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Chapter 677: The Promised Reunion

The forest slowed them but held no dangers. Three days later, Yorko met a patrol of Graycastle soldiers several miles from the border — brown leather uniforms, long metal rifles over their shoulders — and felt something give way in his chest.

He followed them back to Evernight and heard the full account from Duke Kant. The moment Hill’s letter had reached Roland, two confidential orders went out: one to the First Army platoon garrisoned at Deepvalley Town, directing them to split into four groups and enter Kingdom of Dawn territory from four border junctions to reinforce the retreating delegation; another to the Duke of the Northern Region, instructing him to prepare for possible war — grain, cotton, horse carriages stockpiled, the main army ready to march. At the word that the delegation had arrived safely, the duke had exhaled a breath he seemed to have been holding for some time.

Yorko found himself oddly touched by the response. He had known, in the abstract, that Roland took care of his people. Seeing it arranged — the machinery of it, the speed — was something else.

What moved him most was the order of the names in Roland’s letter. He had listed Yorko at the top, above the four witches. Whatever suffering and fright the journey had cost, Yorko found he couldn’t really hold it against anyone after reading that.

He wrote a long letter of his own detailing the retreat, handed it to the duke for forwarding to Roland, and asked that the military preparations in the Northern Region be stood down. He understood now that Hill had not been overstating things — Roland had taken the incident very seriously. Yorko hoped the seriousness could be resolved quietly rather than escalated to a border war.

He was also newly struck by the First Army’s speed. Subtracting the time for carrier pigeons to travel both ways, the unit had moved out on the day they received the order — a unit whose regular duties included defending against church remnants and demonic beasts. He knew well enough how most nobles assembled military force: half a month to summon knights, mercenaries, free peoples; constant supervision to prevent the mercenaries from pocketing their advance pay and vanishing overnight. The idea of an army that simply moved when directed, without negotiation or attrition, reordered something in his thinking.

Perhaps that was how Roland had taken the king’s city in a single day.

Yorko began to understand that his old friend’s military advantage was not just in weapons. It ran through everything — discipline, logistics, loyalty. Standing with that army behind him, an ambassador was never truly alone.

The only worry that remained was No. 76.

He had made a promise: whichever of them arrived at the destination first would hang a four-colored flag somewhere visible. Duke Kant had searched Evernight thoroughly. No such flag. So Yorko set up a flagpole directly in front of the house the duke had arranged for them, and ran his own four-colored flag up it, where it could be seen from the street the moment anyone entered the inner city.

He was not the only one watching for her. Through the window he often saw Annie and Amy standing under that flagpole, eyes on the road. As the days passed and the group came to know each other better, Annie’s manner toward him had shifted — the sustained wariness was gone, replaced by something closer to neutral regard. She no longer watched his every movement as though cataloguing it for evidence.

Hill’s men visited and were plainly impatient. The magician told Yorko directly: the probability that No. 76 had successfully distracted the knights and also survived was low. If the knights pursuing them hadn’t been specifically ordered to hunt witches, she would have reached the border village by the following day and Evernight well before the rest of them. Her absence at the meeting point suggested she had not made it. The magician thought Yorko should accept this.

Yorko knew the magician was right.

He wanted to wait a few more days anyway. The words she had spoken at the forest edge stayed with him.

When the situation improves, I’ll find you again — right at the border city of Graycastle. Make sure you wait for me.

He understood now what the strange feeling at the moment of parting had been. No. 76 was a slave in name — that was the legal fact of it — but he had never treated her as one, not at Black Money, not in the Kingdom of Dawn. He could not have said exactly when the distinction had stopped mattering. He only knew that it had.

He had decided: if she came back, he would give her her freedom.

The thought came and he recognized immediately that it had arrived too late.

Three more days. He was preparing himself to leave the Northern Region the following morning when a carriage pulled up alongside the flagpole. The driver sat anxious on his box, clearly wanting to address the guards but unable to bring himself to approach. Yorko spotted it from the window — and then Annie and Amy were already outside, crossing to the carriage before he could reach the door.

No. 76 had come back.

The news spread through the household in moments. Even Duke Kant arrived, curious to see the brave maid who had covered their retreat.

Her condition was not good.

When Yorko saw her she was covered in bruises. Her right hand was broken. Her left foot as well. She could not move without help.

“Sir…” No. 76 blinked up at him, and with what looked like a genuine effort managed a smile. “Thank you for waiting.”

Something in his chest, which had been held tight for days, simply released.

“I’m glad you came back.”

They stayed in Evernight another week, until she was stable. Then they traveled to Deepvalley Town and took a ship south, out of the Northern Region.

In the days that followed, Yorko learned what had happened.

The knights from Glow had caught up to her before sunset. She had cut the horses loose and sent them running in the opposite direction to block the approaching riders, then tried to reach the mountains along the road’s edge. A stream stopped her. With capture certain, she had gone over the cliff — thirty meters, with branches and vines on both sides of the precipice breaking the fall in parts. Her head had struck rock on the way down and bled. Her right hand and left foot were broken by outcroppings. By the time she reached the streambed she had lost consciousness.

The knights had not followed — no safe path down, probably, or they’d assumed the fall had done their work for them. She woke at midnight, used the cold water to hold herself awake, and found what she could in the shallows — small fish, shrimps. Two days later, fishermen found her and pulled her out.

Hero could dull her pain but not close her wounds. Healing of that kind would have to wait for Neverwinter, and whatever witches might be found there capable of it.

But she had come back.

Yorko stood at the bow as the ship moved south, sails filling with the wind, and felt nothing in particular except a clean, uncomplicated satisfaction.

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