17 · The Terraces of Shelter

Neris stared at a wall mosaic. It showed the first masons receiving the world's measure from Aethrion's hands. All looked human; all were the same height. In a corner, beneath a mortar bowl, very small fingers could be seen. The figure that once held it had been covered when the image was renewed.

“Gnomes,” she said.

Ivara approached. The repair belonged to another period; behind a stonecutter's shoulder remained the tip of a dark ear. Beneath the imperial founding inscription was an older guild mark.

They found no hidden golden age. The original masons had not painted the women carrying food either. Someone added them centuries later, and someone else erased them again. History was not a clean wall waiting for a single layer to be removed.

In the market stood a queue of the sick. They had come to register for the Shelter of the Hand. One woman was required to prove her husband's death before being allowed to seek him among the returned.

She carried the knife that

had killed him.

Teren tried to intervene. The scribe neither mocked nor mistreated her. He explained that six people had claimed the same returned man in two days, and the man recognised none. One family wanted to take him to work in their shop. The scribe did not know which.

“If I let her through unchecked, they say I'm not protecting the man. If I stop her, they say I'm separating a wife.”

Ivara proposed holding the hearing inside, both present, with a witness who did not belong to the shelter. The scribe searched his regulations. It was not forbidden. Nor was it authorised. Serik wrote a recommendation and put his seal beside the signature. He did not demand obedience. The man took the sheet and opened the hatch.

They stayed until they saw her cross.

A choir of apprentices came down the stairs. They sang that Dawnrock's protection made no distinction of origin. One was distracted by Maera, missed a note and kept his mouth open so the master

would not notice.

The assassin had to turn aside to hide a smile. The city she detested also produced children convinced they helped sustain it. She found it difficult to keep an image of it that fitted wholly within her hatred.

They were stopped at the second gate. Serik gave his name and presented the letter sent to Ysara. The officer on duty asked for his sword. Maera laid her knives in a tray, but held the man's gaze until he removed his own weapon too.

“A conversation,” she said. “Since that's what you call it.”

They were brought before Adela Veyr. The governor had a map on her knees and one boot unfastened: she had just returned from the granaries. She had authorised the detention of those who returned. She did not try to deny it.

“They told me they might be ill,” she explained. “That we had to prevent a second disaster.”

Ivara showed her the lists of guarantees of obedience. Adela read three names, summoned her secretary

and ordered him to verify the families. He went pale without moving.

“Now,” she said.

After he left, the governor put the papers on the table.

“If this is true, I'll need your testimony under oath.”

“You have it,” Teren replied. “But first open the Shelter of the Hand.”

Adela looked at Serik.

“Do you understand what you're asking? We have thousands under those roofs. If the aid is withdrawn, I can't replace it with a speech.”

The paladin had prepared an accusation. He left it unsaid.

“Don't free them only to abandon them,” he replied. “Free them and keep feeding them.”

The secretary returned with a summons from the chancellor. Cael Ordan expected them that afternoon.

Beforehand, they were allowed to see the shelter. There were clean courtyards, infirmaries, hot food. There were also bolts on the dormitory doors. A returned dwarven woman cared for two children who were not hers. When Teren asked whether she could leave, she showed him a copper bracelet.

“They say if I take

it off, I won't find my home again.”

On the wall hung an image of Ilyndra offering a seed. Beneath it someone had painted the five-stroked door.

Teren stayed beside the dormitory door when supper began.

The carers opened the bolt from outside. A boy helped hand out bowls and received extra bread for returning the key. They had made surveillance into a household chore repeated so often almost no one saw it. When Serik asked to examine the lock, the boy thought he had lost something.

The dwarf with the bracelet was called Oda. Before dying she had guarded a warehouse. Her sister refused to receive her after her return, convinced the real Oda would remember the password they used in childhood games.

“There never was a password,” the woman said. “She invented it after I arrived.”

Teren asked whether she wanted to see her again. Oda kept moving her spoon.

“Not today.”

A carer intervened to explain that the sister was experiencing complicated grief. Oda listened with practised

patience.

“So am I,” she replied.

Teren felt the phrase alter everything he had come to ask. They spoke of the returned as people given back to others. No one asked what they had lost on finding themselves again in a world that had gone on without them.

Serik asked them to leave the dormitory unbolted. The carer refused. He had a written order and two escape attempts by disoriented patients.

The governor arrived before the argument grew. Adela examined the lock and asked how many accidents had happened outside. They could not say. The records included those who tried to leave as proof they were unfit to do so.

She did not simply order every door opened. She called for the lists, ordered individual cases identified and suspended the general rule. Oda asked to be the first whose condition was reviewed. She knew locks better than two of the guards.

Adela listened to her describe the mechanism. In the end, she handed her the key to open it herself.

For a moment, the children stopped passing plates. The door made no great sound. A metal pin came out of a recess, and nothing compelled those inside to stand.

Oda kept eating.

Freedom could look much like that from outside: no scene, no memorable escape, a woman deciding to finish her soup before thinking where to go.

Teren recognised the voice before he turned.

“You still stop in front of pictures.”

The chancellor was alone. He carried a jug of water and four glasses.

“Adria did the same,” he said. “Artists leave more questions than they answer.”