The garrison rain channel began behind a row of royal stables.
Valerie and K entered after the bell changed, when patrol tokens were exchanged and every guard briefly paid more attention to metal discs than faces. They crossed the stable yard beneath a wagon loaded with dirty bedding, dropped into the drainage cut, and reached the grate without being seen.
The royal lock faced outward exactly as Valerie remembered.
K ignored it.
He reached through the bars with Van's second-best knife, lifted the hinge pins one at a time, and removed the entire grate while the lock remained closed.
"Architecture," he whispered, "is only confident furniture."
They pulled the grate back into place and entered the channel.
It narrowed beneath the outer wall. Valerie crawled on elbows through runoff carrying straw, soap, and things the stables had no intention of reclaiming. K followed with the black crystal secured beneath his shirt. Twice he stopped breathing until the tremor in his arms passed.
At the division, they took the upper branch.
Brick became dressed stone. The channel climbed beside the sealed laundry cistern and ended behind a screen of lime deposits. Valerie struck it once with Saughtrick's pommel. The crust broke inward.
They entered the garrison through a dry tank no inspection team considered a door.
The laundry room beyond had been abandoned when the service entrance was bricked, but a corridor still connected it to the detention wing. Valerie knew the rotation. Two guards at the first junction. One moved every quarter bell to check the lower stair. The other remained beside the record desk.
Normal rotation no longer existed.
They waited.
Two guards passed the door exactly on the old schedule.
That frightened Valerie more than change.
K touched her sleeve and indicated the rear guard. Valerie nodded.
She opened the door as they passed, caught the first guard beneath the chin, and pulled him backward into the laundry. K stepped behind the second and pressed a strip of wire across his throat. The man tried to shout. K turned the attempt into lost balance and lowered him without striking his head.
Valerie recognised both men.
Neither was Derren.
She bound them with laundry cord and removed their outer coats. K's coat fit badly. Valerie's failed completely. They wore them anyway.
The lower stair smelled of wet stone and lamp oil.
Every landing brought Valerie closer to the cell she had imagined for three days. Saughtrick chained. Saughtrick beaten. Saughtrick waiting while she wasted hours crossing roofs and arguing beside barrels.
At the detention desk, a sergeant sat reading a prisoner ledger.
Valerie approached with her head lowered.
"Transfer from upper watch," she said.
The sergeant looked at the coats, the mud, and K's bandaged hand.
"Token."
K placed something on the desk.
Not a patrol token.
Van's favourite knife, returned by way of K's palm, laid flat between them.
The sergeant looked down.
Valerie struck him with the ledger.
K caught the falling lamp.
"Direct," he said.
"Quiet."
"Those are not opposites."
They crossed the final corridor.
The wall chains in Saughtrick's cell hung open.
No body. No blood newer than the dark stains beneath the rings. The stool Boldermore had used remained beside a scrap of honey cake pressed into the floor.
Valerie stopped in the doorway.
All the movement inside her stopped with it.
She had built the last three days around finding him here. Every road, every theft, every body, every bargain had pointed toward a room that contained only chains.
"Moved," K said behind her.
The corridor lamps brightened.
One after another.
Twenty soldiers stepped from the adjoining cells and the cross passage. Royal armour. Shields already raised. Swords positioned to close both directions without crowding the centre.
They had been waiting in darkness.
K moved beside Valerie despite the tremor in his hands.
At the far end of the corridor, Kavie the Brilliant sat in a chair with one ankle resting across his knee.
Mira's murderer smiled pleasantly.
"There you are," he said
[Saughtrick POV]
Saughtrick stood naked beneath white light while a royal tailor measured him for another man's life.
His wrists had been bandaged. His shoulder had been forced back into place. A physician had washed the blood from his side, closed the split skin, and given him enough medicine to stand without giving him enough to stop understanding why.
Three garments waited on a table in the preparation room beneath the Stone Throne.
The first was a prison shirt like the one removed from him.
The second was a black execution hood.
The third was a plain travelling coat bearing no royal mark.
Chancellor Boldermore watched from beside the door.
"Lift your arms," the tailor said.
Saughtrick did.
The measuring cord passed around his chest.
"There is another man my height?" he asked.
The tailor's hands stopped.
Boldermore dismissed him with a glance.
When they were alone, Saughtrick picked up the hood.
"The crowd sees this," he said. "A body kneels. An axe falls."
"Yes."
"Whose body?"
"A man already condemned."
"Name."
"A name would make the exchange heavier without making it different."
Saughtrick looked at his oldest friend.
"That is how you carry bodies now? By removing the names?"
Boldermore did not answer.
On the table beside the travelling coat lay a sealed packet marked with House Beldor's split tree.
Saughtrick touched it.
"Denedrick."
"He is sheltering Prince Eugert. You will enter Hillbeard as a disgraced captain who survived Hamrick's justice and learned the crown manufactured evidence against his family."
"Some of that is even true."
"The most useful lies are built around a load-bearing truth."
Saughtrick thought of Valerie in the crystal. Mira reaching. The sword descending.
"And if I refuse?"
"Valerie remains hunted by the crown, the Church, and people whose price exceeds both. If you cooperate, I can place orders around her capture. Alive. No public punishment until you complete the task."
"You can promise anything in a locked room."
"Yes."
Again, no defence.
The old arrangement between them: Boldermore explaining why nothing technically forbidden had occurred, Saughtrick accepting the punishment that remained.
Only now the punishment wore his daughter's face.
Saughtrick lifted the travelling coat.
It had been cut to fit him before the tailor entered.
Boldermore had known his answer before offering the choice.
"What happens tonight?" Saughtrick asked.
"Tonight you stand before the king."
"And tomorrow?"
Boldermore picked up the execution hood.
"At noon two days from now," he said, "Captain Ulkhander dies."