Burn Without You

Burn Without You Chapter 26

Burn Without You

Chapter 26

The next morning Bature was the first to call and offer his apologies for the acts of his ambassador as Bature insisted that Ersin was acting alone and that Bature would never dream of sabotaging Maisarra's happiness but did confirm that you had told him about your efforts to hunt Haydar down and told Maisarra that he had to be double faced with you- that what he told Rasime and Haydar's siblings was true and that he was offering them refuge in Tahir and had sent his own men to intercept your own mercenaries to confuse them and throw them off the trail or pay them a higher price to work with his own to bring Haydar and Rasime safely to Tahir and even told her that his men felt that they had found them and that they were currently being brought to him in Tahir and that Haydar would have an honorable place in his army out of respect for Maisarra's wishes that Bature would not harm him but that he thought Haydar would like to have a use and that Rasime would like a break from having to be pimped out by Haydar to get enough money to survive- just trying to make a living and trying to save up money to make it to a colony and Maisarra had never been more grateful to Bature for his efforts and for respecting her and her wishes and the worst part was- he called Maisarra first thing in the morning, even while she was still in pajamas and a robe and nothing else but told Maisarra to keep it a secret from everyone else because he didn't want to lose your trust in the process of respecting Maisarra's wishes so Maisarra agreed to keep it a secret just between them.

Bature then called you an hour later to confirm that Ersin had acted alone and never under his orders, however did tell you that he thought he found Haydar and Rasime, they never made it out of the port city and never got to a colony. That Haydar had pimped his sister out to try to save up money to make it to a colony but their sentimental attachment to their jewelry and other items had been too strong for them to sell them and had helped Rasime fetch a higher price for each "service" she performed. But that Bature's men were taking them directly to him and that he would deal with them for you- so that from Maisarra's perspective you would not have their blood on your hands or thier lives on your conscience but that his own conscience demanded justice for what evils they had called down upon Maisarra and that Serhan along with her sisters and Merrattah's sisters would demand their execution as soon as they would come because of the vulture feathers at Serhan's Cisora which you were thankful and grateful that he succeeded where you had felt and that you were going to claim that 'your mercenaries came back empty handed and had not found them and that it was a lost cause and you were going to take the loss and not pursue them further' which would hopefully get you some forgiveness from Maisarra.

And later that day when you had a private word with Maisarra about how you called off your mercenaries because you didn't want to wound Maisarra any more than she already had been- she seemed happy and relieved to accept your apology and try to mend the break as more ale and wine was being tested and bought by the cask from every merchant who readily had any as Hayati was especially careful and stationed guards on all the food and wine so that only the verified and vetted kitchen staff had access to anything.

Meanwhile Seyda made yet another interesting discovery.

"My Lady." She prompted as she was getting you dressed the next day.

"Yes?" You asked.

"I found something interesting very early this morning." Seyda prompted.

"Interesting how?" You asked, intrigued as you could tell by Seyda's tone that it was something that piqued her interest.

"So I ran the numbers of the water coming from the skyland." Seyda began.

"And?" You asked.

"And the numbers don't add up, the water coming from the skyland has always produced the same rate and same amount of water since we came and after measuring it all ever since we got here, we have sufficient data to run calculations and projections. The water coming from the skyland only accounts for roughly two thirds of the water flowing through the pipes in the fortress and the rate and pressure of all the pipes- there has to be another water source besides the skyland in the tower. And what's more- is when I went looking- I found that the chamber isn't completely cut off and sealed from the rest of the fortress besides the door and when I took a stoned guard down with me in the deepest parts of the fortress, what we found is there is a pipe of water- coming directly out of the underside the chamber, and when I measured the water coming from that that very large and very full pipe it accounted for the other third of the water here in Yekmeni, however, when I tested it- it was slightly different composition than the water coming from the skyland in the tower, in fact the water in the skyland has certain minerals, and the other water from that third pipe had different minerals, and when the two combine- it creates the practically perfect water we get in the plumbing, because of the ratio when mixed, I had always thought that the mineral difference was because of the metal that they used to direct the water, but that wasn't it either." Seyda revealed.