Void System: Every Heroine Makes Me Stronger

Nyra kept the folded paper in her fist.

Severin looked at the paper, then at her.

"You took it. Keep it."

Her smoke-black ears shifted toward him. "I wasn’t planning to hand it over."

"Good."

Her eyes narrowed a fraction.

Released captives continued filing through the rear gate behind them. Alicia stood near the workroom door with the market packet tucked against her left side and the keeper’s key ring in her right hand.

Severin lifted the closed field case with his left hand. "We’re done here."

Alicia moved immediately. "Yes, Master."

Nyra stepped down from the bay and followed them into the lower hall.

In the lower hall, Nyra slowed where market workers crowded the ledger side of the passage. She chose the wider gap without asking them to move and kept walking. Nobody reached for her.

Outside the lime-yard wall, Tressa was already moving between the people Alicia had sent out. The closed purse for the freed captives was still in Tressa’s hand while she made a thin man sit on an overturned crate before he tried walking farther.

Her attention snapped to Nyra as soon as they approached.

"Hands."

Nyra stopped. "They’re attached."

"Good. Let me see them anyway."

Nyra gave a short huff. She kept the folded paper in her right fist and held out her left wrist.

Tressa checked the old cuff mark, then motioned for the other. Nyra turned her right wrist without giving up the paper. Tressa pressed her fingertips lightly against the skin.

"Numb?"

"No."

"Dizzy?"

"No."

"Any pain when you move your fingers?"

Nyra flexed her left hand. "Nothing worth complaining about."

"That’s not what I asked."

For a moment, Nyra said nothing.

Tressa waited.

"Sore," Nyra said at last. "That’s all."

"Wash the marks when you can. Clean cloth, salve afterward. Don’t tear the skin open because it itches."

"I know how cuffs heal."

Tressa’s mouth tightened briefly. "I’d rather you knew something less useful."

Nyra didn’t answer that.

Tressa released her wrist and immediately looked past them toward the next people coming up from the road.

Severin nodded toward the house carriage waiting beyond the sheds. "We’re leaving."

Tressa nodded. "I’ll stay here."

Saelith was still near the old wall. She saw him turn toward the carriage, then put her attention back on the side road.

Alicia opened the carriage door.

Nyra paused before climbing in. Her eyes moved over the driver, the street behind him, and the opposite door inside the carriage.

Then she stepped up.

By the time the carriage reached Greycross manor, the market smell of lamp smoke and damp stone had faded from Severin’s coat.

Marienne was waiting in the west records room. She took in the field case, Alicia’s market keys, and Nyra at a glance.

"Some of my money survived," she said.

"20 Stellar Gold," Severin said.

"A touching reunion."

Alicia placed the key ring and packet on the records table. "Market keys and papers, Marienne. Master wants them kept here."

"Not with the manor keys," Marienne said to the senior clerk. "If you make me discover that mistake later, I’ll become unpleasant."

The clerk gathered them quickly. "Yes, Treasurer."

Severin carried the field case to the strongroom doorway and handed it to Marienne.

She opened the strongroom herself. The senior clerk followed her inside. Severin stayed at the doorway with Alicia beside him. Nyra remained back near the records table, the folded handler paper still in her right hand.

Marienne unlocked the company chest. Coin clicked softly as the clerk counted the remaining field money back inside.

The clerk brought the empty case back through the doorway and set it beside the records table.

Severin said, "140 Stellar Gold for Nyra."

Marienne looked over her shoulder. "Split?"

"100 to her. 40 for clothes, travel gear, food, a knife, and salve."

Nyra’s gaze sharpened. "Advance?"

"No," Severin said.

Marienne turned back to the chest. "If it were an advance, there would be paper in front of you before coin."

The senior clerk counted out the split. He carried a plain purse back through the doorway and held it out to Nyra.

She didn’t take it immediately.

"100 Stellar Gold," Marienne said. "Yours."

Her attention shifted to Severin.

"Take it."

Nyra took the purse with her left hand. The folded paper stayed in her right.

The clerk returned for the remaining 40 Stellar Gold. Marienne put it in a smaller purse for him, then locked the chest and strongroom and kept the chest and strongroom keys.

"Ready-made," she told the clerk. "Nothing decorative. Make sure the trousers are cut for a tail. Travel, not a ballroom."

Nyra’s ears angled toward her.

"You can insult my taste after you’ve got enough clothes to have one," Marienne said.

"I’ll work on it."

The clerk left with the 40 Stellar Gold.

He returned later with a wrapped bundle under his arm, the smaller purse empty, and folded receipts tucked beside it. Marienne took the purse and receipts. The clerk kept hold of the bundle.

Severin led Nyra upstairs. Alicia stayed close behind him; Marienne and the clerk came with them.

The spare room was plain and bright enough to inspect at a glance. A bed stood against the south wall. The west window had a small table beneath it, and a washstand faced it from the other side of the room. Marienne set a filled pitcher and clean cloths beside the basin before Nyra crossed the doorway, then came back out.

Nyra walked to the window and looked down along the side of the property. On her way back, her eyes ran down the corridor to the central stair. Then she set the coin purse on the small table without releasing the folded paper.

Alicia watched without comment.

"You can close the door," Severin said.

Her gaze settled on him. "And nobody opens it?"

"Not unless you do."

She glanced at Alicia.

Alicia lifted her empty hands slightly. "Master didn’t tell me to enter."

Nyra’s gaze moved to Marienne.

"I have accounts downstairs," Marienne said. "Your room isn’t competing with them."

The senior clerk held the wrapped bundle out from the landing without crossing the threshold.

"For her," he said.

Nyra took it herself. The clerk went back downstairs.

She set the bundle on the bed, looked around the room again, then stepped inside and shut the door.

Severin turned to Marienne before she could leave the landing.

"Open the south vehicle gate. West leaf. Leave it open."

Marienne studied him for a beat, then looked at Nyra’s closed door.

"I see."

"Do it."

"Of course."

She headed for the stair.

An ear twitched toward the shut guest-room door.

Severin looked at her.

It snapped back.

"I’m not listening, Master."

"Good."

Alicia smiled, entirely unashamed.

They waited.

Someone crossed the lower hall. A door opened downstairs and shut again. From outside came the dull rattle of a cart on the street beyond the wall.

The guest-room door opened.

Nyra had changed into a dark slate shirt and black-brown travel trousers made for her tail. New leather boots replaced the worn pair. A charcoal cloak sat over her shoulders, and a plain sheathed knife rode at her belt.

A medium leather bag hung from her shoulder. Her old boots were tied outside it by their laces. The folded handler paper was no longer in her hand.

Her wrists were clean. A faint shine of salve remained over the old marks.

Severin didn’t ask what she’d done with the paper while the door was closed.

"So," she said. "What did you buy for 100 Stellar Gold?"

"Nothing."

Her mouth pulled sideways. "Expensive nothing."

"The money is yours. The clothes and gear are yours."

"And you want nothing."

"I didn’t say that."

Severin stood in the open landing with Alicia beside him.

"I want Deception Trace. I want what you know about the people who sold you and the people they work through. And I want you as a woman."

Alicia’s tail tapped the back of her skirt and went still.

Nyra’s ears tilted forward.

"You don’t bury the unpleasant part very deep."

"Why would I?"

Her eyes flicked to Alicia, then back.

"If I walk out your gate now with the coin, the knife, the clothes, and my paper, what do you do?"

"Nothing."

Her eyes narrowed. "What does ’nothing’ mean?"

"You leave with it. I don’t stop you or take anything back."

Nyra watched him.

Her thumb stopped against the strap of her bag. The hard concentration in her eyes was familiar from the market.

After a moment, Nyra spoke.

"You’re not trying to trick me on that."

Nyra adjusted the bag on her shoulder.

"Show me."

Severin turned toward the stair.

They went down together.

The front hall ended at the house door. Severin took the front-door key, opened it, and left the door standing wide behind the threshold.

Across the inner court, the west leaf of the south vehicle gate already stood open. Marienne was back near the west records-room doorway.

Nyra stopped just outside the house.

The street was visible beyond the court and the open gate. A delivery wagon rolled past the far end of the opening without slowing. Somewhere beyond the wall, a man called for someone to move a handcart out of his way.

Severin stopped at the house threshold.

Alicia stopped beside him.

She glanced back.

Severin didn’t move.

She crossed the court.

At the south gate, the Ward gave a brief pull at the edge of Severin’s awareness. Nyra crossed the boundary without slowing and stepped onto the street.

She kept walking.

Her tail hung low behind the cloak. The bag stayed on her shoulder.

She scanned the street from end to end.

Alicia’s gaze lifted to him, silent.

Nyra stopped.

A cartwheel clacked through a shallow stone rut farther down the street.

She turned around.

Then she walked back through the gate.

The Ward touched his awareness again when she came back through.

Nyra crossed the court again and stopped short of the open house door, the bag still on her shoulder.

"You said paid work."

Severin waited.

"Give me 1 job. Paid. Something you actually need done."

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