Voss asked her to read the transfer words aloud.
Selka took the sheet. Beneath the Torren speech stood the pledge in tide tongue, copied in a clerk's careful hand. For a moment she saw the tent from twenty years ago. The wet floor. The sleeping baby. Her own mouth forming a sentence she could never pretend she had misunderstood.
“This isn't release,” she said.
The woman with the tools set them down. The nearest Torren official drew closer. Voss took Selka's elbow and guided her to the back of the platform, where the singing made them difficult to hear.
“It is the release of prisoners.”
“And the god?”
“A shared burden.”
She looked toward the Torren tent. “The third pipe.”
“They get a portion. We retain the portions keeping our people alive. Neither country can afford to fight over the river afterward. Both need the engine intact.”
It was a real peace. She could see that. Two countries holding the same throat, each afraid to close its own fist.
“You let them sing about giving it back.”
“Would you rather have them riot over the workings of a hearth?”
“You knew what would happen if it took itself.”
“We know what would happen if it died, too. That's why we sent you. To keep it alive.”
Below the platform Darr stood near the prisoner gate, his hands on his sword belt. Kerr leaned on the other side. Selka wanted to step down and tell the captain to take his brother and go. There was nowhere to go yet.
Ruun had begun to strain against the carriage. Two men tightened the upper irons. Selka heard the water in its throat become a hiss.
“You promised me a pardon.”
“I still promise it.” Voss lowered his voice. “And Anet's support. The pipe stays warm. She lives. Ruun has survived twenty years; it can survive more. Do you think suffering ends because you find one creature's suffering more moving?”
She looked at his hand on her elbow. The first time, he had touched her shoulder while Anet lay against it. He had known exactly where to stand.
“Take your hand away.”
“Selka.”
She pulled free and went to the carriage. Ruun watched her approach. Its stone finger lay bent against the iron, the rest of the hand wet.
“They aren't releasing you,” she told it.
“You know the words.”
“I do.”
“Will you say them?”
The younger version of herself had been able to see only a child. At forty-two Selka could still see Anet, in a foundry loft, striking a bell that would carry farther than her mother wanted. Selka wanted that future, but not at that price again. She wanted it so badly that her mouth had gone dry.
“No.”
Ruun shut its eyes. She did not mistake it for gratitude.
Voss signaled the guards. The woman lifted the hooked key. A Torren officer called for the release ceremony to begin, and the crowd quieted in a wave.
“We have another interpreter,” Voss told Selka. “It will be harder on the body. Your choice.”
Two men took her arms. She did not fight yet. She looked down at the catch fastening the front of the carriage to the receiving rails. The woman would open the chest irons before dropping that catch. The god's weight would tip onto the hearth; the new brace would close around it. Selka knew the sequence because she had helped it happen once.
This time the belly fitting was still loose from the broken bridge. She had driven it home, but the latch had warped.
“Darr,” she called.
He turned.
“The new hearth is a chain.”
The captain looked from her to Voss. She saw belief arrive in his face, then a fury she did not have time to answer.
The substitute interpreter began the old words. Ruun opened its eyes. Selka let her knees collapse, pulling the guards down with her toward the warped latch.