least not that stuck out in her mind.
She believed the seals could link Brint to the Coalition, but without something more concrete, it was hardly conclusive.
One didn’t just find a Coalition councilmember’s seal lying around, but short of discovering correspondence from Brint or records to shed light on the dates, she was shit out of luck.
Huffing with annoyance, Calya kicked the nearest crate. It rocked back before tipping forward to right itself, landing with a thump that sounded too heavy for a few slats of wood. Something shifted inside it, bumping against the inside walls.
Leaning forward to examine the crate more closely, she realized the interior space was too shallow for its external dimensions.
The slats were closer together at the bottom quarter of the crate, obscuring the view through the otherwise railing-like pieces.
Calya had presumed it was for more strength or stability, but what if… ?
The crate had a false bottom. The wood panel was thin, and whatever trick had been used to fit it seamlessly in place yet still make the damned thing removable eluded her.
She snapped one of the corners in trying to pry the bottom up and, glaring at the splintered piece of wood, tossed it on the ground to join the rest of the debris.
There wasn’t much space in the hidden compartment, only room enough for a pair of thin journals and a few loose papers. A quick scan revealed that one journal was being used as a mix between a calendar and a logbook. She looked up the first Coalition seal date and found a short entry:
Starter culture received, transported by Av & CM A. Containment protocols in place. Ley line tap tmrw while CM A on hand to assist.
“CM A” had to mean one of the Coalition councilmembers, and diverting energy from the ley lines supported Lowe’s theory that the site’s purpose seemed to be creating a wellspring.
She half-turned, her mouth opening to tell him of what she’d found…
and then her brain caught up. How quickly she’d grown accustomed to the idea of sharing things with him.
Having a partner in this endeavor. A twinge in her chest arose at the thought.
How long would it take him to get back to town?
He’d be faster without her there to slow him down.
And when he arrived, what then? Once his duty here was done, he would return home.
As would she. There was nothing that bound them together.
You care, I know you do. You care about me.
Silly, sweet ranger. Thinking the best of her.
That it was in her to be good, to be happy.
To be content with the kinds of things everyone else seemed to care about.
To be one of those people who could be happy in the now instead of always striving for something more.
Calya, always so ambitious and reckless and untrustworthy, she didn’t know how to enjoy the little things.
She didn’t even know how to define them.
Hadn’t known such things since she was a child, if then.
It was sad, really, the speed and ease with which the memory of simple pleasures had left her, replaced by the drive to matter, to leave some mark on the world.
Insatiable… and alone. It hadn’t bothered her before, but now?
Calya shook her head. There’d be time to indulge in a proper wallow later. Was it truly even wallowing if she was right, too?
Whoever had kept these hidden notes must’ve known what they were doing at the site was deeply illegal.
Perhaps even criminal, for she read on and found logs of correspondence with Brint, as she’d dearly hoped she would.
Estimates for cleanup of tainted ground.
Brief mentions of people—only initials—falling sick.
The loose papers were Anadae and Ezzyn’s joint paper on the design and use of their containment wards. In the margin, a scrawled note read ES/ON plant = preventative. Curative in concentrated blight. E trying to obtain.
Her breath caught. This was it. Her incontrovertible proof.
The makings of it, anyway. If she could find the author, even better.
But the log would lead her to the experiments, the sickened—poisoned—people.
The Coalition had admitted to entertaining the idea of working with the Eyllic Empire to adapt the poison, but they’d denied ever going through with it.
The Empire had reneged on the deal, refusing to share their secret of how to make a wellspring, and so the Coalition had balked at dabbling with poison.
Perhaps they’d simply decided to forge ahead on their own.
Engrossed in her thoughts, Calya didn’t hear the approaching footsteps until they were close.
Too soon to be Lowe returning with help. Grabbing the journal log and a handful of the seals, Calya bolted for the door on the other side of the office. She burst through it—
—straight into an ironclad grip. She struggled, kicking at her assailant’s legs, her head whipping forward and up in an attempt to gain any advantage.
She was swung against the wall. Twice. Hard enough to leave her stunned, her legs buckling.
“Easy there, Erv. She’s even more trouble for me if she’s dead.”
A hand reached for her face, fingers glowing with gold light. Darkness crept into Calya’s vision as the fingers pressed against her forehead.
The last thing she saw was Brint fucking Avenor frowning down at her.
“You should’ve left it alone, Caly. I warned you not to pry.”