The Gembound: The Price of Keeping Chapter 92: Volume 4: Chapter 85 — Going Home

Read chapter 92 of The Gembound: The Price of Keeping by Taliorn on NovelPedia.

Volume 4: Chapter 85 — Going Home Days 52–53 | Aramore Day 52 began in stone and chalk. The teleportation circle in Saltwhistle’s harbor keep still smelled faintly of new magic stone scorched by sigils, salt baked into the cracks. The air above it held a permanent shimmer, as if remembering every journey it had ever taken. Yara stood at the circle’s center with Eliza at her right, Harry at her left, and Sam behind like a shadow given patience. Petra sat just outside the chalk ring, tail curled neatly around her feet. The rest of the wolves waited with Bruno, watching with the wary dislike beasts had for magic that moved too fast. The three bears, Graveclaw, Stonehide, and Shadowfang, stayed behind to give Graveclaw a bit more time to heal before the march. Eliza checked the list in her hand: names, loads, timing, contingencies. “One day there,” she said quietly. “One night. We’re back by this time tomorrow if nothing goes wrong.” “Something will go wrong,” Yara said. “We just don’t know what yet.” Eliza didn’t argue. She only reached forward and straightened the fold of Yara’s sleeve, a mother’s reflex in a warlord’s world. Harry flexed his claws once, then stilled. “Circle working clean?” he asked. “I don’t want to arrive in Aramore missing anything I’m still attached to.” “Marcus tests it every third day,” Yara said. “Weaver watches the marks. If it were failing, we’d have lost a rat before we lost you.” “That’s almost reassuring,” Harry said. Sam huffed, low and amused. Renn stood at the edge with Ilan, both ready with a blessing and a bandage if the circle misbehaved. Ilan’s hands were folded; his lips moved in a prayer that asked not for safety, but for purpose, no matter the outcome. Yara stepped into the exact center and touched the carved anchor glyph with her boot heel. The Gem warmed in her chest, recognizing a familiar patterned hunger. “Aramore,” she said. “Command keep. Marcus’s mark.” The circle answered. Light rose from the chalk lines, a soft green that turned white at the edges, filling the sigils, weaving around ankles, then knees, then hips. The world folded inward as if breath had been sucked from its lungs. The Sapphire showed her a dozen possible misfires in a single flash—arriving blind, arriving halfway in stone, arriving in the wrong city entirely—and then discarded them all as the pattern locked. There was a moment of weightlessness. A stomach-drop without motion. Then stone underfoot again, different stone, with a different memory. The smell hit first. Aramore’s air carried ash baked into it, old smoke sunk into mortar, and the cleaner smells riding over top: sawdust, lime, wet clay. Rebuilding. The city’s breath had changed. The circle here lived in the command keep’s lowest chamber. When they’d first taken Aramore, these walls had smelled of damp disuse and old wine. Now they smelled of ink and sweat and, faintly, burned Ferric uniforms. The light faded. Harry staggered half a step, caught himself, and snorted. Sam shook once, scales rippling. Eliza’s grip tightened on her ledger and then relaxed. Yara stepped off the circle. Aramore was home. She grew up on the streets here. The Sapphire showed her the value in every repaired stone: days of labor, hours of planning, the weight of trust that walls would hold against. Half the city beyond these walls had burned in the Ferric attack. She could feel it like a missing tooth in her jaw. The fire-scarred district—once warehouses and tenements—now stood as blackened ribs surrounded by scaffolding and fresh-cut beams. Walls that had cracked under the splintered Ferric siege had been patched, smoothed, and carved with new sigils. The outer towers wore fresh stone like bandages. Home, changed. The castle district had been forbidden territory back then. When this was still Runewick, when she was still a street rat scrambling for bread in the lower slums, these walls had been something she only saw from below, distant, unreachable, guarded. She'd never been th