The King Who Broke Heaven’s Tithe

Chapter 37 The Third Chain

The monastery answered before sunrise.

A pale thread descended through the dark and fastened to something on the ridge above Rillmarket. The two existing chains brightened. For a moment the hanging towers tilted, and Daren saw the underside of a courtyard where no human eye should have looked from the ground.

Then the third thread snapped loose.

The sound reached Hearthfast several breaths later, deep enough to tremble in the water cups.

Daren stood at the lower quarry with Brida and two watchers. Pella had permitted the journey only because he could ride on a timber sledge along the old haul path and sit once he arrived. He disliked every bump and every person pretending not to notice.

Now he was glad to be low beneath the rock lip.

“They missed,” Berrit whispered.

“They tested,” Selka said.

She had come to identify the signal, wrapped against the cold, her arm still bound. Daren had not liked that either. Pella had judged her fit to walk the short route slowly, and the decision belonged to her.

On the opposite slope, small lights moved around the bronze spindle Pellan had described. Daren watched through the gap between two stones, measuring their position against an old quarry marker.

The crew had chosen solid ground. Its road was poor, but pack animals could carry the remaining pieces.

“What do they need?” he asked Selka.

“Enough anchoring weight. A clear current. Someone trained to join the chain when the monastery lowers it.”

“Someone stronger than us.”

“Likely.”

She did not name a realm she could not see.

Brida studied the angle of the thread. “That ridge is slate on clay. If they load the wrong face, the whole cap slides.”

“Can we make it slide?” Berrit asked.

“And bury the road underneath? With whoever happens to be using it?”

He looked away.

Daren had been considering the same answer. He was relieved Brida had made its cost visible before he called it a plan.

A worker climbed onto the spindle housing. His coat lifted in the wind, showing a rope tied around his waist. Another man held the rope below, braced against a wheel.

Daren remembered standing in that position beneath a siege engine, trusting a tired stranger to keep both hands closed. Distance made enemies small enough to mistake for parts of the machine. The worker slipped, caught a rail, and climbed again.

Berrit lowered the stone he had picked up. It could never have reached the opposite slope anyway.

“If they come here?” he asked.

“We defend the gate,” Daren said.

He did not ask Berrit to pity a crew preparing to bring a monastery over their heads. He wanted him to see the task clearly, including the people trapped inside it.

The monastery was near the end of its expected journey, but the final approach was not finished. The crew had to build and test the last anchor. Destroying one spindle might delay them; it would not make a floating fortress forget how to travel.

Daren asked Brida to mark where falling stone would reach if the anchoring failed. Then he asked the watchers to count animals and timber loads instead of guessing how frightened they should be.

Two pack beasts stood near the crew. A third lay on its side.

“That's why they're taking mules,” Vann said from behind them.

His own animals waited farther down the path, out of sight. Asha stood beside the saddles, carrying only her traveling pouch and sample notes. Jun checked the rope around a bundle of tools meant for the crossing repair.

The route past the upper ford was no longer merely a place for a toll. It had become a supply line for the anchor crew.

Daren sent Pellan ahead to warn Keela. Hearthfast's party would wait at the quarry until the burners confirmed their crossing was clear.

Vann stared toward the hanging towers.

“If we wait too long, there'll be no clear road.”

“I know.”

“Knowing isn't moving.”

Daren pointed at the near approach. “Brida can inspect that while we wait. The message travels faster than the mules.”

The carter accepted it reluctantly.

Selka sat beside Daren on the quarry bench. Across the valley, dawn lit the old court colors painted on the spindle housing. She looked at them for a long time.

“I used to think the chains kept things from falling,” she said.

“They do.”

“Yes.” She flexed the fingers of her good hand. “And someone always had to stand beneath them.”

Daren wanted to say she stood elsewhere now. The words felt too easy. Instead, he asked which warning would come before another lowering attempt.

“Three strokes. A pause. Then one long note.”

He made Berrit repeat it and sent the information back to Iven with one watcher. The hall would keep children away from high windows and tools ready for a roof fall. Nobody would run simply because the first bell sounded.

From the western path, Pellan returned at a hard walk.

“Keela says the deck can take them. The approach needs two braces. She's bringing the timber.”

Vann began moving at once.

Then Pellan caught his sleeve.

“There's more. The steward's men asked about her crossing yesterday. She refused them.”

Daren looked down the path, where the first mule had already raised its ears toward a sound he could not hear.

A thin silver line slid between the trees and hooked around its halter ring.

The animal screamed as the line pulled tight.