Turn 5 of 6

Ask the Salt-Warden why no one could let go

The Salt-Warden does not answer immediately. He picks up the lantern from the ledge, turns it in his hands, sets it back down in exactly the same place. The gesture has the feel of ritual, a man organizing his thoughts the way he organizes this vault.

"You're asking the wrong question," he says. "They could let go. Every one of them had hands. Every one of them had the same choice you had, and the metal wasn't locked to them — not at first. The locking came after. The warmth came after." He lets that sit.

"They didn't let go because they didn't want to. Because the crown asked them what they'd give up, and they thought the answer was a thing they could trade. A bargain. You give this, you get that. Crown on your head, throne under your arse, everyone bows."

"And it isn't," Maeve says, and there is something raw in her voice, something that sounds like she already knew this and has been refusing to say it.

"No," the Salt-Warden says. "It isn't a bargain. It's a question. And the ones who held on — they were holding on to their answer. Gripping it. Because their answer was something they thought they could spare. A year of their life. A friendship. A memory. Something they could cut off and hand over and still be themselves after." He looks at you, and beneath the beard his expression is very still.

"They couldn't let go because they were trying to give the crown something they didn't actually own. And the crown knew. It kept them there because they were lying, and it was waiting for them to stop."

The vault is very quiet. The seepage in the cracks has slowed, or you have stopped hearing it. You are aware of your own breathing, of the cold damp of the stone under your boots, of Maeve standing rigid beside you with her fists still clenched.

"And you?" the Salt-Warden says, and his voice is different now — quieter, almost gentle, which sounds wrong coming from a man like him.

"You let go. Which means either you knew the answer and knew it was true, or you knew the answer and knew you weren't ready." He pauses.

"Either way, you're the first one who walked away from the question instead of trying to own it."

Maeve turns on him. "That doesn't help us," she says, and her voice is sharp enough to cut. "The forgery won't hold another winter. The eastern lords are already asking why the king hasn't appeared. I need to know if this one—"

"He let go, Corr." The Salt-Warden's voice is flat.

"He's the only one who ever did. That's what I know. The rest is his."

They both look at you. The candle flame bends sideways in its invisible draught, and the crown sits on its plinth, green and patient, and somewhere below the cliff the tide is working its way toward the vault. You have perhaps two and a half hours now, and the question the crown asked is still inside you, unanswered, a weight you can feel every time you breathe.