The street narrowed as it descended.
Rain ran along both gutters in thin black streams, carrying ash, chalk dust, scraps of paper, and the pale shavings of old wood. The horses did not like it. They had not liked the appraiser house. They had not liked the covered yard where Corin had tied them beneath a sagging awning while Talia searched the upper office and Kellan stood too long over the scratched warning in the floor.
They liked the street toward the bridge least of all.
Leaving them tied back had lasted less than a minute. The first closed door had made one horse rear hard enough to crack the rail, and the sound had carried through three empty streets. After that, Talia had ordered the animals led with them. Bad choices were still choices.
Darion led Moss by the reins. Her ears stayed flat. She had carried him through worse roads without complaint, which meant her complaint now deserved attention. Every few steps she lifted her head and breathed hard through her nose, as if the air itself had a smell she could not bear.
Behind him, Maeron murmured to his own horse in a low voice that had lost most of its music.
“Easy, girl. Easy now. We’re only walking through a dead city.”
The horse jerked against him.
Maeron swallowed the rest of whatever joke he had been building.
Talia walked at the front with her hood down despite the rain. Water had darkened her hair and run along her jaw, but she did not wipe it away. One hand stayed free at her side, fingers loose, ready for ledger, knife, reins, or order. Her eyes moved from door to window to archway, measuring every street they passed.
Corin kept close to her left. He had taken the lead rope of one of the remaining packhorses and held it short, the slack looped once around his fist. The other animals came unwillingly behind them, lighter than they should have been and no easier to manage for it. They tugged at every crossing sound whenever The Merrow grew louder between the houses.
Pell and Ness moved ahead of them in turns, never far now, never out of sight for long. Pell kept his bow low and ready, jaw working as if he still had mint to chew. Ness stayed quieter, rain-dark curls plastered to his brow, one hand checking his bowstring whenever the river pressed too close. The city had cured both men of looking bored.
Kellan had not spoken much since the upper room. Records east.
Fall claims. Witness lists. Dream reports.
Named held.
Bridge-posts.
Bells tied.
Do not ring.
The words had followed them down the stairs and out into the rain. They had followed them through the empty yard, past the trough full of black water, past the two doors sealed from the outside, past the wall where dozens of names had been scraped away and replaced by marks.
A pale ring closed around a little star.
Darion had seen the same mark on the notice-board. On the appraiser house lintel. On the paper tags left in the drawers. It was a simple thing. A child could have drawn it.
That made it worse.
A star should not look trapped.
The street bent, and the sound of the river grew.
Not louder, exactly. Wider.
It pressed between the buildings and under the soles of Darion’s boots. The Merrow had been a voice all morning, running unseen beneath fog and rain, but here, close to the bridge, it became a body. It moved under the city with dark patience.
Talia raised one hand.
Everyone stopped.
Ahead, the houses ended.
Bridge Square opened before them.
For a breath, even the horses stilled.
The Great Bridge filled the world.
It rose from the west bank in a long, massive sweep of pale stone darkened by rain, broader than any road Darion had ever walked, older than the walls behind them, older than the keep that watched from the east. Its first arches vanished into spray below. Its central span climbed high above The Merrow, then descended toward the eastern bridge-head where a road of wet stone led up to the old keep and the pale receiving house built beneath it.
The Merrow ran under it black and silver, swollen by rain and mountain water. Far below, the river struck the piers and broke into white fury before drawing itself together again and turning south toward Gloamwater.
The bridge did not look made for crossing.
It looked made to hold the city in place.