CHAPTER 439: 439: PAROLE UNDER THE MOUNTAIN

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Shadeclaw stood where the passage narrowed, a door guard if he needed to be. Silvershadow ranged the mouth of the hall, eyes on both ends. No one else.

Yavri came with her helmet tucked under her arm. She had already unbuckled her sword and handed it to one of the drones on the ledge. Now she offered Kai the short knife she hid under her waist, hilt first. He did not take it. He pointed to the floor. She set it down without comment.

"This is far enough," Kai said.

"Agreed," Yavri said. Her voice was steady — not hard, not soft. "Speak your terms."

"First thing," Kai said. "You and your thousand are prisoners. You raised the white flag; I honor it. You’ll be fed. You’ll have water. You’ll keep your wounded under shade. You will not scout, map, send signals, test traps, or step past the line my men chalk. No messages to the east, no mirrors, no cords, no marks. If one of your soldiers tests that, I cut that hand. If a captain orders it, I take the captain. The rest go on eating."

"Clear," Yavri said. "What of rites for our dead?"

Kai considered, then nodded once. "You may speak the short rite. No blades. No drums. My people will return what remains to the sand. If you want a name held, you tell Silvershadow and he will mark it."

A beat. "Fair."

"Second thing," Kai said, and here he watched her face. "You will stay until someone comes who outranks the desert."

Her gaze didn’t move. "Meaning?"

He gave her the story Mia put in his hand. He didn’t rush it, and he didn’t dress it up.

"When I was younger and dumber than I am now, a bully in the yard pushed a small one too far. I killed the bully. The instructors would have broken me for it. A princess hid me behind the west water jars. She pressed her scarf on the body and claimed the dead girl had stolen from a royal. She told the masters the matter was closed by royal law. She made it true. I promised the princess I would pay that debt when I had a way."

Yavri did not blink. "What color was the scarf?"

Kai didn’t fall into the hole. "I don’t speak a color over an open hall. I’ll say only that it was hers, it smelled of resin and smoke, and she shouldn’t have ruined it. She did anyway."

Yavri’s mouth moved a fraction — too small to be a smile. "Go on."

"She asked me for a favor," Kai said. "She asks now that you and yours stay here, under parole, until a royal from the Scarlet Ant Kingdom comes to claim you or speak your orders face to face. No raids. No night strikes. No tricks between then and now. Sit. Eat. Wait."

Silence folded once, then lay flat.

"One question," Yavri said. "Which princess asks you for this?"

"A princess whose name I won’t speak or I can’t speak," he said, exactly as Mia had told him. "She’ll come. You’ll know which when she stands here."

Yavri looked past him, not at Shadeclaw, not at Silvershadow, but to the slice of sky you could see from this bent hall. She weighed law against pride, and then she did what she had always done — chose the chain she trusted to hold.

"She will come," she repeated, and made it a statement to herself. Then: "If she does not come in a reasonable time, what then."

"Then we talk again," Kai said. "But I am not waiting for months. I will rank up soon. When I am done with that, I’ll go looking for a healer, and then I’ll decide what to do with you if the royal didn’t show her face for a reason."

A small shift of her shoulders — accepting the shape of the room. "Food and water allotments."

"Half-rations for two watches, full when the sun drops. No one goes thirsty. Your wounded get the first bowl of broth at night," Kai said. "My nurse-drones will tend to any who bleed. Your own women may help—but under Naaro’s word. Any trouble with my nurses, the helper goes back to the line."

"Latrines."

Kai pointed. "East shelf, thin rope, marked posts. Your line only. No wandering."

"Captains’ parole?"

"You stand with them," Kai said. "You keep them sitting on their hands."

"And weapons."

"Stacked on the lintel by companies, blades bound in twine," he said. "Two of yours on watch with two of mine, looking at the stack all night. Any hand reaches without call, Shadeclaw takes that hand before it closes."

Yavri bowed her head the smallest amount that still counted. "Then say the oath and I will carry it."

Kai didn’t make it long.

"You and yours sit under my rule," he said. "You eat, drink, tend your wounded sisters, and wait. You do not strike, scout, or slip a message. You keep your women from trying. Break this, and I break the one who breaks it. Keep it, and I keep my word when a royal stands in this shade."

"I hear it," Yavri said. "I carry it." She turned her helmet in her hands once, feeling the seam. "One more request."

"Speak."

"Let my people bury their swords in a trench and pull them again when the royal comes. It makes it easier to hold when the holding has a shape."

Kai was quiet. He didn’t like weapons on the ground on his hill. But he liked discipline that policed itself. He made the call.

"You make the trench on the east platform. Skall’s spade is in my hands; I will lend a different one. You bury the swords under my men’s eyes. You mark the trench with nothing. Until a royal comes, no one digs without me standing there. My people will monitor yours 24/7."

"Done," Yavri said.

"Then we speak to your captains," Kai said.

He stepped back onto the ledge first so every eye would know the space belonged to him. Shadeclaw flowed aside. Silvershadow ghosted to the edge of the surrendered block.

"Lines," Yavri called, and her captains rose like a hinge opening, each with a file-leader at her elbow. They came to the lintel and stopped one pace back, heads up, hands visible.

Kai raised his hand. "Hear the terms," he said, and repeated them cleanly: food, water, latrines, stacks, ropes, trench, watchers, punishments, royal arrival, parole. He didn’t shout. The stone did the carrying.

He finished and let the air settle. Then he looked to Yavri. "Your say."

Yavri stepped forward one pace and turned her head so her voice reached the full Mind hundred plus under the shade.

"Stand easy," she said. "Hear me. We lost and we lived. We will behave like soldiers who remember both."

A ripple moved through the seated ranks as spines softened half an inch.

"We stay here," she said. "We eat when we are given food; we drink when water is passed; we tend our wounded sisters first. Shields stay stacked. Helms stay off. Hands stay in sight. The line of rope is a wall — no one crosses it for any reason without my word. We bury our swords —once—together— under watch. No one digs until I say, and I will not say until a royal stands here to speak my orders. If any of you test this, I will cut you myself before this mountain needs to."

The thousand made a sound that wasn’t a cheer. It was the low thrum disciplined people make when they understand a hard thing and accept it.

Kai lifted two fingers. "Silvershadow — make the boundary; set four posts; double watch. Shadeclaw —rotate the ring. Lirien— send canvas and rope so they can make windbreaks and a clean trench. Naaro — choose two nurse-drones to teach their healers how we bind ribs."

Orders flowed. Work began. In the middle of it Kai felt his aura heat rise, that restless push the system had warned him about. He vented a thin ribbon of power — just enough to make the Wrath Crown flicker like a memory and vanish again — then breathed slowly until the boil cooled.

Yavri noticed. Her eyes flicked to the place over his head where the crown had lived in her fear, then back to his face. She didn’t comment. She nodded once —soldier to soldier, not friends— and turned to her captains.

"Set the pots," she said. "Sort the wounded. Stack the shields by company. Helmets to the left. Keep the young ones eyes dry."

The women moved. Bowls began to clink. The smell of thin grain grew warm.

Kai scanned the ledge. Luna had come to the arch again, Miryam’s head pillowed now on Azhara’s thigh. Skyweaver leaned against the lintel with her slinged arm, eyes on the sky for habit’s sake. Naaro had already set two nurse-drones with bundles of clean cloth and a small clay pot of oil. Vexor and Shale talked in short lines about boundary posts. Needle checked knots with careful fingers. Wolf lay with his head on his paws, watching the surrendered army with the steady stillness of a dog who knows he is on a chain and chooses not to pull it.

Kai’s work for the moment was done. He laid a hand once on the spear, and another on the rock. The mountain hummed in reply, low and even.

He stepped back so Yavri had the space she needed to make her nine hundred plus sit in order instead of fear.

She faced her soldiers one last time and made it simple, so no one could say they misunderstood.

"We will be here," Yavri said, voice clear, carrying to the back ranks, "until a royal from the Scarlet Ant Kingdom comes."