Chapter 26: Pursuit
Three days after Seraphina left, Cassian was gone.
Not a sudden disappearance. The first day, he moved stones as usual. Just quieter than before. The second day, he didn't return to his room after work. He sat on the city wall facing north. Sat there the whole night. The morning of the third day, Gray Bone went to the east side to deliver tools and found his stone house empty.
Violet got word while checking the ledgers in the granary. She set the ledger down and went to the east side.
Cassian's room was small. A bed built of stone. A desk of wooden planks. On the desk, a rough clay bowl. Half a bowl of cold porridge still inside. Violet looked around. An old hide coat hung on the wall. A pair of worn-out boots lay on the floor. Several stones not yet moved were piled in the corner. He had left in a hurry. Took nothing with him. Didn't even take the old coat.
Gray Bone stood in the doorway. "Should I send men after him?"
Violet didn't answer. She walked to the desk and picked up the clay bowl. Beneath it lay a piece of hide, palm-sized, folded into quarters. She opened it.
The writing was crooked and awkward. He hadn't been learning characters long. The strokes looked like a child's.
The nine sacks of salt I owe you. I'll come back and repay them.
Violet stared at those words for a long time. She folded the hide again and placed it inside her coat, against the egg.
"No pursuit." She said.
"No pursuit? The salt he owes you—"
"He left a note. The note is his debt acknowledgment. The debt acknowledgment is with me. He can't run."
Gray Bone opened his mouth, closed it, turned, and left.
Violet stood in the empty stone room. She didn't leave right away. She crouched down and checked under the bed. Nothing. She checked the pile of stones in the corner. One stone was different from the others. A darker color. She reached out and lifted it aside.
A small cloth bundle lay beneath. Coarse hemp cloth. Covered in dust. She opened it.
Inside was a broken leather cord. A bone comb missing several teeth. A blackened silver coin. And a half-burnt candle stub. All of it old. Worn and frayed. As if someone had touched them over and over for many years. Violet picked up the leather cord and held it closer. Small marks were carved into it. Not characters. Drawings. A human figure. A horizontal line beneath it. More small figures beneath the line.
Gray Bone hadn't gone far. Violet called him back. "Gray Bone. Come look at this."
Gray Bone came back, crouched down, and studied the leather cord. His face changed.
"This belongs to the Wanderer Tribe."
"The Wanderer Tribe?"
"The poorest tribe in the North. No fixed territory. They lived wherever they stopped. Despised by every other tribe. Even Silver Spring didn't bother raiding them." Gray Bone pointed at the markings on the cord. "This is a chieftain's mark. One figure at the top. Everyone beneath the line belongs to him. One cord holds one set of people. When the cord is full, they start a new one."
Violet counted the small figures on the cord. Seventeen. Not many. But for a wanderer tribe with nothing, seventeen mouths. Seventeen heavy burdens to keep alive.
"He was a chieftain?"
"These marks are his. He held this cord a long time." Gray Bone paused. "But the Wanderer Tribe scattered in the end. They say the chieftain was betrayed. He left his people and walked away alone. No one knows what happened after."
Violet looked at the leather cord.
Cassian. Chieftain of the Wanderer Tribe. Betrayed by his own people. Walked away alone. She fit this fragment together with the ones before. Silver Spring's traitor. Fugitive of the North. Debtor who moved stones. Not enough. Still too many gaps.
She wrapped the cord, the comb, the coin, and the candle stub back into the cloth. Placed them inside her coat. Against the egg. The note. The map.
Gray Bone watched her stuffing things into her coat and couldn't help saying, "How much are you carrying in there?"
"Enough to buy a life."
Gray Bone didn't ask again.
Violet walked out of the stone house. The sunlight was harsh. She squinted. On the east side construction site, Ulric's men were raising walls. The sound of stone moving, steady. But one person was missing. The one who moved the slowest. The heaviest. Who never slacked.
She went to find Leon.
Leon stood on the city wall, watching the southern horizon. He knew she had come. Didn't turn around.
"Cassian is gone." Violet said.
"I know. Gray Bone told me."
"He went south."
"Chasing after Seraphina."
"He said he'd come back and repay the salt."
Leon turned his head and looked at her. "He won't come back."
Violet stood beside him. Side by side, they looked south. Nothing to see past the wasteland. Only the horizon. Only the sky.
"He will. He owes me."
Leon said nothing. The two of them stood in silence. Wind came from the south, carrying dry heat. Stones stirred by the wind rolled along the base of the wall.
Violet pulled the small cloth bundle from her coat. Opened it. Handed the leather cord to Leon.
"He was the chieftain of the Wanderer Tribe. Betrayed by his own people."
Leon took the cord and studied the markings. "Seventeen people."
"More than that. When a cord is full, they start a new one. This is just one of them."
Leon said nothing. He handed the cord back to her. Violet wrapped it and placed it back inside her coat.
"He's not chasing Seraphina because of the mission." She said.
Leon looked at her. "Then why?"
"Because he truly likes her."
This time, Leon's silence stretched longer. Violet didn't know what he was thinking. She watched his profile. Watched his amber slit pupils narrow to a fine line in the sunlight. Watched the wind blow his hair across his forehead.
Then he spoke.
"And you?"
Violet's fingers tightened for an instant.
"You're keeping me here. Business or do you truly like me?"
She didn't answer. Not because she didn't want to. Because she couldn't. She didn't know. From the very first day, she had been calculating. Water. Grain. Roads. People. She had calculated herself into Water City. Calculated Leon into the ledger. But the ledger had no column for "like." She had never left room for that column. Now he had asked, and she realized. That column wasn't blank. She had deliberately left it out.
The wind blew again. Dry. Hot. Summer was coming.
"I don't know." She finally said.
Leon stared at her. His gaze rested on her face and didn't move for a long time.
"Enough." He said.
"Enough what?"
"That you don't know is enough. Knowing means settled. Not knowing means it can still change."
Violet said nothing. Her heartbeat was more honest than she was. Knocked twice against her ribs.
In the distance, a dark speck appeared on the southern horizon. Very small. Very far. A person or a tree. Impossible to tell.
"Is that him?" Violet asked.
"No. Too far. He's already gone farther than that."
Leon reached out and tucked the hair the wind had blown loose behind her ear. The same gesture as the day Seraphina left. Only this time, she didn't say his hands were cold.
"What if he truly doesn't come back?" She asked.
Leon's fingers stopped behind her ear. "The salt he owes you. I'll repay it for him."
"You'll repay it for him?"
"I'll move stones for nine months. Not enough, three months more."
Violet looked up at him. "You don't owe me."
"I owe you a life. That night in Thornveil Gorge. When you walked out of that tent. You repaid my debt to Gray Rock Tribe. You owe me nothing. But I owe you."
The sun climbed overhead. Their shadows shrank beneath their feet. Almost too short to see.
Violet pressed each item in her coat tight. The egg. The note. The map. The cord. The comb. The coin. The candle stub. Each one small. Very small. But together, heavier than she could stand up straight.
"Let's go back." She said. "There's still a lot to do. The mine accounts aren't finished. The granary reserves are still short by thirty percent. The supplies for the gathering aren't ready."
"You go first. I'll stand here a little longer."
Violet nodded. She turned and walked down from the wall. After a few steps, she stopped. Didn't look back.
"Leon."
"Yes."
"Nine months. You owe me nine months of stones."
She walked down the wall and into the alleys. No sound came from behind. But she knew he was watching.
---
Afternoon. Violet went to the mine to check the accounts. The blacksmith walked with her, talking about the quantity of iron ingots recently dug. She listened. Counted. Calculated. Calculating in her head. Calculating in her heart too. Cassian was gone. Left behind the words "come back and repay." Seraphina was gone. Left behind one line: "Your enemy isn't outside. Inside." One said they would come back. One said they would meet again. She didn't know which one to believe. Better to believe neither.
The mine accounts checked out. The numbers were correct. She walked back to Water City. Passing the east side, the sound of stones moving still rang out. But one person was missing. The one she glanced at every day as she passed by. Gone now. She hadn't known she was looking at him before. Now that he was gone, she knew. She had been looking at him every day.
Night. By the fire.
Leon wasn't there. He was keeping watch on the city wall. Violet sat alone by the fire. The map lay spread before her. She wasn't drawing. She was thinking about the leather cord. Seventeen people. Seventeen lives. He had carried them. Couldn't carry them. They scattered. He walked away.
She pulled out the note and read it again. The nine sacks of salt I owe you. I'll come back and repay them.
She folded the note and placed it back in her coat. The egg was moving. More often than yesterday. She pressed her hand to her chest and felt the small vibration. Not even hatched yet, and already restless. Like its father. Like its mother.
In the distance came footsteps on the city wall. Soft. Steady. Leon on patrol. She didn't call him. He didn't come down.
Wind blew from the south, carrying the chill of the North.
She pulled her coat tighter. Leon's coat. Warm.
But he wasn't beside her.
---
End of Chapter Twenty-Six
Cassian is gone. He left a note, a shattered past, and a person he can't catch. Violet now carries a leather cord carved with seventeen small figures. She didn't ask why he left. Because she knows some questions have no answers. But Leon asked her the question she can't answer. "Business or truly like." Her silence was the answer.