~*-Briar-*~

No one came again for a long time. Not to talk to him, anyway. Food, water, and fresh chamberpots were left, by more of the salty-bearded sailors, or the occasional watchman. He tried to talk to them, but no one would say anything to him.

"They're keeping me prisoner!" he shouted after one who brought him food, on the fifth day. "This is illegal! I'll tell Duke Vedris on you!"

Nothing. The man just turned his back and slammed the stone door behind him. He considered attacking one of them, but they were all bigger and stronger than him and there were a lot of them and he had no magic and no weapons. Even if he got out of the room he'd have the same problem he had before. It seemed as though the only choice he had was to wait around for the girls to rescue him.

How? asked a treacherous voice in the back of his mind. You're cut off from them. Not even the shakkan will be able to tell Rosethorn where you are.

Out of all the girls, he thought Evvy most likely to trace him over land to the ocean. But there was a lot of water between the coast of Summersea and the island. Evvy could sense rock underwater, he knew, but this deep? And even if she could, how would the stone even recognise him? He was just a man now, not a mage.

He dreamed about the girls. It was better than the nightmares, but only just. He kept waking up thinking to find himself in his old bed at Discipline, only to open his eyes to the stone room with its bloody stone floor, shivering.

He would have given anything to talk to Euan one more time. The man clearly had some unresolved issues Briar knew he could play on. And, more than that, he wanted to ask about the picture of his mother. Was that how they had tracked him? It seemed unlikely. He'd been no more than four years old when his mother died, and only the Thief Lord and a few urchins in Sotat knew what had become of him after that. He had a mental image of Euan talking to the Thief Lord and almost laughed.

No magic, no knives. No weapons at all, except his hands and feet, and those were half frozen and numb most of the time. He asked for a blanket, but the deaf-seeming sailors ignored that request as well. And he wasn't about to start begging until he got really desperate.

He lay on his mattress and stared up at the ceiling. Perhaps it was time to start reciting herbs again...

Thunder rolled across the sky with a terrible, sudden rumble. Briar sat up, a slow grin spreading across his face. That was no natural storm. That sounded like Tris.

~*-Sandry-*~

Sandry woke with a start as the thunder rolled. Lighting flashed outside her window in almost the same instant. Tris? she thought, almost without hesitation.

Later, came back the curt reply, and the connection cut off. That was just rude.

Sandry got out of bed and dressed quickly but quietly to avoid waking her chambermaid. She put on soft slippers and slung her riding boots around her neck by the laces before creeping downstairs. She passed guardsmen on the way, none of whom tried to stop her. Some looked nervously out the windows at the lightning.

The stableboy's eyes widened when she came for her horse and changed her shoes right in front of him. She stuffed the slippers into her mage kit and took the reins from him, using a stool to mount. "Lady Sandreline."

She sighed. She should have known it would never be that easy. "Yes, Baron Erdogun?

The tall, balding man hurried towards her with a pained expression. "Do you mind if I ask where you might be going this time of night, my lady?"

"I have family business," she said firmly. "If the Duke asks, you may tell him I will be back before sundown, or I will let him know otherwise."

She tapped the horse's flank with her heels and rode him out of the palace before he could protest any more. She had no doubt that her uncle would know what she meant by 'family business'.

Briar had been gone almost a week now. After that terrible moment when his connection to them had been strained and snapped, Daja and Sandry had thought he must be dead, but Tris had been quick to tell them otherwise. But how can he be alive? Sandry had asked her, almost unable to let herself believe it.

I don't know, but he is, Tris said. I can almost scry him, but there's too much air and magic in the way. I need to be closer. I'm coming now.

That was five days ago. It should have taken a month at the least for Tris to travel all the way from Lightsbridge, but she assured them she could do it faster, impossible as that seemed.

"I've given up trying to work out what's impossible for you four," Niko sighed when they told him. "Tris especially. Tell her from me not to hurt herself, will you?"

"I can't," Sandry had said, biting her lip. "She's not answering."

"At least she's there," Daja had said. Sandry knew what she meant. There was a great empty space in her where Briar should have been, and it hurt.

She had asked Duke Vedris to help in the search, but so far nothing had turned up. Briar's trail went cold off the path to Winding Circle. There wasn't even any blood or signs of a struggle. Sandry wasn't sure if that would have made her feel better or not.

Poor Rosethorn had hardly slept since he had disappeared. Daja said she had broken down on thinking that Briar was gone forever. It had taken all Sandry's persuasion to make her believe there was hope. "That boy will be the death of me," she kept saying, brushing off Lark's concern for her own health whenever the other woman tried to make her eat or sleep. She had spent every day walking round Emelan, communing with all the plants in her way to try and get some hint of where Briar was. But so far she had had about as much luck as the Duke's men.

Evvy accompanied Rosethorn on these excursions, and she was just as determined. "He came for me," she said, firmly, when Sandry asked if she might not like to take a rest. "He came for me when they took me. I'm not gonna let them take him, whoever they are."

Sandry sensed Daja coming up behind her as she made for the source of the lightning. It seemed to have died down now, but there was still heat in the air and early-morning people scurrying to get inside despite the total lack of rain.

"How in Trader's name did she get here so fast?" Daja demanded when she rode up at Sandry's side. "Did she turn herself into some wind, or what?"

Sandry wrinkled her nose. That sounded worryingly like something Tris might try and do. "It's there," she said, pointing at a squat inn up ahead. The roof was blackened and crisping in places. "She really oughtn't do that sort of thing."

"If it finds Briar, I don't care if she burns the place down," Daja said, riding the cart mare up to the inn and dismounting. Sandy leapt easily down after her and helped her secure the horses to the rail set there for that purpose.

Tris was standing in front of a table of terrified-looking sailors. One of her braids had come undone, and it frazzled and sparked as they came up behind her. "Ah, Tris…" Sandry said delicately.

"In a minute," Tris said sharply, as if it hadn't been almost a year since they had last seen each other. "You," she snapped, pointing at the biggest man at the table. "Tell my friends what you just told me, without so much stammering this time."

"My… my mates and me… we heard how as some boat from Sotat was asking about a boy," said the man. He was burly, bearded and tattooed, but clearly whatever Tris had done to the roof of the inn had terrified him into near-insensibility. "Half Sotatan, half Olarten, a green mage."

Olarten? Sandry glanced at Daja, but she was glaring at the sailor almost as furiously as Tris.

"What sort of boat?"

"Nothin' special, maybe a merchant ship," the man mumbled. Daja shook her head in disgust.

"Then what?" Tris demanded, her hair sparking even through the braids. Sandy couldn't remember the last time she'd seen her foster sister so angry.

"We… we heard there might be some money in it, so… so we went down there and told 'em there was a boy like that sold trees in the market," the man continued, wide eyes flickering between Tris and Daja. Sandry saw movement out of the corner of her eye, and turned to see two more sailors trying to sneak out the door. She frowned, and asked the nearest tablecloth to take care of it. There was a squarking sound from one of the men as the fibres bound them together by wrists and ankles, and they went toppling over. Daja glanced round, but Tris didn't move a single muscle. "That's it, I swear. We never took him..."

"There's been an investigation into this for days," Sandry said, taking a step forward. She knew she couldn't be as intimidating as either of her sisters, but she was the Duke's neice. She had the satisfaction of seeing the sailors' eyes widen even more at the sight of her. "Why have you not come forward?"

"Probably because there wasn't enough gold in it for them," Tris growled.

"What did they look like?" Daja demanded to know. "These men looking for Briar."

"Average," was the general consensus. "Western. Olarten, maybe, or Namornese."

"I'm glad you burnt the roof up," Sandry said viscously to Tris as soon as they had left the inn. "Glad, glad glad."

"To be fair, it's probably not their roof," Daja said. "Someone should pay reparations to the innkeep."

"I'll deal with it later," Tris said, reaching up and tugging the lightning braid back into order. "I have to see Niko."

Sandry was still seething as she mounted her horse, Daja pulling Tris up behind her. The girl didn't even complain at riding bareback. "Let's go to Discipline," Daja suggested. "We can send a message to Niko from there, and Rosethorn will want to know."

Tris looked for a moment as though she might argue, but eventually she nodded and put her arms around Daja's waist.

~*-AN-*~

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