Some kind of cabins, likely to change out of one’s clothes. Which was a good idea, because bathing in full clothes like people did in Dothadar still seemed immensely stupid to me. I entered one to do just that. 

But funny really, how they had such cabins here to change, I mused while stripping, seeing how everyone was bathing almost as naked as at home. What little cloth they did wear—mostly just panties, leaving the upper bodies free—didn’t really hide much. Could’ve done away with that, too. 

.

I rolled my eyes up – which made me notice again the intricate details that were also present on the ceiling I had somehow not consciously noted before. Contrary to the floor, there were no snakes there, and it wasn’t mosaics made out of the tiniest colored marble bits between the larger blocks setting them off, but glazed tiles that had details baked right in, fitted into the big pockets clustering the ceiling in such a way they got smaller and smaller towards the very top, continuous loops around the hemisphere until a final big, round opening that let in a diffuse shaft of bright sunlight we’d just seen playing on the water’s surface through what looked like a gauzy white cloth hung across it. I got lost halfway through undressing, studying the interwoven pattern of the tiles up there.

Instead of the usual snakes, the sometimes-vague forms up there were obviously taken from the likeness of sea creatures and plants. The roiling multitude of arms that squids exhibited, with those small nubs and circles along their lines. The whirl of what might be a conch or nautilus shell. Pods and leaves of water lilies and those bigger, more intricate flowers I’d seen only here, with their slimmer leaves and more pointed tips, with what looked almost like those little silver fish at home whom I loved so much, swimming in and out of their leaves and roots, half-hidden. The occasional starfish spreading out between, under, and around the plants and conch whirls. Hidden, tiny horsefish snuck in between it all. There was just so much to see there, if you could see it.

I wondered how many of the other visitors had even noticed the thousands of hours some great artists must have spent on that ceiling, because it was high enough above us that most humans’ eyes would never be able to make out all that detail on the tiles that fit so well together that even my eagle-vision could hardly reveal the seams, all the details on the tiles fitting almost perfectly to the others surrounding it, forming one ongoing pattern across each pocket between the marble struts forming the pockets. And yet I could sometimes see small flaws in the fitting or the patterns of the tiles themselves, ensuring me that it had most likely been actual hands who’d formed this, not just molds, or even magic. Someone had put a lifetime of work into this. Possibly more than just one. I wondered who it was. But I guess I’ll never know now, because Selar didn’t know either, when he woke me from my stupor.

.

“Got lost in there?” What could have been some snide remark was softened by the warmth in his tone that had nothing of meanness inside its full timbre. 

Gods, why did that man have to have such a wonderful voice? At least he can’t sing, I consoled myself. He’d proven as much the last time he’d tried. We’d both had a good laugh about that attempt. Ungh. Which just reminded me he actually even had good humor, not just snark. World, I did not want to like this man.

Good thing he kinda ruined it with his next words, then. 

.

“Shall I come in and help?” 

There. There was the jerk again that I knew to be careful of. “I don’t need your help,” I grumbled at him. “I’m fully capable myself.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that.” I could hear a smirk in his voice now.

What had I said now that… Oh. 

Oh by all the good and bad spirits out there. I guessed I knew what he was getting at this time. Is he seriously suggesting that I would…? But ‘this is Selar we’re talking about’ flashed through my head. Of course he does. Just as he was serious about that ‘offer’ of his, wasn’t he? That man had no shame. Likely less than even my Papá – and Selar was a lot more knowledgeable about the reasons to be ashamed about something than Sintram would ever be. Selar just didn’t care. He probably even liked the idea of upsetting other people around. 

.

Instead of telling him to stuff that right back where he’d got it -because that would likely just end me up in even more dire straits- I switched topic as if he hadn’t said anything. It’s likely he even took that as a win, but I’d count my blessings.

“Be actually helpful for once, will you? Do you know who made that ceiling?“

For a second there was no answer.

Either he was shaking his head out there and forgetting all about the fact that there was a door between us and I couldn’t see him, or he was raking his memory and coming up with nothing, getting annoyed at the fact he didn’t even find a snide remark about that loss of his. 

“I could help you with a lot of things,” he settled on, almost lamely for him, “but that is not one of them. Sorry.” Again, he achieved just the right tone to sound contrite, though.

Better actor than the actors on stage, I thought, but didn’t say.

The ones in that theatre half a week ago, where he had also insisted to stop at, because apparently they were famous. Maybe I just had different taste, but I hadn’t taken much away from that show. In fact, he’d shifted tack and taken me out to an eatery instead halfway through the show, raising some eyebrows here and there, because of course he’d noticed I’d not much liked the rowdy display of that all-too-bawdy story they’d played that night. The characters had been as overdone and the humor as overcooked as fresh fish left to stew too long in the hot sun. Putrid.

Had made me wonder a bit how he’d not joked about me being too prim for that fact. He hadn’t seemed shy of doing that at other times. Then again, he was probably learning, and adapting his methods the whole time.

Damn womanizer.

Due to unfortunate circumstances (a lot of time pressure on a whole host of bureaucratic bother I’m not even sure is legal; but since I don’t get to make the rules, and it seems more opportune to comply with their requests for the moment…) I might not make the weekly translation piece I’d promised on time this week.

Thought I’d give you an extra piece of the snippets already in English instead, as a kind of advance “sorry” for the delay, just in case ;)

Have fun.

Sleep

.

„Hey.“

I’d been studying him for a while now while drinking my tea, the last of the day.
He wasn’t pacing. Just standing there, looking out the window. But he looked like pacing. Felt like pacing.

I’d never have thought he has the same problem as I do. Seemingly even worse. But it seemed rather much that even this comparably small village was causing him stress. It hadn’t been there while we were looking through all the small stores and then trying out the glassblower’s. Maybe because he’d had something to do then. But now?

It seemed rather palpable. A certain tension in his shoulders. The way he set them. Even the way he kept still, looking out, as if musing about the world or simply watching the wind play in the branches of the trees outside. Small enough I’d bet no one else would even pick up on it. There was no visible strain. No vein standing out on his neck, no brow crease, nothing. Perfect poker face like always. But to me it was like a flare. Somehow I had learned to read him anyway by now.

So I patted the mattress beside me. Well. Laid a hand there, more like. No patting involved. “Come here.”

.

The trick was in using my softest voice along to that small smile. The one I had noticed seemed to sometimes slip in with him in ways he didn’t even seem to register. Which was kinda hilarious, considering. He always noticed everything.

But now he just came over, sitting down where I had just removed my hand, barely seeming aware at all of why he was doing so. His bright eyes turned on me in that way he had when he was simply checking up on me.

“You’re not sleeping,” he said, in that overly neutral tone that always suggested he was noting something that shouldn’t be as it was.

My lips quirked at that. “Neither are you,” I said, pressing the cup of tea into his hands that I’d turned around to pour as he crossed over, then took my own again, taking another sip. He mirrored the motion, which had me smiling into my cup. In his mind, that was probably a good way to avoid having to talk. In mine? It was a perfect way to get him to calm down. Win-win.

We sat there for a while, both just sipping at our cups.

I took smaller ones, of course, having started before him. Didn’t want him to stand up again the second he noticed mine was done.

.

“Not tired?” he asked after a while.

I shook my head, still smiling. “No.”
The day was still running in my head. All the things we’d found. Picking our way through the art on display, the materials, the possibilities.

We might have chosen glass today, but my mind was still full with all the rest, wondering what to do next. He hadn’t given me a time limit, but I still felt like we only had a few days here, and I wouldn’t get to do all of them during that time, even if I only tried in snippets.

Maybe this was why, I thought, studying him out of peripheral vision. That restlessness I felt in him, transferring to myself. He’d probably stay much longer than he felt comfortable with, for my sake. If only I asked him to. But I didn’t want him to.

Which meant I’d have to chose wisely, since in a very real sense, time was running out. We’d been here only three days, and already he seemed nervous. Too many people around? Or maybe someone specific that he wanted to avoid, but felt more unsure about being able to do so, the longer we stayed. He’d not chosen this village by accident, after all. He knew about it.

Personally, the way he’d navigated us through the streets; explained about the shops, sometimes shared anecdotes about the owners. He’d been here before, and not just shortly. I wondered if he’d ever share as much with someone else. There was no question he knew what doing that would tell me. He picked and chose his tales too carefully for that. So he had no problem with me knowing he’d been here before and for an extended stay, too—yet, somehow he still didn’t want me to know who was haunting his mind. Strange. But he had a right to his secrets.

He’ll either tell me or he won’t. Pick his own time, I told myself, like always.
Give him time. Always give him time.

.

“What about you?” I asked, setting the cup away, on the small mini-desk thing they had here, on either side of the bed.

A nightstand, he’d called it. Never seen such a thing before. I guess I had other things on my mind in Oril’s Haven. Or maybe that was an artist thing. This was an artist village, after all. The whole town was full of them. Town, village—something in between, whatever the right word for that was. I moved closer and closed my arms around his shoulders from halfway behind, laying my chin on the back of his head. I already knew he’d find some evasion. No matter. Somehow asking anyway mattered. Sometimes. At the right times. Just a feeling. I wouldn‘t have been able to explain it.

“Still thinking about that glass technique,” he offered, laying slightly back, the back of his shoulders touching the front of mine. Accepting the invitation. Good.

“It is more tricky than it looks,” I agreed easily, as if I’d been asking about that, and not something else, starting to run my fingers through his hair. The glass always seemed to have a mind of its own, apparently, wanting to run whichever way, just not where you wanted it to, if you didn’t turn it just right, blew correctly—right amount, right time, right everything.

It had been a lot of mishaps today, and a lot of fun.
We’d laughed for what felt like hours, repeatedly, comparing our abysmal results.
Yes, both of us. Even he hadn’t succeeded at making something good this time.

“Always is,” he said, somewhat darkly, and I knew he wasn’t talking about the glass. There was a minute movement to his posture, his lungs, that felt like a small exhale. Almost a sigh. He set his cup down, next to mine, leaning over for a moment, before settling back. Or trying to.

Because I tugged him backwards instead [. . .]

.

„Breathe.“

.

The memory suddenly jumped into my mind, clear like the waters of that one hidden bay in Dothadar.

I‘d done this before. I‘d gotten past this before.

.

„Slow down. Concentrate on your breath. Slow.
In.

. . .

Out.
. . .

And in ... “

His soft, soothing voice. Its warm tone in my ear as if he were standing next to me. Quiet, like trees softly swaying. He had always been my safe place.

. But that wasn‘t Dothadar.

I could see the surroundings more clearly now, the more the memory crept back, enveloping me like Ommá‘s cozy blanket when I had been very little.

.

***

.

I am small in this memory, too.

And the trees and ferns and high grasses and all the other plants and soft wood sounds, the tiny gurgle of that small creek surrounding us, they are the sounds of home. The place where I grew up. The woods we‘ve lived in for longer stretches than we‘d ever be in the hut near the village. Curious.

I should be older in those memories, shouldn’t I?

.

„Here. Give me your hand, hm?“

His then-big one a softly extended offer. Relaxed. Unthreatening.

The cool smoothness of his skin as my small fingers hesitantly stretch out to touch and relax into the open embrace of his, slowly, softly, cupping mine, then drawing my hand towards him in an just as unhurried motion. Towards his own chest, laying my hand down flat on that stable surface, his own still on top of mine, softly. Always softly. „There. Can you feel my heartbeat? Notice how slow my breath is? Concentrate on that.“

I can feel his bright cloud eyes on me. Holding, not judging. His heart beating out a slow, hypnotic rhythm beneath my hand. His chest softly rising and falling; the same, slow rhythm beneath my hand.

„Try to breathe with me. Keep to my rhythm.“

His soft, slow voice is almost as hypnotic as that heartbeat.

I do my best to match the rhythm of my breathing to his. But it‘s hard. Real hard. Despite how strong and clear the template to follow is.

„I‘m scared,“ I whisper. „They‘re … they’re looking for me. Please. Please. Don’t let them find me?“

. For a second, his brows draw together. But he doesn’t say anything, just softly begins to tap my hand on his chest, in time with his breath, his heartbeat.

. „It’s okay. Concentrate on my breathing,“ he says eventually, still tapping my hand, like a butterfly‘s wings fluttering against my fingers. Time slows to a fraction of its normal pace. There’s no danger here, his bright eyes say, searching my face. If there‘s anything here that‘s dangerous, it‘s him — and he‘s here to protect me, the soft quirk of his lips seems to whisper. Nothing will get past him. The shadows here are old friends, anyway, not strangers. There are no enemies in this clearing, just the old grandfather trees murmuring their assent.

„In.

…

Out.

….

And in…“

I can see the soft exhale on his lips, just as I can feel it beneath my fingers. I try to exhale as long as he does. My gulp for air is still a bit quicker than his soft intake, his tapping. I try harder. His voice, his steady rhythm, his mantra seem to turn into some kind of hallucinogenic. I lose sight of our surroundings. The only thing still existing is him. I barely even feel myself.

.

Until suddenly I do. Or at least I feel the breath in my chest, woken by something I can’t discern for a few moments. Something like… the push and pull of soft wings. There‘s that butterfly again. Only now it‘s not just resting on my fingers, it‘s on my solar plexus.

A flush of heat races through me as I realize he‘s put his other hand on my chest, palm on my belly, right smack in the middle, fingers splayed out towards my ribs. I never even noticed how it crept up there. Eyes closed or not — how could I not notice that? Right up until his fingertips began softly drumming out that same rhythm at the apex of the bow of my ribs, where they meet my lungs.

Softly tipping and tapping, just once every few moments, his fingertips brushing against that space where my muscles are supposed to drag my lungs, making them remember their job. But I can feel the release of that slightest pressure as well, as his fingers drag down the merest bit, indicating how my lungs should widen downwards and out, out, Out. Then upwards again, brushing against my rib’s apex, pushing slightly inward again. And in… in… in.

. It should make the process easier.

But for a moment I stumble; in my sudden consciousness, my heartbeat abruptly trying to race towards an unknown goal again instead of relaxing, and I have to fight to keep my deepened breath from jumping and running right after it. It‘s just the softest touch. Barely a touch at all. Why is it making my brain all jittery? As if there were some string strung tightly right through my middle and he‘d accidentally touched it, setting it to vibrate. I can feel it wanting to sing. To lean in, asking for some more of that soft caress. It is like the sudden rush of water into the void once the buildup of pressure has finally burst away the rock fall blocking the fissure; the entrance to its usual underground course in the mountains, down in a chasm where all that water can’t go anywhere else. Freeing. Euphoric, even. As if the stream could sing in joy at the hurtful blockage finally being removed. As if it could sing a rhapsody in multiple voices, an entire choir joining in.

Soothing. Soothing as the pressure finally lifts and the highest note soars above, reaching its apex.

I suddenly feel like falling, all tension gone from my muscles, barely able to keep myself up. All I want is to snuggle up against that feathery touch, let my conscious self be taken away by that stream of peace I‘m now submerged in; that… smoothness coming from him, enveloping me like warm, soothing water, like shade in high summer. I was so… so… thirsty.

He‘s like a sparkling mountain stream, cool and refreshing, as if I had been close to dying of heat stroke.

Balance, I want to stay submerged in that embrace forever.

.

***

.

When I returned from the memory I hadn‘t remembered before, not in full, I was sure of a few things more:

For one: That. That was when the floodgates first opened.

It was crystal-clear to this version of me, in the torrent of sheer relief I could still feel encapsulated inside this hidden memory. It made me wonder why my own mind had hidden it from even myself. Had that been me recognizing I‘d been doing something forbidden, something bad, subconsciously—and being unable to face it? Or had it happened later? Had it been a part of the growing suspicion, and my growing despair, that others were different in ways that had been too hard to describe, too hard to even recognize in full? Because I had still borne parts of those memories, just not that one. That tiny detail of [what it what meant; what had happened in that moment]. Or how young I truly had been when it first happened. It hadn‘t been a conscious choice. Like so much in my life.

.

The second thing?

I had been the one who blocked it. It had been me all along.

I‘d done him yet another disservice, blaming that on him, in my anger and confusion about his rejection. I had been the one who’d done that, no one else. Obviously subconsciously, instinctively—but I’d done it nonetheless. I hadn’t recognized it for what it was, and I‘d been afraid. Afraid for my life. No one must see me. Not like this, was what my instincts had been telling me all that time ago. They‘d kill me.
So I had frozen, and shut myself up and away.

.

Just as I had done right now, using that buried memory of my mentor calming me down to help me remember how to do it.

.

I could do that? Huh.

More importantly, though — that could mean only one thing.
Someone had just been trying to find me. And it sure a hell was not my brother.

.

Well. A lot, it turned out.

World, this guy could play. He was using some strange thing that looked like some twig, with hair fitted to it, an almost comically flimsy-looking addition compared to the bulky instrument itself — it was called a ‘bow’ I was told by [XXX], who of course caught my doubtful look. That description had me inwardly laughing. A bow? They call this thing a bow? My mirth must have spread to my lips, because he gave me that wild look again, where he rolled his eyes and made a face, which had me in trouble of not blurting out and ruining the performance.

“Well, then you and me should be really good with it, eh?” I couldn’t help myself, even though our neighbors on the bank looked a bit scornfully at us and our untoward behavior. Strangers, I could hear their inner voices rolling up their eyes. Papá’s smile was absolutely worth it.

But the sounds suddenly coming from that more than just simple looking thing up on the stage had me pricking my ears and my eyes involuntarily drawn back to the man on stage. How does he do that? A different kind of wonder spread throughout my being. The man got more and sweeter tones out of that thing than I had ever heard from any bajaya before. Fuller, too.

Maybe it helps that the ‘box’ is bigger? I kept wondering as his slow, slow hands caressed the instrument, showing their full nimbleness only slowly, ever so languidly as the rhythm sped up in tiny increments. At the height of it, the instrument was singing so sweetly that my whole being seemed to sing and vibrate with it. According to the sighs all around me, I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. A quick glance snuck at Sintram told me even he didn’t seem unaffected. The expression in his eyes was as rapt as I felt, even as his thumb unconsciously kept caressing the shoulder that he’d drawn towards himself, drawing me with it.

I snuggled into the crook of his arm again, staring at the man on the stage working a wonder -and not even a small one in my eyes- with a hollow lump of wood and a ‘bow’ that was not a bow. The tune had my heart quickening and sighing with its ups and downs, speeding and slowing, rapid trilling and low humming and … I’m lacking the words for this.

What words I have don’t do his music any justice. It was like a soul unfolding and soaring above all. What that man did? It made me finally understand the phrase “pouring one’s soul into something” that poets like to use for artists.

No wonder people had looked at us the way they did when we‘d been giggling at the start. They’d obviously known what was coming, offended by our disrespect — and well-earned that offense was, in hindsight. The man was… I don’t know that I should say genius, because I don’t know if intellect had much to do with it. Passion, more like. At least it felt -and looked- that way. The melody swept consciousness up and blew it away in a torrent of feeling vibrating through your whole being, from elation to tears and back. And all with just one string.

And his movements! Gods, his movements.

Not just the nimble fingers he finally revealed after the melody had sped up in such a soft climb one didn’t seem to notice until it was already racing and one was wondering how his fingers kept up with that. Or what those same fingers would be able to evoke on certain body parts… His whole body was moving and swaying with the rhythm that he brought into being, moving and bending and pressing up against and around his instrument much like—well, like a very lithe person might do around their lover. Never quite showing the strain it had to put on his body when he was keeping the instrument up with just one leg, or even when the wood was caught in between his whole body. The thing certainly didn’t look light. Yet he lifted it as gently and seemingly easily as if it were made of gossamer. His movements were so passionate it was hypnotizing.

One didn’t need to see the rapt look on his own face to realize he was living within his music and being swept along by it just as much as any of us listeners. In fact, it rather looked like… well, I think I already said that. He might as well have had sex on stage.

.

For some strange reason, his movements made me think of how [XXX] had been swinging up and between and swooping down those high jungle trees all the way back. Maybe because it’d had me hypnotized just as well? I’d never seen him do that, before then. And his movements had been even lither, flowing more easily and naturally, if such a thing was possible at all, than what this man here did; like a glittering fish made for speed zipping through rapids. Mh… not quite the right picture. A bird of prey swooping through the sky, maybe? His whole body the instrument in question that he’d trained to a fault, for so long that it became not only second nature, but actual nature. As if he were made for it.

.

It had me abruptly wondering if he’d ever learned to play an instrument. What his… playing would look like. He’d surely be good at it. [XXX] was good at anything and everything. I ruefully chuckle-smiled inwardly. Well, fat luck, with all that experience. He’s got a lot more than the one lifetime others had to learn their craft.

If his playing was anything like his voice…

I suddenly had shivers running down my spine that I was quite sure didn’t come from the music filling the air around me and shivering through my body, as crazy as that sounds. Still searching for the correct words to my mental flashback picture as I was. Flowing from those trees, he’d looked like… like—

The tone had changed entirely, compared to the one he’d given me. Like… this one was a real question. One that actually meant what it asked. What he wanted to make of it, maybe, in the sense of judging quantity, nothing else.

“Suni might help you with that, depending on what it is,” he added almost as an afterthought.

Wait a minute.

Suni was the one… we’d just come from, wasn’t she? I was sniffing the first hint of a trail of … something there. They had some kind of… arrangement, did they? Stuck together after all? Oh Anur, I wanted to say, be careful. If they’re just playing all of us like the crooks my parents claim all traders to be… They did come in as a group after all. If Anur thought he’d get better here… he might actually get a worse deal than the first one, if they stuck together like that. No? I did get that about right, didn’t I?

I wasn’t sure. Maybe I was making it all up and it was about something else entirely.

“Enough to make two good soles or a small bag, roundabout,” Anur replied. “Nothing too much. We can do with scraps to stitch together, too. Is that copper pure all the way through, mind you?”

He changed his tone a bit into the skeptical range at the latter, having been rather neutral on the first one. The leather didn’t matter much to Anur, after all.

Wait. Did it? I sent him a sideways look. That had just seemed… rather strange, for some reason. Almost as if he actually were interested in Bisuar, after all. For some of his own, too. Had he thought of something he wanted, after all? Something worth cutting a larger piece into shares for? My mind scrambled for how the hell we’d sort that out, losing the next bits of back and forth entirely.

.

Tay was suddenly pushing me over to the third of them. The one who wouldn’t even talk to me; making me even more confused, while Anur stayed over in the middle, still haggling, apparently. My brain was now split in two. Trying to make sense of why the hell Tay had grabbed me as well as still occupied by Anur’s words in the back.

“Split that open for me? And don’t tell me it’ll be worth less after. Gotta have to be melted down, anyway. I’m no novice to the craft. Got a smith here of our own, you see.”

I didn’t quite get the protest of the man past the tone of it that followed, because Tay was interrupting me with a question now. One I didn’t get either, in that situation. I mean, I heard him talking. Even replied with a muttered ‘yeah, mhm’, but… then I was suddenly left with the realization I couldn’t remember a lick of what he’d just said.

“Come again?” The words just slipped out, my face heating up, realizing I had spoken them. Emperor’s tits, Liliana. At least don’t tell em! You know what follows if you don’t shut yar trap on something like that.

.

Tay did no such thing, however. Just kindly repeated: “I asked, was this the one you meant?” Holding a piece of leather under my nose.

“Oh. Yes. Yes, that’s the one.” I hurriedly nodded my head up and down, grateful that he wasn’t angry about my obliviousness. Now quietly annoyed by the loud haggling next stall over. And worried about what the hell we’d do with two pieces of the leather, if both Anur and Tay got one. I didn’t need more than one small scrap! Well, that and enough to make a good string. For which a long, unbroken strap would actually be better, but… I guess fat chance of getting that, right?

“Tay.” I tugged on his sleeve, as quietly as I could. “Tay. What are we doing? Isn’t Anur already getting some?”

Tay just smiled at me, ruffling my hair. “It’s okay, Lilly. I know what Anur wants.”

He bent down then and whispered in my ear while the trader’s back was turned, apparently to get some more variety to choose from, judging by what he turned back with right after. “Don’t worry. He’ll need more than just that, anyway.”

Losing me entirely again. He patted my hair once more, not helping to undo the confusion. “It’s okay. His mum and sisters already asked me to play middle-man.”

They did what? For what, by world’s sake?

He wouldn’t say. Turned back to the trader instead, inspecting the goods, while the trader was lecturing about different colors, different traits. Apparently, some were made to withstand being dunked in water; others he claimed could withstand a fire or even acid. That was… I hadn’t known. What the hell is ‘asseed’?

.

“What have you two found?” Jannai chimed in from the side, all curious, if somewhat mumbly, due to the fact that she was now munching down on some sugary-looking big puffball of a fluffy bun that seemed to taste heavenly, according to the bliss on her face. She didn’t offer any of us a bite.

Must be her first. She never offered on her first, the one she would still eat very, very slowly—though she was always generous with what came after. If not as slow by half… The sight made my mouth water, wondering what the buns would taste like. This time around had brought us three traders. Three! With stuff I’d never seen before. It almost made me want to spend some of the dull iron things, if I’d get back some. But I’d better keep them…

My belly gurgled, obviously disagreeing.

Jannai sent me a look and landed a meaty hand on my shoulder that seemed stuck somewhere between pity and worry at that. Her other hand went fishing in the pockets of her big apron-dress, drawing forth an apple that might or might not be stolen from the inn’s backyard. It surely had to be from there, no matter the manner of acquisition. And we could never quite tell with Anur. She’d likely gotten that from Anur. Unless she’d gone climbing herself. As climbing training, of course.

Sometimes apples did find their way into her pockets along the way down, though. Often though, it was only the ones lying on the ground already. No use wasting, you see? If the sisters didn’t have enough time to pick em up to use in the kitchens before they wasted… The sisters, because Anur would always hand us some, anyway, if he was sent for such chores. He always did, kind soul that he was. Or maybe that was just because it was sure to entice some of us to help pick them up, less strain on his own back from all the bending. They had quite a lot of trees, you see.

.

“Can any of them be dyed more easily?” Tay was asking meanwhile. “Fire and water protection would be nice, but we most definitely need the dye application. For the bigger parts, at least. If you got some scraps, it wouldn’t hurt. For later mending, you know. Don’t even need to be dyable, those.”

“Tay.” Jannai used that scolding tone when he’d done something wrong.

“What?” He half-turned around to stare at her.

“You should’ve let me,” she said. Then took another small bite from her bun, mumbling: “Not much to be done about it now, I guess.”

“Done about what?” I asked her.

“The price, obviously,” she answered. “Tay is very bad at haggling.”

She said it both as if that were a simple fact, if one that made her sigh, inwardly—and also a flaw of character. I flinched a little at that. I don’t think I had much of a talent for that, either. She didn’t seem to notice, lost in her bun bliss. Which was, maybe, better that way, I thought.

“I don’t need to haggle,” Tay replied indignantly at the next chance, when the trader turned around to rummage some in his cart. Probably digging for the scraps Tay had mentioned, seeing whatever he could bring up for that. “I’m a noble, you know.”

“Yeah. You go waving around that flag. Sure everyone’s real grateful if the price they gotta pay goes up because of that. Because you’re playing the in-between when you shouldn’t. Who the hell thought it was a good idea to ask you of all people to do that?”

It was a small wonder how Jannai could pronounce something that clearly while her mouth was full as a hamster’s bringing home whatever they’d found for winter. She was very obviously starting down phase #2 now.

“Want a bite?” she graciously offered to me, even as she shook her head at Tay, who was turning back to the stall to take a look, sorting through what seemed to be the scrap pile container.

So they did have scraps. And the man didn’t wanna sell a single one to me? Seriously. He hadn’t even asked how large of a scrap. Maybe he just didn’t want iron…

.

Yeah. I still didn’t realize what I must’ve looked like to him. More street urchin than even fisher child, the way I was spattered with mud, and how tattered the cloth on my thin body was. And that, too. My thinness, I mean.

I never gained any girth, not even when Anur or Ferrick’s family seemed insistent on force-feeding me, whenever I was around near meal times. The carpenters were very nice. Though maybe they were just happy if Ferrick stayed around a bit longer or had some friends to bring home at all, other than Anur. They fussed about him a lot. He didn’t like staying at home but always got in trouble outside. Didn’t help that he was all opposite-like as my mum used to say. Admittedly, Mamma said a lot when the day was long, and it wasn’t always true–but that one was. I saw it myself most every day. At least every day Ferrick was around. All his boasting and endless competitiveness didn’t exactly earn him a lot of laudations. Though he didn’t seem to pick up on that fact. Which always made sticking around for meals with the carpenters a double-sided affair. On the one hand… I always got a belly not grumbling. On the other… now it would be burping for days instead. And also… I always kinda felt strangely ashamed of all that. And worried. Despite all the stuffing—what if they decided I accepted too much? More than they wanted to give? What if they really wanted me to politely decline? I never quite knew which was which. People were so fucking hard to read when they didn’t quite say what they wanted. Sometimes people offered only to be polite but expected you to be polite back and decline. I’d fallen into that trap more than once, with our neighbors. Now they muttered behind my back and gave me those glances that came along with bad feelings.

I sighed.

.

Jannai patted me on my back. In a way that said she’d just taken the sigh as contentment, of all things. Ugh.

“Viveka,” Tay replied, when next he got a chance to turn around. Which, this time, meant he made the chance, by stalling the trader—a much older man, compared to his youth—by holding up a hand. Effectively shutting the Older up, by simple status play. Gods. Why? He wasn’t Truthteller—or Truthmouth, in fact, being what Warmun meant literally—he was just his son. Not much older than me or Jannai, in fact. That one always got me. Especially if it happened even with strangers to the village.

His single-word answer kinda got the same reaction from me, other than that, as from Jannai, though. Ugh. I exchanged a short glance with my bestie. Yeah. Why did you even ask? Of course it was Anur’s oldest sister. Couldn’t be anyone else. Only Viveka was that kind of a spendthrift. Ivory-tower, my Ma would call it. Whatever the heck that meant. Obviously that she didn’t know much about the world. At least she’d said something of the like around dropping that about one of the neighbors when they’d done something she didn’t like. She did that … a lot, really. But in the case of Viveka… yeah. I bet more or less the whole village would agree. — Just like they would agree that I had my ‘head in the clouds’ a whole lot... Still better than the nose up in the sky—as they also said about Viveka—if you asked me.

I hadn’t understood either one expression during my first few years.

Then Jannai had taken pity on me, once I opened up enough to start bothering her about things, and explained what it really meant, which was not at all what the words seemed to say–which had seemed rather impossible, anyway, so in that case I’d been kinda prepared already that they must mean something else. I just didn’t know what. Which, in actuality, didn’t bother her at all. The me asking. Jannai just… liked talking, really. She rarely minded being asked stuff. Even when she didn’t know the answers. Then she just shrugged. And started asking around. And a good thing one of us did because I would’ve never dared. But she could. And she did. Had no fear of nothing, that one. Well. At least nothing I’d found out about yet.

.

“And if I haggled badly, they won’t have to pay anything more than they think fair,” Tay added, interrupting my thoughts and drawing my gaze to him once more.

“How?” I mouthed, my voice small while my confusion was large. Then it dawned on me: Noble. Again. Really, Liliana. You should’ve understood that by now.

Not noble enough to take care of the sick in the village, though, my mother’s voice ran scathingly along the back of my skull’s inside like a razor drawn across skin. Ouch. Really, mom? Why can’t you just be grateful he’s helping in ways he can? He cannot take so much, he’s just his son. He can pay for small things, but that… I was sure he couldn’t have done that. I couldn’t think something like that about my friend. My own milk brother. Suggesting he could’ve stopped Feréll’s and Ommá’s illnesses somehow, and everyone else’s on top, was … that was simply too enormous to bear. He couldn’t. You must be wrong, mum. It can’t be.

Or maybe it just must not be. I didn’t know which. The thought caused me nearly physical pain, making my hand go to my belly. I hurriedly readjusted my grip on Ommá’s silver. How was I supposed to hide that from my friends now? I was increasingly losing hope about it. And if any of them talked, it would get right back to my own Olders and that… Maybe my belly was clenching for quite a different thing, after all. I knew what would follow if Ma found out about Ommá handing me silver. Even if it was just a single one.

Silver is more precious than you’ll ever be.

That one made me seriously flinch. Enough that I startled Jannai.

“Lili?” A big hand landed on my back, gently. Jannai was just one year older than me—and one year younger than Tay—but her hand was already bigger than either one of ours. “Everything alright there?”

I could hear the worry in her words even, not just behind them. Naturally, I forced a smile, as I had learned to do. “Yeah. Sorry.” I waved my hand as if pointing at something. As if something had zipped along and startled me. Stuff like that happened all the time, anyway.

Jannai patted me once and turned away again, listening intently, now that Tay and the trader were talking about price and amount. Even interfered once after all.

I heard … sounds.

They didn’t make sense in that moment. Didn’t form any coherent words. Neither did Anur’s triumphant smile as he turned from the other stall more or less around that same time, though it should have. That one was supposed to be easy–he’d gotten what he wanted and thought he got a good bargain, too. But I only understood it quite a lot later; much too late, stuck inside my own head for a moment. It felt like an achievement that I had succeeded to lay Jannai’s worry to rest. It also felt… hollow. And somehow… lonely? Bad. But I knew I hadn’t done a bad thing. I wasn’t supposed to make people worry. I knew that by now. Surely putting people’s worry to rest was a good thing then? It had to be. My fist clenched around the silver once more as if I could hold that truth closer by doing so. Pressed it into me. It didn’t help much.

.

My smile was still off when Tay turned from the stall. Too rigid. I knew it.

But he didn’t seem to notice either. “Anur’s gonna be so happy,” he declared.

This time I got the words.

Still didn’t understand them, though. Couldn’t yet connect them to his previous talk about how Viveka and her mother had sent him out to do … something. Get the leather for Anur, that meant. The very best leather they could get. To dye it. I only understood what all those pieces had meant when they finally fell into place of their own, weeks later: It was a gift for Anur. For his naming day. Juggling balls, like he’d been clamoring for, for over a year by then.

On this day, though, I only understood two things.

One: Anur had gotten leather enough to let aunt Caeda make exactly one ball for himself. And enough surplus to make a slingshot as gift for Ferrick and for the tiny bag I wanted.

Two: Tay had obviously… gotten more than planned and paid a far worse price.

.

Three, they were now effectively arguing with each other about who would pay for what, including the scraps for me—though I didn’t understand one bit of that; besides that I had just gotten very, very lucky, more or less by happenstance, because both had already had their own reasons to want leather, good leather, even the best there was. Everything else… made very little sense at all.

In the end, they settled on one giving me the thin thong that would make the strap and the other the scrap that would make the bag through which to wind the strap, by making a few small holes in its rim, just wide enough to fit the leather thong through with effort. That had been Ferrick’s idea when they heard they were making a bag from one piece, but didn’t quite know how to make it close, in a way that seemed safe.

Jannai had wheedled out of me that I needed a secure bag, of course. I still didn’t quite know how, but she had. She had also not told the boys about why. She hadn’t even asked about why. And told them in a way that implied it was for her, and not me at all. But of course she handed it over to me when it was done. She was the one to make the holes anyway. Ferrick had contemplated using carpentry tools on it, almost causing Jannai a hissy fit about it, exclaiming those were the entirely wrong tools to try that and that he’d just ruin very precious leather that wasn’t cheap at all. Not even scraps of it. They had a whole half-screaming match about it, too. But of course Jannai won that one. She always did, when she really put her mind to it, and will in it.

.

Made her father fit it with tiny metal rings, too, from the scrap metal of the new pot for the inn. Some of them were crooked and a bit strange. Turned out, she’d been using the opportunity to try her own hand on making tiny rings. Her Da didn’t often make things as small as that. Though he did have some tools for the odd job that would’ve fit a jeweler or locksmith better. Not quite the right ones, though. And we most certainly didn’t have either job in our village. Wouldn’t have had much use for it.

Someone had helped her Da though, while we’d been watching the games, nothing else to do but wait, which continued all through the traders’ visit, only leaving of after they’d gone, every time. Probably Ferrick’s dad. Carving tools being better for some things despite what Jannai had said. Especially making those small runnels in the rings, so they could fit left and right of the leather in between. I marveled at how they held at all, when we went back after the games, and Jannai handed me the little purse, keepsake for whatever treasure I might want to put in there. String long enough to hide it under my shirt and hair, no one the wiser.

Hammered and pressed together, according to Jannai. I’d just trust her on that. Knew shit all about smithing, after all, and less of making tiny rings to fit inside of the tiny holes punched out of the small leather piece to wind the thong through. She also said I was one lucky gal, for them to have the copper ready like that—though it wasn’t that unusual. Still got used for a lot of cooking utensils, seemingly, even with how iron had taken over for many in our region, according to her Da. Copper was easier to hammer and bend into shape, and took well to heat and water both, he claimed. Or so she said. I’d trust her on that as well.

I tried to thank her for all that work, happy to finally be able to unclench my fist and put the silver in there, still intact and not exchanged for whatever coppers would have remained at all. She told me to go stick it somewhere, and bother the boys. That’s Jannai for you in a nutshell.

.

Of course I went to do just that. Didn’t get much of a better reaction from them, either, truth be told, when I tried to thank them profusely, as best I could, still not good with my words. Though they worded it more politely, of course, less directly. Anur told me “not for a single string” and to take it as a small part of what he supposedly still owed me, for the flute lessons. That was how I’d got to know him—been playing the reed flute at one of the old jetties at the lake, those that were disused and already falling apart; and he’d come crawling round the corner.

Anur was a bit younger than me, you see. And still his words were much better by now than mine. No chance of arguing against that, even if I thought my fluting rather bad, and not much of a lesson at all. I’d just shown him that one needed to cover the holes with fingers, could cover varying ones for varying effect, and the rest was blowing air in. Couldn’t even quite show him how to get that right; he’d learned it of his own, by trying around, just like I had. But you couldn’t get a word in with Anur, if he didn’t want you to. At least I couldn’t.

And Tay? Don’t even get me started. I should’ve had better cards there, what with him paying for most of it. But he just turned it all back on its head. Said that part had been in the inn’s general bill, couldn’t quite be extracted, worth less than it would take to try and calculate all that, and most of it had been in the discount they’d given him because, you know, village head. They wanted to stay on good terms with his father, to be allowed back and get the drop on any competitors for the Mist’s Tears that they’d truly come here for, all the stuff they were selling—which was little enough, according to him—only a threadbare cover for that. Told me they got rich enough on the fish.

My head was swimming from it all, trying to follow. I also had rather big trouble believing that last one. We fished all day, all year after all—or rather, Da and the rest of the fishers did—but we didn’t get any rich by doing so. Sometimes didn’t even bring home enough to stop my belly grumbling. But of course I didn’t say that. There was no sense arguing with Tay, when he was stuck on his own point of view. He just rolled all over me with his big words, and that was that.

So, somehow I was left with a bag no one wanted to be responsible for, for free. Silver still intact, keepsake saved. That’s Traders’ Coming for you.

Or maybe just my friends.

It was how I get stuck with Ferrick, other than his connection to Anur who’d been a friend to me first–if I wanted to trace carvings, there I could. His family didn’t mind a lick if I stuck around for a bit, happy enough that Ferrick brought any friend home at all instead of just running around in the mud with Anur the whole time. Especially if it meant he showed interest in his family’s main occupation, and carving very much belonged to that. His father was a woodworker and carpenter, after all. He made anything for the village, from huts and the wooden stuff inside the huts right down to helping with the boats. Ferrick’s family were the only ones who could, too, it seemed. So his father rather much tried to get Ferrick interested in that, which wasn’t always easy. But carving? Carving Ferrick had always liked well enough, especially when he found it would get him admiration from the other kids if he made little figurines, no matter how badly. Or carved pictures into wooden boards that his father would proudly use for doorways or tables, telling everyone about how his youngest had done that, and didn’t he do it well already? Look bright, he’d make a good carpenter one day, after all. I think he was a little worried about Ferrick and how he rather liked mud flinging and blowing up stuff a bit too much. Even going as far as meddling in kitchens–not really to help, but to find out how to make stink bombs…

As expected, Ferrick was pestering the traders again about anything they might have that one could use for further experiments and tinkering. He, too, was counting in fish these days. He’d learned from the former years that the traders weren’t much interested in the big stuff his family made that they would’ve had to lug around back through the Deep Forest. Unless it was crates or an additional barrel. They wanted most of their space for the fish barrels and vats, and little else. Jannai was a bit luckier that way–even the traders could appreciate some of the smith’s stuff. I wondered if there were places full of woodworkers, where carpentry wasn’t as rare as it was in our fishing village. I mean, we were a village mostly full of fishers. The axe people seemed to be all woodcutters, mostly. It stood to reason, there would be more villages focused on other trades, right? I wondered if the traders all came from the same village, too. Had to be a really strange village. Traders had to travel a lot, after all. It would mean they were rarely ever at home. So was their village a ghost town, most of the year? Bern had a few stories about ghosts that weren’t too bad. Though Uhland had better ones, of course. I wondered if Bern wanted to apprentice to Uhland. Though I don’t think his father would ever let him. He expected his sons to take over fishing, one he got too old. Feed the family. It was a bit of a conundrum. Theoretically, we were all free to choose whatever interested us, and what we could find a teacher for. The latter was more of a problem.

I myself had basically given up on learning anything but fishing in my life at the ripe age of five. There was no one who would even teach me cooking, you see. I had tried once. Ma never let me near the kitchen again after that, rattling on about what a mess I had made, whenever Da brought it back up. These days, he didn’t even try anymore either. So I was squarely stuck with nets. Truth be told, I wasn’t really that much interested in working a household anyway. The stuff Ma did looked rather boring. The one good thing was that she rarely seemed as occupied as anyone else. Had a lot more time fiddling her thumbs, other than carrying around Feréll, it seemed to me, what with all the things she had us others do. But what did I know… Anyway, if it meant having to do the cleaning, too, I wasn’t sure that was a good trade at all. I hated cleaning. It was the one thing she sometimes made me do, despite the mess I made and no matter how I coughed. Clean out the fireplace. I guess she just didn’t like doing it herself, either. Well, there was one thing I couldn’t blame her for. Though I quietly very much grumbled about having to do it in her stead, even though I hated seeing anything of Ma in myself, like the grumbling. But I grumbled more in my head. That didn’t quite count, did it? I never grumbled out loud at people. Not since I’d seen what reactions that caused. So I didn’t grumble about the nets either, though I had come to hate those, too, ever since the big one broke apart and I had to sit with it for days, bleeding fingers or not. But Ma was now slowly starting to hand responsibility for my little brother over to me, too, sometimes. The one good thing about that was that it got me away from our hut. Ma didn’t care much where I took him, long as she got her hands free. Less nets. Yay! But I always had to get back to them soon enough. Not yay so much.

Bern and his older brother Bertram on the other hand could very well have gotten into the woodcutters’ trade, if you asked me. They were only a few years older than us, but already really strong. I could imagine them apprenticing to Jannai’s father, too. Didn’t think he’d be loath about some more help in the smithy. He always had a lot to do and rarely even came around for the axe people’s visits–though he didn’t need to either. They all came to him in the evenings, anyway, you see. Because he had one more passion besides smithing: He brewed a very strong, dark beer. Cutting Ale, people had come to call it, and sometimes Hackney. What they meant was that it hacked the feet right out from under people, sooner or later—mostly sooner—even the woodcutters’, as if someone had made one clean cut. Somehow, they still loved it despite that. Praised it a lot, did the axe people. Maybe because it helped em get funny. They liked being funny. And since none of them got mad when they drank, like some of ours did, why not?

We’d snuck away some of the Cutting last year for ourselves, or rather Jannai and Tay did. Tay, of all people! Can you imagine? I have no idea how Jannai talked him into that, but she did. If anyone could talk someone into stuff it was Jannai. Even when it came to our almost prissily virtuous Tay. That had been one of the few times he didn’t take responsibility for what we’d done afterwards. Couldn’t, you see. He’d been happily snoring in a corner at that point, while most of us others were… in varying states of disarry or outright violently sick like I’d been. Jannai’s Da had just shook his head and softly laughed when he found us like that. “Hope that’ll be a lesson to y’all,” was all he’d said. Implication obvious: Keep your grubby hands away from adults’ stuff.

I’d sworn back then that I would NEVER drink beer again. Not ever.

Anur had joined me in that, back then. But he’d violated the vow almost right away, when Ferrick had started teasing him about it just a few days later, slowly sipping from the milder beer his mum had at the inn.

They also seemed to have all forgotten about last year’s incident by now, because I’d caught them planning another trip into the smithy’s basement just yesterday. They apparently went through with it, too. I don’t know if Bern or Bert or some of the woodcutters had set them up to do it, but Anur still looked quite green today whenever he saw someone waving around a likely tankard or horn—some of the axe people used the horns of the animals some of their village kept at home, according to rumors Jannai had brought to us, as drinking tools; made me wonder how they were carved out, or if they were naturally hollow once cut off, but even Ferrick didn’t know.

Ferrick wasn’t all too talkative today, either. And later than he’d ever been to a Traders’ Coming, not even counting that he hadn’t been all too enthusiastic about the latest mud flinging; which probably saved me from some harm, considering, what with my own conundrum. Not as green around the nose and all queasy as Anur was, surprisingly—since I’d wager he must’ve drunk more than the other boy; Ferrick always tried to out-do anyone in just about everything, if a wager was involved, after all. But maybe there hadn’t been; though it was hard to think there hadn’t, since if Jannai didn’t put one up, it was usually Ferrick who did, and more so wherever Anur was involved. It was a whole thing with them. Seemed to be their way of expressing friendship, I guess, as strange as that seemed to me. It seemed they had either not invited Tay this time around—because Tay was already ruffling through the traders’ stock with a vengeance, as if he meant to empty his father’s coffers in revenge for the latest slight—or Tay had politely declined. But since Jannai had said nothing of it, and she would usually have invited me, no matter my vow, if that had been the case, as she invited me to just about anything… I guess they’d kept it between the two of them.

Jannai was currently busy debating with Tay about some of the things they’d spotted, though I already knew she’d go for sweets with whatever amount to barter her Da had given her this time—he always did, just like she always went for sweets in the end, despite how she always ogled most everything else before going there.

That was just as well, though, because it meant no one was watching me when I did my own bit of ogling, eyeing the leathers the traders had brought, even going as far as asking them which was the sturdiest. They eyed me a bit skeptically at that. No big wonder. I didn’t usually buy much of anything from them, and certainly didn’t look the part of someone holding silver in their fist either. But I did. And I absolutely needed some strong leather to put into whatever would be left over after buying the leather. I hoped Ommá was right and they wouldn’t take too much. I don’t know that they would cheat a little kid, but who knew? Ma always claimed the traders were all cheats, and when even Da wouldn’t speak up against something Ma said… well. There was at least some chance she was right about it for once. It made me clutch the silver piece even harder. I still had no idea what to do with it, but… I just knew I had to take good care of it, and that included not wasting it. Waste not, want not, Ma always said. A wastrel will go to waste, and real quick soon.

And if I knew one thing it was that… maybe I’d need some way out some day.

Maybe this was it. Though probably not. I doubted the thing would get me taken with the traders all the way to the city. Or at least some other village. I could’ve asked the woodcutters, of course. They seemed nice enough. But what the hell was I supposed to do, once there? I still didn’t know quite enough about the actual fishing yet. Mostly just how to piece together a broken net again. And gut and scale fish. Badly. I didn’t know much about anything else either. Most people didn’t seem to appreciate much about how I was good at finding nice stones or feathers or other shiny, glittering things. They often even claimed they didn’t glitter. Only Ommá never said anything bad about it. Though she did sometimes call me her little fox. Or her little crow. I wasn’t too sure about those endearments, truth be told. Was that supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing? I never knew if it was a scolding, though it didn’t sound like one. I guess… foxes and crows collected beautiful things, too? I wouldn’t know. I didn’t know much about foxes and crows, other than that they rarely seemed to grace our village with a visit. And that people complained about them, too, anyway… So… likely not the best thing to be. I didn’t yet know how to be anything else. I did, however, already know that food would have to come from somewhere. Yet another conundrum. I had a lot of those, the older I got. And I was only five. I didn’t wanna know how many I’d have at fifty. Better not to think of it. Focus on the matter at hand, Lill. Leather. Good, strong, sturdy leather. I guess I should’ve asked the hunter. Maybe. Surely he’d have leather, from the hunting? And it likely would be cheaper than the traders’. No one said he was a crook, either. But people didn’t…

Well, you just didn’t.

So I was stuck with the traders. And no matter how they gave me those looks I probably didn’t get half of, and that the other half I couldn’t quite parse, other than that they didn’t seem all too happy about me being there–Elders never seemed quite happy about me being anywhere, my own included, so that was nothing new–or at least not so sure I’d be able to even buy it anyway, they did at least answer my questions. So I knew rather soon what kind of leather I wanted.

“How much?” I asked. Probably too timid.

The first just laughed and shook his head. The second gave me one of those sad looks that were probably meant to be kind. Or maybe not? It was a bit down his nose, after all, from what I could glimpse. But told me “You won’t be able to afford that, kid. Whaddya want with that anyway? Little kids got no reason for something like that”.

“Here”, he tapped on a different one, “If ya need shoe leather”—I had shown him my good ol trusty soles, you see, as example for what I needed; I guess he took it for me meaning I needed new soles, and that was just as well, for the moment—“You’d do better with that one.” And that was the end of that attempt.

So I was kinda stuck with the third as my last hope, unless I meant to take the shoe leather after all, because that was the last of em. I dunno, maybe I should take the shoe leather, anyway. My soles had been good enough so far. Wouldn’t that suffice? But something in my brain was now stuck on what they’d pointed out as the best one. Ommá’s gift kinda called for that. Don’t judge me, I can’t tell you why, it just did. Not the best chances for bartering, though, if you knew someone was the only one you could get something from. I should’ve sent Anur. Or at least Jannai. But… I know. I know. They were my friends, but still… I didn’t know how they’d react to what I carried. I most definitely didn’t trust them to keep their mouth shut about it, and that was the biggest problem of all.

“Bisuar,” I told her, in dim hopes of any likely answer being what I wanted. “Just need a scrap, really. Got any scraps you can’t use for sumthin else?”

She gave me a good long look at that, and seemed like to open her mouth for a similar answer as the last one, but at that moment Anur piped up from the side.

“Bisuar leather? What the hell you need Bisuar for?” Stopping the woman’s words dead in her throat. Probably wanted to ask the same. But Anur didn’t sound judgy. He never did. He just sounded curious. He only turned his head for a sideways glance, though, when he stuck his head into our ‘conversation’, and then his whole demeanor changed.

“Oh,” he said, pronouncing it like some revelation I had no fucking clue where he was taking it from. Oh. You mean for that.” As if it were some secret he suddenly shared. As if he’d seen me pocket Ommá’s coin and seen something more than just that. As if he could somehow intuit what it meant to me, even when I myself wasn’t sure about that. At all. I couldn’t have put into words why it was so important to keep safe. Or why it had to be Bisuar leather now, and good sole leather just wouldn’t do.

His head snapped around to the trader woman again, and he seemed to grow two heads taller, the way he pumped his chest up. “Well, it’s definitely gotta be Bisuar. Nothing else will do.”

She eyed him, too, if somehow far less skeptically than me. Maybe it was the way his clothes were better, though I didn’t understand that back then.

“Surely you’ve got some scrap you can throw in with all the stuff our inn is buying from you?” he asked, all innocently, though with something in his tone that… seemed to imply things beyond my ken.

The trader woman seemed to get what he meant, though, her arms falling down out of the crossed hold over her bosom she’d maintained so far. “Guess I can give it a look,” she replied, with that hesitation that seemed to be part of the bartering. “I won’t promise anything, though.”

“That’s alright,” Anur piped, all joyfully. “We’ll just ask one of the others then.”

As if he hadn’t heard or seen me just talking to the other two already and being sent away. Although, in all truth, he actually might not have. In hindsight, though… I guess it wouldn’t have changed much if he hadn’t. Anur was already a very good actor back then, though little did I realize it.

The demeanor of the woman, somehow, miraculously, changed as well now. “No, no. Let me have a look out back. I’m sure I can scrounge something up.”

I gave Anur a quizzical glance when she proceeded to turn back and scramble up into one of the wagons they’d all half-formed into impromptu stalls by letting down the boards on the side and back meant just for that. How the hell? I mean… she’d just said she wasn’t sure she even had any scraps. And she’d meant that. Why did she now lie about being sure she did have some? It was clear she wasn’t sure about that at all. Did she mean to take some from one of the others? I had no idea anymore what was going on. The way Anur smirked and winked at me didn’t help either.

“Just trust me,” he whispered.

Well. I guess I had to. I just hoped he wouldn’t look too closely when it was time to exchange goods… because I wasn’t buying in fish. I couldn’t.

“What’s going on with you two?” another voice interrupted my thoughts. “Found something interesting?”

Oh noes. My muscles clamped down instantly, making me want to duck. I normally very much appreciated my milk brother being around; Tay was a good sort, after all, but… right now I needed nothing less than him there.

Fuck. If he saw what I held in my hand, he might just think I stole it from somewhere. Arguably his father or Anur’s mum. Wasn’t much else where I could get coins from. Least of all silver. Fuck fuck fuck. Stag piss and cattle dung, no.

Not that I knew what made stag piss especially bad, though I did get why cattle dung was, after I had once snuck into Jannick’s barn—the only farmer we had around here, who had the only oxen I knew—but apparently that was a good swearword, too, so there it was. Gods, he’d draw a whole crowd here, if he stuck around. Our group kinda always seemed to gather into one place if more than two of us stood around one place for longer, as if that meant, there must be something interesting going on there. Sure enough, there usually was, but… Shoo! Go away! I was half tempted to make appropriate motions to go along with my thoughts. But I couldn’t very well shoo my own elder brother, even if he wasn’t my blood brother, now could I? Least of all the village head’s son. He went wherever the hell he wanted to.

Unless it was property of someone else where he really shouldn’t be, of course, but you know what I mean.

“Eh. Just a little something,” Anur saved my ass once again.

“Alright. Call me if you need help, eh? I’m sure I can arrange something.” Tay laid a gentle palm on the younger boy’s shoulder and gave me a quick little pat on the back, then sauntered over to the next stall that seemed to hold something that drew his eyes, though I really couldn’t make out what it might be. Tay didn’t exactly lack for much, materially. But maybe he was looking for a present for someone?

It made me almost miss the return of the woman. And miss in full what the heck she’d done in the back exactly. Dammit. I’d been curious about that. And now I wouldn’t ever know, would I? Unless Anur had seen.

But one look at him told me he’d more likely been feigning studied indifference, only now turning back to her as she called out.

“There. Take a look at that. Would that do for your purposes?” She still had that something in her voice that said she wondered what the hell our purpose could be. But she didn’t say it. People rarely did.

Sometimes I really wished they would. Just state what the fuck they wanted or not, you know. It would make the world a whole lot easier. Though I guess if everyone just stated what they thought… it might also make the world a lot more uncomfortable for many. At least for a while, while people adjusted. Some don’t have the nicest thoughts. That thought made me feel guilty alright. Just imagine, if she’d heard my internal cussing… yuck. She’d likely raise the price tenfold. Old people didn’t like when the younglings cussed. Even if they themselves did it the whole time, and you could hardly do anything else but pick it up along the way, too. I snuck a glance, and my eyes grew big. That… that was no scrap. That was much too large. I quietly shook my head at Anur’s sideway glance. “Too big,” I muttered as silently as I could.

Something crossed Anur’s face then, as if he were doing some quick mental calculation. “Think half or third would do?” he quietly murmured as he proceeded to fondle the goods as if he were testing quality, not even turning my way.

I nodded. More than enough, really. Then caught myself, clearing my throat a little. Of course he didn’t see that, the way he was turned. “Yes,” I whispered back.

Instead of telling her we’d take it he proceeded to shake his head in that way people did when somewhat less than happy. “Nah.” He tossed it back almost casually. “I don’t think that will do. Come one, Lili, we’ll ask the others, if they’ve got something more fitting.” And tugged on my elbow, turning me around.

“What are you doing?” I whispered back, almost panicky in my critical lack of understanding. Then sagged quite physically, when it sank in: He’d likely just found it was too big for whatever he had in mind, didn’t he? Judged the price too high, too. Though he’d never even asked and she hadn’t said anything about it yet, either. The others had already heavily implied it would be rather too much for kids, though…

“Just play along,” he whispered back, rapid-fire way, under his breath. Continuing rather too loudly, so that the woman likely couldn’t help overhearing: “Who knows, maybe they’ll have us some better price on the copper, too, you know?”

“What are you talking about?” I whispered back, totally lost now. What copper?

“My mum needs a new pot,” he said, conversationally, but rather non-sequitur—to me, that is. “One of the big ones, you know. Among other things.” A pot? That might explain ‘copper’, sure. But wouldn’t she have Jannai’s dad make that? I hadn’t seen any pots in the stalls either. Yet another mystery entirely beyond me.

“Need some help after all?” Tay chimed in from the other stand when we crossed over to him.

“Maybe,” Anur said, non-committally, but loud enough to hear the next stall over, I bet. They were standing quite near each other, you see.

“What can I do for you?” the man from before opened up for Anur in a rather cheery way quite different from the tone he had employed towards me. “You want some Bisuar, I hear? And copper? I can offer both.”

“Hey!” The woman from the stall behind us protested. “Whatever happened to not rippin’ off each other’s customers, Dorin?”

“I’m nah rippin’ off, Suni,” he replied off-handedly. “They obviously didn’t get what they want from ya, and I got it. That’s not rippin’.”

“I’ll remind you of that next stop over, just you look,” she grumbled back. But she didn’t seem really angry at all. Under the grumbling, she felt like a smile, all of all things. I understood people less than ever in that moment. Not Anur, and these Olders even less. And this one had already sent me away. I was still here, only now with Anur. What the hell was going on?

Traders’ Coming.

Or, more appropriately, already when the axe people came. The woods people from the next village over—days away—those brave souls who had carved out a living from the fringes of the Deep Forest everyone feared. Still adjacent to the road, sure. No one was crazy enough to venture any deeper—no one but the very rare hunter at least, who sometimes ventured inside, and might or might not come back out after months. We only had a single one, if the rumors were true. That we had one at all, I mean.

Even the woods people had none. Though maybe that was to be expected—they were already deeper in than anyone else, living by the roadside, that dangerous stretch right through the wild country no one willingly set foot in unless you absolutely had to. Unless what you got from doing so was so vastly precious it was worth risking your neck for. Or unless they were very, very stupid.

The axe people were already more courageous than most—and maybe a little more stupid, as our Elders would whisper behind hands covering their mouths sometimes—for coming here, braving the trip. Everyone knew the road wasn’t safe. Less than a dirt track in places. And yet, they still came.

And a good thing that was, because they were very needed. None of our fisher people would venture into even the fringes of the woods, further than even the mill and the old herbalist’s hut. They had no place there, no reason to be there. Even when they still needed firewood. They gathered those from the wild tree copses in the surrounding fields, before the Deep Forest truly started. The people here were all sensible, not mad. At least that’s what our Elders always said. People didn’t belong in that forest, and the forest didn’t belong here, and that was all well and good, that we’d keep away from each other. But they were still all very happy when the woods people came.

Because axe people meant they brought wood, and they also brought the charburner, and we needed ‘em desperately, those rare few who knew how to build those little hills to make coals, and could turn the fish into smoked fish more easily than what our huts were like when the fishers tried to do it themselves, by stoking the hearth and hanging the fish along the ceiling. My parents sometimes did that, and let me tell you, it was absolute misery, choking our lungs out. At least I did. And Da also had that rasp for weeks afterwards. They no longer did ever since Feréll came around, because of course it was worse for the little one. Everything was worse for my little brother, built so frail one might think he’d not been made for living, a half-thing that came out almost an afterbirth, the real child dead. But there was none other than him and the healer had said there never would be, after that. He was the last. And he was the only one Mamma accepted as real, so… in her mind, he was her only child. I didn’t count. I never did. Not for her, anyway. He got the songs and the cuddles, the warm blankets and the worry, and I got the nets and the coughing. If you listened to Mum, that was all fair and well, because being what I was, I should be grateful getting even that much. After all she fed me, gave me a roof above my head, a place even to sleep in, and something to do for learning a trade that might keep me later when I was grown. And that was already more than could be asked of her, because I was not hers. Only he was.

Traders’ coming and those days when the axe people and the charburner were here were some of the few times when that didn’t matter a lick. When our Elders where too occupied to mind any of us children much. Freedom at last! Freedom, and fun, too. Because if the Elders got it, why not we?

When the axe people came, they didn’t just come to exchange wood against varying amounts of fish, depending on how good each side could haggle, and against the charburners, too, of course, who wanted their cut as well, of either, for what they offered. And they always took more than the woods people, even I knew that and learned it early. Because they guarded their secrets well, and Da grumbled a lot about how much they demanded, ever since we were more dependent on them than others, because the hearth in our hut would no longer serve even sometimes, so contrary to others, we were now entirely dependent on them. But even he forgot about the grumbling in the evenings and around the games the axe people brought in when they brought in the wood; days before the charburners ever came, because of course the wood had to be already there for them to set to work right away, soon as a trade had been agreed on. They never had much time to waste, the charburners, so it seemed. The axe people, however, they were much more generous with their time. More joyous, too. Guess they were happy to be out of the dangerous woods for a while, for as long as they could get away with sticking around near our lake, hacking away at Deep Forest’s fringes, driving it back so it never grew into the fields around, keeping us safe—and getting us all that wood in the first place.

They used the same river the mill ran on, for that purpose. Of bringing the trunks here, I mean, wholesale, sometimes with the crowns still attached, long as the wood wasn’t big enough to clog up the river then. Those parts they had to cut away and send on by their own. But it all went in the river. The miller’s reservoir and levees doubled as the catcher then. I’d wondered a lot how the hell he knew when the axe people would come. It was part of why there were rumors he was a hex of some kind, that he never managed to quell, even back then. The axe people never sent anyone ahead, you know. They just started packing the wood into the river, sending it along, when they had enough. Maybe we should’ve rather suspected the axe people of being hexes. How did they know when the miller would close his levees?

And yet our suspicions fell only on the miller. He didn’t seem like someone who would bend his neck to anyone, back then, you see. And it very much seemed like magic from the fairytales and horror stories that we’d exchange or our village bard would occasionally tell, if we got lucky enough, how the miller always knew when the woodcutters came and closed his flood gates in time so the trunks wouldn’t leave his basin. He opened and closed them every few days, anyway, true—but how was it that those two things went together so neatly? It wasn’t like he seemed to have a fixed schedule for it. At least, we never succeeded in working out one. It had to be magic. No matter that all the Olders, and Elders too, insisted magic wasn’t real and we were full of shit.

.

We tried hard, I’ll have you know. Liked to play with the spring flood that the miller opening the flood gates for a rush to get the mill going caused in the lower river, you see. A whole lot, too. While dipping so much as a toe into that basin was a test of courage, playing in the lower river was something we weren’t afraid of. Far enough from the miller no one would complain. Far enough to be safe he wouldn’t catch us, too. It was not like he owned the whole river. The lower part belonged to the village. But the flood reached it just the same when he started it, of course—perfect time to get ourselves drenched, have it crashing and rushing over us if only we noticed. Sometimes we’d get in ahead, in hopes of it coming, speculative-like. Sometimes we got lucky. Sometimes not. But we never just sat in there waiting for hours, anyway. The river was a good place for play, even if our biggest water parties—and battles—all happened down in the lake, of course.

The river was for jumping across and racing around, and see who would go down with a splash—sometimes pushed by another, most always ending in the whole crowd of us drenched and wet to the bones from jumping around and swimming and dunking each other in the water. Even if the dunking didn’t work quite as well as in the lake when we got older—when we were this young? We were small enough, the river was still very much more than deep enough to dunk a child. It petered out a bit, down the hill, growing wider and more shallow than above, where the miller’s big wheel was churning the water up—when it was running, that is, obviously—but it never got so shallow you couldn’t dunk a youngling who barely went up to an Older’s knee yet. That’s what we called the ones who weren’t yet of age to be called an Elder, in case you were wondering, but not quite younglings and not even youngsters anymore either. It’s a real word. Youngsters? Young adults, or teenagers, you would probably say. The ones between younglings like us and Olders. And we were all such younglings back then. Anyway.

On top of that, even when there wasn’t a flood, there was still enough current in the river of its own that we could set up whole regattas of little self-made boats, scraped together from sticks and leaves and whatever else we could find. Sometimes we even had cloth scraps for sails, when one of us got especially lucky, but that was rare. We stole quite a few feathers from the hens and geese down in the inn’s yard, however.

Not the live ones, no—what’re you thinking? No, no, the ones they’d dropped on the ground and in the stalls quite naturally.

We’d learned rather soon not to bother the birds themselves—at least until we got old enough the birds were more bothered by us than we by them, that is. If you bother hens, they’re bound to peck your hands—and feet, too—you know? And the geese? Oh, don’t get me started on those honking terrors.

Even as a whole group we’d had trouble enough getting that one goose off Anur that one day he’d tried to grab one of its tail feathers and hiding him away, more so without getting bitten ourselves. And he was basically family to them, since his family owned them. Didn’t seem to bother the goose much. Had no trouble at all trying to bite his fingers off for trying. Yes dears, geese won’t just peck—they’re gonna bite you good right away, and hard enough you’ll think they mean to eat your fingers whole, bloody meat-hungry beasts. Don’t get near ‘em, would be my advice. No better alarm system in the world than a mean pack of geese. Better than any dog that might be bribed into silence and even wagging its tails by a good piece of meat or other things it likes, going as far as welcoming you, if you make it a regular thing. But geese? Much better to play in the river.

There was enough to do there, more than just pretending to angle for fish—or actually doing it, since it held some small fish, too, even if the bigger carps didn’t go up that way—or wait for the flood days. It was a good place to be. There was a copse nearby, too, that we sometimes used for climbing. Tried to jump into the river from the branches hanging down closest to it, too. Got wiser when we got older and added a swing. That made it much easier to actually succeed in that than come home with bruises as was more often the case when we were this young. Oh, we sometimes made it into the river–but it was more by rolling down the bankside we’d hit, to much laughter. Ours, too, if we’d got lucky and landed on the bigger clusters of hill grass that had big clumps of soft moss inside and went higher than our heads, cushioning some of the fall. A bit less when you hit a hidden rock pebble and worse if you almost made it and hit the reeds instead. The reeds could be bad.

Like, really bad. Could slice your skin open without problem if you hit it wrong. That one day Ferrick hit it real bad, we had to take him to the Elders to deal with the cuts. No one was laughing that day. I think Anur’s mum even brought him to Dankrun in the end? Our village healer, living in a hut nearer by the woods, outside the village. Spooky, that one. None of us ever went there, not this young. I seem to have a vague recollection of that, though mostly of waiting in the inn, all hushed-wise until we’d waited so long one of the others suggested raiding the larder and we almost forgot about Ferrick. Almost. He came back looking like half a mummy–not that I knew what that was, back then—stinking of a bitter herbal salve and something much, much worse in there, but laughing and triumphant again, already, making jokes about it. But I noticed he very much avoided anything that could get him into the reeds again, from then on. Oh, he still jumped with us, make no mistake. But he chose different branches and was always a little light around the nose when we did, if you looked close, even if he didn’t act like it. And sometimes, when he thought no one was looking, he had that look on his face. Hesitated a moment too long—until Anur would say something and he’d invariably rib back with something worse, all bluster again, and jump anyway. Thankfully, no one else got cut up as bad by the reeds as all that anymore. It couldn’t hold us away from playing there, either. The place was just too enticing and full of things to explore and use for play, from small animals to try to catch and run after to the waterplays possible there.

So on the days when the flood came, we’d wait for it downstream, all standing with our backs turned, sneaking glances over our shoulders despite the game’s rules we’d made up, jostling and elbowing each other about it, all part of the fun, until we heard the roar and firmed down to let it crash over our heads, see who remained standing. Other days, we’d bet on which ones of our self-made boats could withstand the test or drowned, putting the extra set we’d made in advance—stashed in a likely place for when the flood happened—in our places. Sometimes with a lot of jostling and sabotage, and cries going up, too. Floods were always a little chaos, but a whole big lot of fun, too. Sometimes we even made boats in a hurry, a different kind of competition: See who would finish one before the flood came, to let it race. If we caught the flood happening early enough, that is. More often, though, we simply raced premade boats, betting on whose would last the longest or go down the first.

Jannai once made one with actual nails she’d pilfered from her father’s smithy, if you’ll believe it—I’ll never forget the day; I laughed so hard. Of course it drowned right away, much to Ferrick’s jeering. It was the one day I didn’t unite with Jannai against the boys—Anur always joined Ferrick when someone else was attacking him, verbally or otherwise; no matter that they always riled each other, if you left them unattended—something I couldn’t even see as betrayal of our kinship, since it was just impossible to not see her idea of putting something as heavy as iron on water and expecting it not to sink as a little stupid and worthy, if not of ridicule, then at least of a little laugh. I just couldn’t help myself. I yapped along with the others when I couldn’t dissuade her from using that one for the incoming race. I had tried to dissuade her. So I’d done my part. The rest she’d brought down on herself.

.

But I can see now how it was a rather non-sensible thought to think the miller would’ve left the levee open to get his mill smashed by incoming trunks just to get in the axe people’s faces. It would’ve been much like Jannai and her nails, right? Wouldn’t have hurt them much, now, would it?

But him? Very.

Unless he could somehow make them pay for repairs and maybe emotional damages on top. He just seemed a likely enough sort to succeed in even something like that. Logically, though, there must’ve been some kind of agreement about it—or he’d surely have brought it up with our village head and made an official complaint of it, turning it into a whole quarrel; maybe one of those that might spark a family feud even. I guess, the miller knew some roundabout time—the axe people did always come during the same seasons, come to think of it, if most certainly not always the same day; neither our calendar nor seasons were even predictable enough that way—and had one of his sons watching for the happening, like we had Tay or Anur, and sometimes Ferrick, watching for the miller opening his levees.

Come to think of it the miller probably sent Runa, his daughter, to watch for the wood coming in on those days; since the sons were needed in the mill itself, lugging around the heavy sacks and whatnot. I didn’t know all too much about how a mill works, but I knew that much: It was heavy work. And the miller had a cane, so it goes to reason he let most of the work be done by his sons since they were grown enough. He was also one of those people who always went wherever they did with that slowness that speaks of gravity instead of just girth, though he had some of that. It was hard to imagine him lumbering around in the mill, carrying sacks.

Anyway, however he did it, he obviously always knew when the axe people would come before the wood crashed through the open gates and into the mill those big fat trunks could’ve easily clogged up. Or simply the sheer amount of the wood, even had they just sent the cut-off branches ahead at first. Which they didn’t. They just jugged anything of worth into the river all ajumble. Or at least I couldn’t see any order to it. The wood seemed to come along however the river wanted, in heaps and clumps, until it clogged up the miller’s whole basin the woodspeople would then take it from when they finally came down to the village. When the wood dammed up so much it started accumulating up the way the river came from.

The miller’s basin, of course, was up on the hill, or I guess the pressure could’ve gotten too much, shredding the levee by pushing the wood against it or something. So the axe people still had to bring the wood down the hill into our village. They had a very neat trick for that: They didn’t just take the wood out of the basin and carried it the last part. Although… I think they did with the more stubborn branches that got packed up into packages to carry after all. They mostly weren’t so lazy the charburners set up shop on the hill and the fishers would’ve had to roll all the barrels of fish up the hill or carry it there in packs. They were kind enough to always bring it down. And, as I said, the charburners often trailed after them, unless they wanted to spend days waiting by coming directly with them. The more timid ones did. Guess they didn’t wanna brave the Forest alone, even on the road. I didn’t see too much of the charburners, truth the be told; was too young back then. And didn’t see em much later for different reasons, but we’ll get to that. Stick with me, for a bit, eh?

As I was saying, the axe people had a very nice method to bring the trunks down to us: They made games of it. Races. Rolling the trunks down the hill. Using them like sleds. Pushing them over, and even tossing them. Yes, you heard me right. The woods people were all strong, no matter their gender. They tossed whole trunks. Measured how far each toss was before it slid down the hill on its own. The ones who tossed the farthest, rolled down the fastest, could stay on the trunks the longest were the ones who got prizes. Though the prize was most often that the others would buy em rounds and food in the inn.

It was a bit like a big festival suddenly erupting, every time.

We could never quite predict when they came, unless someone was fetching flour at the mill, of course, or delivering grain—though I think, the fetching and bringing was mostly done by the miller’s sons? Which was part of the whole mystery and the hex rumors—so it always seemed to happen all of a sudden, when the big cheer went up and the first trunks came down the hill with a big boohay, and then the first people would come running.

Both hither and tither—letting the fishers know, too, so they’d row back to take part, unless they’d been especially unlucky and needed to stay out to get as much fish as they still could until the charburners would come along, which sometimes happened, though rarely. Mostly, the whole village joined in at one point or another. Even fishers needed breaks, you see. And this was as good an excuse as any.

They’d even join the woods people in their races, to the mirth of everyone, though of course they didn’t ever try to toss the trunks. Ferrick’s and Jannai’s fathers were the only ones who ever did, to my knowledge. They were the strongmen of our village, you see, one lugging around big chunks of metal and the other doing woodwork, anyway, so it was kinda expected of him, as a kindred spirit to the woods people, if a different kind. They never managed to toss as far as any of the axe people, though. And for the longest time, their champion was a woman, too! Had the best technique, the axe people claimed.

.

It’s what got up high hopes for Jannai, the smith’s daughter, who’d taken up smithing and now got pressured into tossing stuff by our boys. Ferrick got a big laugh out of how she couldn’t toss nearly as far as the champion did even with much lighter stuff. But really, what do you expect at age six? She wasn’t grown yet. I gave Ferrick a good boxing in the side for that. He really deserved a clap on the noggin’, but I didn’t do noggins. I’d already heard some of the Elders say that wasn’t good for your head, and could make you dumb, after all. No one should be dumber than they have to, and Ferrick was already acting rather dumb sometimes in my opinion, so…

He didn’t laugh quite as much anymore when Jannai riled him into competing with her, though. He couldn’t toss half as far as Jannai—okay, maybe half, but definitely not as far as she could; I had to stick with my blood sister on that—so we all got a good laugh out of it, and he went sulking, Anur trailing him for consolation like he always did, soon bringing him back for more games—because of course the two won the racing again, which consoled Ferrick more than anything else could’ve—and watching the adults’ games once we were too spent to have more of our own. That and listening to the songs that would spontaneously break out once they’d had more drink. Sometimes the bard would join in as well, though Uhland seemed to dislike crowds. Strange thing for a bard, if you ask me, but there it was. He just was that way.

Got sensitive ears or something, my Ma would say, with that frown in her tone. I chose rather not to listen too much when she got that way. Grumbled about dad going to the games, too, she did. I chose not to get involved in that, either. I’d much rather join my friends and have some fun. When Feréll was very little, that worked quite well. She wouldn’t hand him over back then, anyway, so she was rather occupied and couldn’t do more than grumble, which was very fine with me. Especially as long as Ommá could still come along, sitting herself in some quiet corner to ‘watch over us kids’—though that often meant, she’d simply take a nap, away from Ma’s unstopping complaints. She’d buy us sweets or other things sometimes, though.

Something she couldn’t have done with Ma around. Ma would’ve scolded that we couldn’t afford it. Though in reality, I’m rather sure that it was often Tay who ended up taking over the bill in quiet, that is, made his father pay. After all, it had to be good for something that he was the son of the village head, right? And that one could sure afford a lot. He was a noble, after all. They had one of those fancy stone houses, too. We had only three houses in the village like that, and the only one that was bigger was the inn, and that one only had a stone base, the rest was wood. He also seemed to get some small cut of basically anything, so… It seemed rather fair that Tay made sure the bill was paid otherwise. Though Ommá did seem to have some secret stock of coins she never told Ma about.

.

I know because this time, when the traders came after the whole hullabaloo going on before they ever arrived—the fish smoked in advance, for the ones they wouldn’t just take along pickled in the brine they brought along with them in large vats and barrels just for that reason, most of their wagons filled with that, and not stuff to actually trade—Ommá gave me one of those big round metal things and told me to get something nice.

Insisted I take it, too, when I looked at it with big eyes, disbelieving what I found so unexpectedly in my hands even as I could feel the metal and the tiny bumps on it, from whatever was on it – some kind of face, some strange things that looked like someone had very badly tried to draw some kind of vines trailing the outer edge.

No one had ever given me a coin before. Most fishers didn’t even have any. They exchanged everything in fish, you see. Though I was much too small to carry one of the big Mist’s Tears, those massive carps from our lake that went for the most. I could’ve taken some of the smaller silver fish, I guess, though I suspect the traders wouldn’t have given me a whole lot for those. They were all here after the Mist’s Tears. I didn’t quite understand how Mist’s Tears could be so precious you’d risk your life for it, traveling all that way through the Deep Forest, and not just from the last village, but all the way from Mistwall, the big city I’d only ever heard rumors of. Supposedly, it was like more than five times our village, stacked one right against the other. I had trouble imagining that. Couldn’t quite wrap my mind around it.

I had seen some of the Elders exchange the occasional coin at the inn for fish or the other way around, getting food and drink for coin, though. Seen some from Anur as well. As the innkeep’s son, he of course knew more about that than any of us—bar Tay, that is; of course, the village head’s son had also held coins in his hands before—since the inn was one of the few places were sometimes exchanges happened against coin, especially when the traders came.

So I knew what coins were. That you could trade them. Even knew that the dull silvery ones were worth less than even the copper ones and the copper ones were less than the shiny silver ones, but I couldn’t make heads nor tails of how much I held just now was really worth. I did what I’d seen a trader do once then: Bit down on the shiny silver, experimentally. Not much, just a little. Wondering what that was all about.

It was surprisingly… soft. In fact, I was rather worried about it holding a tooth mark now, a very clear, spiky indentation. But Ommá just laughed. Told me that I should get back a handful of coppers, though, unless I were buying whole baskets of sweets to feed all my friends for days.

I gave her an even more puzzled look at that. If we had that kind of money at home, why was Ma always worried about not making ends meet? Why was my belly sometimes growling because she let me have too little? I had never complained about it, seeing how Ma was always going on about how we needed the fish for trade as much as we could, and I had to be grateful for what I did get. I’d never once told Ommá about the grumbles in my belly. They seemed shameful, after all. Ma’s portions didn’t look all that bigger, and she was bigger than me, and hers didn’t grumble. I wondered now, if I should have. Told Ommá, that is. “But–“ I started.

She shushed me with a finger on her lips. “No, Lill.” She always made a play of ‘little’ on my name. I liked that far more than being called by the full name Ma had assigned me. Liliana always held that scolding undertone, you see. “Just don’t show her.” Then she proceeded to pat my head. “Got more where that came from, you see.”

“But–“ I tried again. Why was she giving this to me? Why now? Why the hell hadn’t she used it to get a cure for Feréll then? Surely there was one? Surely if we’d paid the healer enough, she wouldn’t have insisted on giving him that badly costly stuff which he had to take too much of, according to Ma? At least Ma was always going on about how Dankrun wouldn’t do enough to actually cure Feréll. How, surely, she was keeping him sick on purpose, so she could get more out of it. So if she wanted more out of it–we could’ve just given her more, if we had that, right?

But Ommá just shook her head. “No, Lill. Don’t tell. Don’t show. This is yours. I won’t always be there.” She had that sad look in her eyes that made me shush, no matter the questions ghosting around in my head. But she winked at me, a twinkle in her eyes, trying to cover it with a smile, telling me: “Traders got some really nice things this time, I heard.”

I didn’t even ask where the hell she was supposed to have heard that, before they ever got here. This was one of the things Elders said that didn’t mean quite what they said. That were said for other reasons, even though I often couldn’t guess right. This time, though… I thought I knew why. And I could feel it, too. Had felt it for quite some time now. She didn’t have all that long before she needed to leave. I knew that.

It still didn’t sit right that she’d give that to me. But I guess if she had more… she was just making sure I got my cut; would give the rest to Da and Ma, right? Tell ‘em to keep some for Feréll. Maybe use it to finally cure him. I hoped they’d do that. Surely they would? Mamma was going on a lot about Feréll’s sickness. And she loved him dearly. Surely she would rather have him healthy, so we’d have a pair of hands more than use it for something else? And here I was. Being told to use that for something… that was all frills. Ma could go on about that for hours.

.

It still didn’t feel right. So I closed my hand tightly on it, even if I didn’t know what to do with it. I’d need some kind of bag, I knew. Something to hold it in where I couldn’t lose it. I was too good at losing stuff.

Me losing some of the shiny, sparkly, glittering, and colored stones I liked to collect was how Jannai had come up with our little tradition: Leaving stuff for others in “secret spots”. The very same one Ferrick and Anur now wrongly claimed they had made up. But it was us, me and Jannai, who did it first, just so you know.

Secret spots were… sometimes simply where someone could find them. They were meant to be found, anyway. But Jannai sometimes actually stashed them so well no one would ever find it, even searching for hours. Then again, she also sometimes had hiding places that were no good at all. She seemed to be a person of extremes, that way. I’d spotted the one where she’d made the world’s tiniest stone cairn from three pebbles almost instantly. The feather she’d stuck in there had also been visibly sticking out in parts. Would’ve looked rather sorry after the rain, I’d wager. So now my secret stash under the bed had another addition.

Maybe I should stuff the coin in there. No one but me and Feréll were still small enough to get under there, anyway. Sometimes his growth made me think he’d end up being unable to go under there before I ever did.

None of which made this any easier. He could still go there. And he was a toddler who wouldn’t be able to tell this from a random stone, either. He could take it somewhere else and lose it in the mud. No, I needed some better place. Some place I would find again, but no one else. Bollocks. Nothing came to mind right now. I needed a bag. Something small, something I could wear around my neck maybe, but sturdy enough to not rip and not get ripped off, no matter what we did in our adventures and plays; not in water, not in the trees, and not by anything that might make Ma find it either.

Was this enough to make Dankrun heal my little brother? Probably not. It almost made me want to find Ommá’s stash, seeing how she said there was more. But I knew that wouldn’t be right either. Even if Feréll badly needed more health, I couldn’t make Ommá part with something she herself might need. Ommá badly needed more health, too, you see.

Before I had made up my mind to try and ask her again, she’d gone to sleep, her hand flopping away from my head, and I could hear her snoring. No surprise there, when I looked back up and her mouth was open, her head dropped back to the neighboring hut’s wood where she sat on one of the trunks that were currently everywhere still, people not yet having cut them up or decided what to make of them. There was no getting anything out of her now. Bag. Don’t lose it. Don’t fucking lose, it Lill. Don’t lose it. Don’t open that fist for anything until you can stuff it in a good bag with a good thong around your head. Leather. I’d need leather. Some of the good stuff. The one that always cost too much, even for just the soles of our shoes, not the whole shoe. Never the whole shoe. I still got the same old pair. It had just gotten widened again and again by Ma’s tireless hands, stitching more cloth to it. The leather hadn’t given yet. Not in five years. That was the kind I’d need.

The rest of this afternoon was agony, with my fist cramped up like that. Even Jannai was starting to give me strange looks by the end of it, especially since I wouldn’t answer any questions about what I was keeping there. Even during the mud flinging, I didn’t open it. Couldn’t. Not even if it meant more of Ferrick’s clods hit me, and I could throw back less well than usually. Can’t lose it. Can’t lose it.

.

Everyone forgot about it in the evening, though.

And a good thing that was. I’d already been hard-pressed to come up with a plan for the evening, much less the next day. Ma and Da would find me clenching my fist some time soon. I had to eat, after all, and sleep. I could only eat in the inn with the others for so long, Tay paying for us all. But as if by some miracle, the traders came that very evening–and that ensured, of course, that no one was looking at me anymore.

It hadn’t been a conscious choice. Barely a whisper.

“Over there,” I motioned, trying to cover up my mistake, without even yet knowing why I did that; just an increasingly queasy feeling in my stomach telling me I’d just done something wrong. Maybe because one shouldn’t look assassins in the eye. Much better to keep their hands and feet in view…

But of course he’d heard, in that split second before I half-turned away from him, indicating the hatch in the ship’s floor, and, honestly? Trying to hide the expression on my face away that I felt burning there.

Because those coals had suddenly started to catch fire at that.

Shit. What had I done?

To my relief, he moved around me silently, complying without a word, to hand Mirja over to my brothers, quickly taken down below deck. Spices. And… gods, why did he smell like a dessert buffet? My nose just couldn’t not pick up that coccano and cream scent with him moving past this close. Just a whiff of dry Eera wood as well? Damn. How could anyone smell this good after a parcours session like that, running across several districts with a heavy load? He had to be wearing perfume. Right? Especially as a pinch of fresh citrus hit my nostrils shortly afterwards, lingering along the wood scent in the wave of the spiced chocolate cake aroma passing by. There was no need to almost touch me while moving past, either. Or to wave that scent under my nose. Just as there was no need to try and burn his eyes into mine. Jackass.

Wait… was that… Vinla in the undertones? Bastard sibling to vanilla, smelling much like it; but something better classified as ‘poison’ -or acid- if you ask me, as it would burn your taste buds right off. Probably burn your skin, too, if you put it on like that. Yeah, that would fit someone like him much better.

But that relief was short-lived. His curiosity -and likely surprise- was palpable as he went past me. And there was something else as well. Something I did not want to name. Something that was far too dangerous to acknowledge.

Shit. I’d just managed to arouse his interest, hadn‘t I?

Because I shouldn’t have been able to tell who he was.

Just some stranger standing watch on the ship where he was supposed to load her off. Someone who knew one of them was coming with a package, sure, but not…

But I did. And I had.

Selar. It was the very same person who’d offered the deal in the first place. To Mirja. Not me. With a different face. A different persona. We had never met in person before, even though he’d known, when they had met for the second time, that someone else was speaking for her, using her voice, her hands, her eyes. I vividly remembered that stupid test of his, springing that snake on me, as if the hatred I had for snakes -and seemingly their shared dislike for my growling Beast- proved anything. We had never truly met.

And I had known him anyway.

And my reaction had just given me away.

I hadn’t realized, in the spur of the moment, how that would tell him it was me who had done the talking; how he never would have known my face otherwise. Because he had never seen me at all. He’d just seen Mirja. Known someone was talking through her, sure. But never who.

Worse yet: I hadn’t realized how it was even worse than that. Like, a lot.

He was back within seconds, of course, after unceremoniously dropping off his precious cargo into the arms of my waiting brothers.

He should have gone on and left the ship.

Instead, he lingered, leaning on the mast off to my side, while I was gripping my bow tight, an arrow already on the string, studying the horizon for signs of pursuit that, indeed, weren’t there yet. He’d done his job well, it seemed.

He should have left. Why wasn’t he?

I shifted slightly, trying my best to keep both him and the streets in sight. It wasn’t an easy thing to do. Was he trying to unsettle me on purpose? Why?

So, what if he knows I was the one who…?

Oh no.

It hit me like lightning then: Because I’d seen those eyes on a different face.

And people weren’t usually able to recognize someone by their eyes alone, especially on what looked like a different person. Were they?

Shit.

If they can look like anyone, then it’s no wonder they’ll run around shamelessly in broad daylight and haven’t switched him for someone else. No one would have known him for who he truly is.

No one. Would have….

Oh fuck. I’m so screwed.

“So,” he said, loosely crossing his arms, feet lazily crossed in front of him. “It was you.”

Lounging, while every second hell was creeping closer; the sailors frantic in their attempt to get our ship started and as far away as possible from that damn dock before it could fill up with angry mages. Which might just happen at any moment now. And there he was, casually striking up a conversation.

“The one who hired me?” he unnecessarily added, while trying to catch my eyes with his burning gaze just as avidly as I tried to avoid it.

Damn it, something in me growled, wanting to turn and spit in his face just for spite.

Just yesterday morning I had faced off against one of these cursed silver-eyes, a vortex of quicksilver spinning in place where eyes should have been and endured their mind searching. Successfully fending them off by spewing nonsense until someone took them away. Without revealing anything.

And I was avoiding the gaze of this one? Who the hell was he to make me shrink back?

“Yup,” I handed back as casually as I could, trying to remain focused on possible enemies. There was no point in denying it, after my initial blunder. With an assassin almost at my back? Fuck. I was amazed again, like every single time, how relaxed my voice and body could sound, with my insides feeling like this.

“What of it? Trying to renegotiate the deal?” Fat luck with her already delivered. You’re the one still waiting on the reward. I sent the tiniest, curious look his way. Killing me now won’t do you any good, asshole. At least I hoped the deal was more important to him than someone knowing his eyes. I mean, after all, being able to recognize his eyes didn’t help much at all, when he came for you, unheard and unseen, invisible like a ghost at night, anyway, did it?

Yeah. That’s how we’re gonna play this. Just keep cool. This is not a big deal. None at all.

“Mmh. Sassy.” He muttered, so low even my ears almost didn’t pick up on it, with a smile playing around his lips.

I couldn’t see it, but I damn well felt it. Despite all that cloth wrapped around his head in some kind of turban and veil.

But then I felt something else as well.

Fuck. I’d been too distracted. I turned around, jumping into action much like the snake had done, and fired an arrow at what had caught my reflexes’ attention. Incoming.

Not the best moment for this, jerk. The bird fell from the sky like a dead stone, already dead, my arrow stuck right through its tiny body. Damn spies.

So much not the time for this. I stared at the dead bird, with the feeling of another set of eyes burning a hole in my back.

It felt like a mistake.

Both of it, really, but I’m talking about that spy-bird here.

Mirja was already safely below decks, after all. They might not have noticed without my shot. But the body was down now, and it was way too late, anyway. And really, who was I kidding? The mages couldn’t be far behind now. Also, who said they couldn’t see the shining auras of now two mages -according to my brother, who should damn well know- through a bit of wood anyway? Or at the very least judge what was going on by the continued presence of that darn assassin out in open sight very much on deck… That silver-eye yesterday had been interested in the ‘guest’, anyway – despite our stuffing everyone, including and especially Feréll, below decks in just such an attempt to avoid such suspicion, or rather recognition. So much for wood disguising a mage. They could see it.

My mind was running in circles, and that jerk next to me still studying my features like some feast laid out for him. Really not the time for this, you—

I could feel him straightening out of his lazy posturing, almost as if he’d noticed my racing thoughts and wanted to give them another poke.

He casually sauntered over to a spot next to me as if he were strolling down a shopping mile, to take a casual look over the railing – down at the street, like I had. Funny how he could raise that impression with barely a few steps. The strolling, I mean.

Capable as well, I see.” That comment wasn’t quite as hushed as the first one. And included a hidden purr somewhere, while he curiously eyed the dead bird.

“Good shot,” he nodded at me, turning halfway round to ‘appreciate me’ again, no doubt. His studying me was quite obvious, no two ways about it. Almost, but not quite a stare, with one relaxed hand still on the railing, casually leaning. He really had the casual leaning down to a T, hadn’t he? And that smolder that was almost an invitation.

For what, though, I did not want to guess. Gods, what an asshole.

Our ship was finally moving away from the mooring, at least, catching wind at last, suddenly jumping with a whip of full sails, one of them snapping around in a movement so sudden we both found each other hastily ducking under the swing that might have knocked us both out.

He’d still not gone, I realized belatedly.

While the ship was now moving rapidly away from the mooring. What, did he mean to stay on the ship!? My head whipped around a bit faster than it should have.

Of course my gaze got stuck on his. Wonderful.

Fuck you. Why are you even looking at me like that?

Loud clanging pushed me out of the fucking trance that suction in his eyes had seemed to want to put me in. Oh, shriveled Imperial nethers.

The big bells had stopped during the time he’d been onboard. This? This was something else. Something of a higher pitch.

And getting closer. Shit. It couldn’t be anything else but the mages, could it? I hastily eyed the street. There was some commotion at the other end, where there had only been quiet before. Shit. Too soon. That was too fucking soon. We hadn’t even fully left the dock yet.

His head turned around to follow my gaze. His posture slowly straightened from relaxed to something different. Not quite alarmed yet, but… some kind of ready posture.

“Seems that’s my call already,” he said, stretching slightly, much like said jaguar before a jump. Or maybe just to yawn. “It’s been a pleasure to finally meet you.”

He nodded at me again, in some strangely respectful way, while his eyes were still stuck on my face in a way that was anything but, and his hands went to the folds at his waist, doing something I couldn’t see.

They came up again empty, though. Curious.

The ship had finally moved away from the quay.

Too far for a good chance to make the jump by now. And I’d already jumped up a three-story tower at some point, just so you know what distance we’re talking. How far could this guy jump? If that was even what he meant to do. Maybe he’d just go for a swim.

But the high-pitched clanging was much louder now, and something broke around the corner of the street. Both corners, in a rapid run that was so fast my eyes couldn’t quite catch it. It looked more like two streaks of color than people – or maybe animals. Whatever that was, I was quite sure I didn’t want to meet it. Hopefully, we’d be too far for them to get to us once they reached the quay. Which would be in seconds, at that rate.

Maybe they can’t swim, some crazy-hopeful thought brought up by sheer adrenaline rushed through my head. But of course, I shouldn’t bank on that. I took up the next arrow, while the assassin finally left my side and moved down the railing towards the stern of the ship that was doing its best to say goodbye to the harbor with one last wave of its blank ass like a jerk caught moonlighting by the watch.

I might not be able to fully fixate who- or whatever was moving rapidly down the street towards the docks, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t stick an arrow in it.

It just wouldn’t be quite as well-aimed as usual. But then, any arrow in any place of your body will be a hindrance. Potentially even deadly. Speed was the call here, not accuracy, hitting some specific part. The Beast roared its head, pushed by the moment, and I sent out arrows as fast as I could. Hopefully, they couldn’t make use of arrows in some magical way… could they? I wouldn’t be getting those back. But if arrows counted as personal items...

No time to think about that.

My unsafe little ‘friend’ had finally reached the prow, still incoherently strolling down the ship, while my arrows actually felled one of the two whatevers. Huh. Didn’t think it would go down that fast. Speed, but not much endurance, it seemed. It crumpled into an unruly heap, several feathered sticks sprouting out of that mess.

One down.

Fucking more to go… The corners of the street had filled with bodies left and right, a mass of people that looked much like some angrily hissing beast. If you discounted the fact that my eyes could see clearly far enough to make out people in brightly colored robes, and my ears picked up quite distinct clamoring and shouting, of course; even if I didn’t know their language, and thus never understood a word of what they were saying. It wouldn’t have needed the people who pointed at our ship to tell me we had a problem coming in real soon. Because we might be almost out of arrow range now – but how far could they sling spells?

I saw at least two people who had stopped their confused and stupid running to come to a standstill, flinging up their hands, and I could think of a few things that might end in.

“Selar,” I shouted over to the idiot who had flung himself up on the highest point at the stern by now, seemingly preparing to jump into waters that might well crawl with sharks and things no one really wanted to know about, to face an angry crowd of crazy mages coming closer –by himself!?– who must have noticed by now that their sacrifice was missing, and just who was responsible for that.

“You sure you don’t wanna stay on the ship?”

I probably shouldn’t have offered, but faced with that? He had delivered what he’d promised. He deserved a secure drop-off at the next isle around here somewhere at least –if we could make it this far– didn’t he?

He turned around, dragging the shawl that covered his face down for just a moment, to show me a wild grin underneath –quite likely mad, that guy– white teeth flashing like stars in his chiseled night-time face that didn’t belong in the midday sun it was currently under. And beautiful enough it most certainly did not belong on an assassin of all possible people either. Ugh. No wonder he ran around behaving like this, perfecting his casual leaning and strolling. By all the good spirits and mad gods. He’s one of those people. Those jerks who knew they were beautiful little sunshines and thought that would always get them a free pass.

“Oh, I’m good.” he shouted back. “See you around!” He waved, pushing the shawl back up, and jumped from the ship. Lunatic.

Stop worrying about him and get back to business! I summoned myself back to my own work. No time to get distracted by the antics of a madman. I had a job to do here.

Namely, putting some more arrows in whatever got close enough, as long as I had any, in the hopes we could somehow escape from all this madness. Hoping all the while that my little brother would somehow be able to fend off the spells coming for us, because I could do fuck all about that. There was a reason we’d brought our own little mage, despite the potential risk of these asshole Southerners noticing yet another one they might want to kidnap, this close to their grasp.

Don’t worry, dearie. I won’t let them get you.

I’d rather kill him myself before they could turn him into one of their monsters.

Knowing what to look for, I spotted them almost instantly. No one ever looks above. Hah. Wrong. You trained me too well.

And who the hell would be looking down from those towers, I wondered. Big and small, slender and massive, they were spread around seemingly randomly through every district, reaching for the sun every which way and casting a shadow on anything beneath. Wouldn’t someone see them anyway, and alert the guards? Or was it normal for these people to take to the rooftops here, like it had seemingly been normal for these people to invite known assassins as guests of honor to their parties? There was no telling. Who the hell knew with this crazy city, where people floated along on nothing at will, randomly entered other people‘s property without a care, thinking they could just buy anything and anyone inside if they had enough money, and obviously thought it okay to just get anyone abducted who struck their fancy, if in a bind, as well as a wonderful gift to bind fucking demons to them?

Theirs wasn’t the effortless flow of motion my Papá espoused — that fell entirely under the header ‘supernatural’ as I knew by now. No matter how well-trained, no one could achieve that in a normal lifetime. But this one got close anyway. I watched them with equal parts apprehension and fascination as they swung and flipped and jumped their way over the rooftops, scaling walls in mere seconds and vaulting from one roof to the next in a way that should have been impossible with the added weight they carried slung over their back. Mostly with one hand, keeping the bundle in place? Damn, that person was good.

Likely better, I thought, thinking back to the only one of them I had seen in close quarters before. The one that had tried to kill our Emperor, half-succeeding, and had only been taken down because Ellie’s abilities were even more otherworldly. I held no illusions as to how much our contributions had settled that score. We had been a distraction mostly, at most some help to box them in so they wouldn’t avoid the fight. But it had been Elisa who’d actually fought them.

I wouldn’t be able to do the same yet. Not even with the Beast up. The thought made me uncomfortable. Especially as this one seemed even better than the one back then. And I had no Ellie right now.

I did, however, have my bow, held beneath the railing yet, but already strung; the same one she’d gifted me what felt like ages ago these days. A reassuring weight in my hand, just like the quiver full of sharp arrows at my side, hidden behind my leg by the way I was standing. I knew I‘d be able to send an arrow flying in half a heartbeat.

Much good that will do me, if they get close. Problem being, of course, that they had to get close, to deliver our ‘parcel’. If it had been a trap after all, I would have probably had the opportunity to finally find out, if I actually was what I suspected. Or unlike Papá after all.

Against a whole city in pursuit? But then, we were banking on being out and gone before most of them noticed. If they had done their job as well as they did parcours running, we might not even have to deal with a single guard. One could hope. At most, we hoped to only have to fend off a few while the ship raced away. Thus the bow and arrows.

“Tell them to get ready,” I mouthed back behind me and waved towards my brothers, still hidden below deck like everyone else. It wouldn’t be long now. We’d better be ready to race out of this damn harbor as fast as we could, and that meant sails at the ready.

The sailors soon came out to rig them for quick getaway; they‘d been waiting for the signal, not a boarding. This would be a switch-off, not some slow exchange. There was no telling how hot the pursuit after our delivery person would be, and I sure as hell wouldn’t want to stay once the mages caught on to what was going on here. None of us, really.

If the assassins had betrayed us, they would have already caught us. There was a certain amount of calm in that thought. With ease. There was no need to set up some elaborate trap by faking to deliver what we had bargained for to get on our ship. This city was crawling with mages. And the worst kind, too. Simply sinking our ship with a few fireballs should have been easy.

Especially after the stories I’d heard, listening in. Burning people alive, supposedly accidentally, because there was too little water around. Because they’d forgotten or never knew that normal people could not withstand fire as they could a dousing of water. Sweet Balance, how this world is out of order.

Just like this. Me, hiring one of those assassins to extract a kidnapped friend. The thought was as absurd as my reality right now. I never even knew who they would send.

I’d just been given a name and walked into some sleazy downtown bar in this horrid City of Towers, trusting directions that might’ve just as well lead to some torture chamber, because I didn’t fucking know anything about this place and there was no other way to get her back, either. I still couldn’t believe my best friend had insisted on coming. Again. Especially after how our last trip of a similar kind had turned out. It was unreal how smooth the contact with this assassin’s guild had gone in comparison. A fucking puppeteer. Someone had a very twisted sense of humor there. But then, would you ever expect anything else from an assassin?

Jaguar, I settled on, as they got closer. Not quite the fluid grace of Sintram, but definitely in line with the grace of one those big cats we’d seen in the jungle. Sinuous speed, powered by strong muscles underneath. More like a churning waterfall than silk and soft water flowing effortlessly around any obstacle. An explosion of hidden power any time they moved. Impressive speed, too. It had taken them barely a few minutes to get across the district in front of those sky-reaching towers ahead and to our ship laying at rest moored to one of the quays in the bay. The rope was only loosely slung around the pole on purpose. That peace was as illusionary as any safety was right now. I could only hope they’d done their job well and did not have mages already hot on their trail, or we’d all be fucked. Simply and surely. We were not equipped to deal with this people, no matter if the assassin moving to board in one smooth movement right now decided to fight with us or not.

Fight? Mad Gods, there wouldn’t even be a fight.

He landed a bit away from me, taking a few quick steps to reach me while I recovered, sliding between the sailors busy bustling around like a shadow, after startling one of them into a soft yelp with his landing, just as I had moved to kick down the plank for him, and barely kept back seeing him jump instead. Him? Yeah, him.

“You.”

The whisper was out before I could stop myself.

There was nothing at all to indicate who he was. He might have hidden any gender, almost any body type beneath those flowing robes concealing his true form. His face was almost entirely covered by a shawl, as black as the rest of his clothing. But there was this tiny strip he’d had to leave open around his eyes.

Unable to do all that without physical vision. Good to know. It might have been a ruse, of course, to conceal the full amount of his abilities, but it didn’t seem likely.

What little skin was visible between those folds of cloth, mostly around his eyes —and his hands that curiously were not hidden by gloves, as it would’ve been easy to do— was pitch-black. And I do not mean the natural kind of darkest possible skin color. It was very much un-natural. It was a void. Sucking in any color, seemingly sucking in any available shadow towards him. It was darker than the darkest color the alchemists had succeeded to create for his clothing – and that was already not a color you could normally buy anywhere. Don’t get me wrong: We knew black cloth. Like, really black. Naturally sourced cloth color was never that dark. I’d seen the alchemical variety before, though. This was it. And it looked lighter, compared to his skin.

I finally understood then why their nickname was ‘Nightmares’.

Aptly named.

His eyes, though…

They were the natural kind. The white of his eyeballs almost blazing, against that void. And the irises were dark, but they were naturally dark. The darkest black-brown you could find, reminiscent of coals, but all natural.

And I’d seen them before. In an entirely different face. One that had been only a light brown. So they can’t change their eyes. I had never heard the stories yet, about how they were able to shift, putting up illusionary masks of some kind, posing as entirely different people. I would hear them only afterwards. But in this one moment, strangely suspended in time, when our eyes met in person for the first time?

My instincts knew, confronted with this. Just as I knew him.

I couldn’t have explained how I recognized him. I just did.

Somehow, I’d assumed they’d send someone else. Anyone else, really, but the one person who had spoken to us in broad daylight. Wouldn’t they know who’d done it now? Maybe that was the point. It all seemed to be fun and games to them.

But I hadn’t been prepared for it.

Thus, the You.

I couldn’t hold it back. I didn’t even realize why I should. Yet.

It was out before I could do anything about it. Before I could even think of why I should not speak my wisdom. It hadn’t been a conscious choice. Barely a whisper.

“Over there,” I motioned, trying to cover up my mistake, without even yet knowing why I did that; just an increasingly queasy feeling in my stomach telling me I’d just done something wrong. Maybe because one shouldn’t look assassins in the eye. Much better to keep their hands and feet in view…

But of course he’d heard, in that split second before I half-turned away from him, indicating the hatch in the ship’s floor, and, honestly? Trying to hide the expression on my face away that I felt burning there.

Because those coals had suddenly started to catch fire at that.

Shit. What had I done?

It’s not just a celebration—it is the celebration of the year. Maybe even the decade. Were this just a wedding feast, people would normally behave a bit more… reserved. At least at this early hour. The sun has just gone down. The moon is not even fully up yet, but the colorful lights, blazing torches, and massive fires make more than up for that. It would have been a joyous occasion either way, but the Treaty just having been signed, the Peace Declaration just out makes this more than just a wedding feast. Poor XXXX to always have more important events encroach upon whatever times he’s set long before, no matter what he plans. It has people so elated and simply relieved that the feast threatens to turn into one massive party that the whole city seems to want in on, not just the ones who were initially invited. The party reaches much further. The whole city has been turned into one big celebration, people dancing and singing in the streets. And since even the guards are more relaxed—most of them joining the throngs before the buffets, the massive punch bowls, the caskets full of wine and beer and whatever else you might think of since XXXX declared it a Go! on clearing out the cellar for the extra occasion, or even joined the dancing on the big square, the field, or have gone to their families in the streets by now since there simply is no longer anything to guard—people just come and go as they please. XXXX and his freshly anointed wife seem to be enjoying themselves despite the unforeseen additional mass of people. In fact, they have already left for their own private … celebrations. The square has been turned into a party after the intended party.

Is this what emboldens her? The anonymity of the mass influx giving her leave? Or is it more that it’s half a stranger that came back, one who couldn’t care less about who’s watching? […] This one is… softer? And yet, at the same time also cheekier than the rebel ever was, if in a rather new way. Less aggressive, and yet more direct. Very straightforward, too. There’s no meek question from her as she has done before, during that last celebration before all that, trying to convince him that it might be fun to take a gander at dancing. There’s no longer a lack of experience showing in her either. This storm of a fiery beauty in front of him knows her dances very well. She’s had a lot of them during those years gone by in the blink of an eye, it seems. No longer searching for a tenuous grasp on what steps might be called for until she falls in step with his lead. This one’s moving like flowing water that simply takes him with it in a rush of light and warmth and laughter.

“Hey there, beautiful”, are her first words. “What’s got you all withdrawn to this dark corner, looking so dejected? Need someone to lighten you up a little?” A heavy dose of twinkling in her eyes and the chuckle in her warm tone tells him she’s teasing him before even the following wink that’s more than just a little overdone, just in case he’d be too slow on the uptake.

Her drawl is imitating XXX’s, of all people. She really seems to have it out for him today, knowing full well by now why he disliked the poor guy so much from the start, how he wasn’t even truly responsible for that, despite the charming behavior he disliked as well, due to quite different reasons. Seems those latter reasons are what she’s here for. They do have an open account on that talk, she’s not wrong about it.

Before he can even start to think of an answer, she smilingly takes his hand in hers, stroking his palm ever so softly with her thumb. Carefully soothing. Don’t take it too hard, her eyes seem to say. Let me joke a little, will you? Just to lighten the mood a bit. It’s been long enough.

“Come dance with me,” is what she says out loud. Full stop. No question mark. No harm in a little dancing. Is there?

Boy, is he wrong. But there’s just something about her that silences every single one of his doubts today. She’s a stranger. An intoxicating one at that. Her warm smile seems familiar, one he very much loves, but that’s about it. Even her scent has … changed. [… He remembers the tidal flood that hit him back when. The way it threatened to crush choice.] This is different. As if she’s holding back consciously, knowing too well what it could do. Careful not to spook him? Or just unwilling to subject him to anything that he might count as an influence on his judgement. Her scent is just a hint. But welcoming like a warm blanket in winter, a cozy fire in the night. Like that warm smile of hers. Nothing threatening, nothing overwhelming. It does seem familiar, but… it’s the familiarity the allure of a stranger begets. A Seeming only. Nothing is familiar about this. It is his steps that almost falter this time around, confused by it all. She just adjusts to it, and takes it in stride. Gives him all the time in the world to come around to his senses.

Only when he’s fully present again, having taken her all in, become familiar with the new situation, does she change the pace.

The whole dance, really. She’s just been moving with the mass so far, joined the general dancing, and floated him along like a buoyant sea, while he somehow feels almost like that young man again, barely more than a boy, all those years back, who just made his first steps on the dance floor. He can’t help the inward chuckle. It was an older girl back then, too, who carried him along. Very skillfully making it seem as if he were the one leading all along, while he most certainly wasn’t, adjusting for his every misstep. How has she become as skillful as that in just a few years? […]

There’s a reason he needs a bit of time to find his figurative, if not quite literal, footing again and come back into his own. She’s grown wise, indeed. For a moment, she’s more of a matron to his boy, the warmth of a mother enveloping him with tender love and care. But only for a moment. As soon as he’s back to his normal self again, his old self, her tack changes, as if the Mother had never been there. It’s confusing to see her change so quickly, and yet… it does confirm what she also told him. Also years ago. We are change. […] She doesn’t look confused today. Just understanding.

“I’m sorry”, she says, as if she just read his mind. “I know what Lisara meant, now. I should never have grown up around humans. Or maybe, if at least you didn’t… But I guess you’ve always been more human than I ever was.” She’s floating along with him, the two of them dancing to their own tune, quite different from all the rest. “You were right, I guess. It was too early. For you. I’m sorry I didn’t understand. Even knowing I couldn’t. I shouldn’t have pressured you like that.”

He looks at those deep, deep eyes, surprised, and wonders. Who is with him today? Her. This is her. The true her, something whispers in the back of his mind. The same thing that instinctively knows how she feels. The one that knew what to look for when trying to get her back, even though he didn’t consciously know what he was looking for. That strange bond between them that never quite vanished, no matter how she changed. The same one that let him recognize her when she’d had her first change […]. And still he knew her.

It’s something about her scent, isn’t it? No matter how laid back it is now. How toned down. How different, or how changed. There’s always this one, clear note that sticks out. That’s always been her, in all her forms. He’d know her anywhere, anytime, no matter what she looks like. No matter what persona she currently incorporates, there’s always that last little … shred of her. He doesn’t even remember when he first came to know it. Does it matter? that small voice asks.

It doesn’t, he decides. It’s fine. She’s here now.

“Are you okay now?”

Is he? He looks around, still a bit unsure himself. This is all feels… almost like a dream. The joyous people all around, the fireworks overhead, all that laughter. It’s been years since he’s been to something like this. He might just feel slightly overwhelmed. But that’s the outside. Not her. He nods.

“I’m okay. This... is quite alright.”

He smiles, a little self-consciously. Maybe even a little self-deprecating. It’s not her fault. And it wasn’t. It’s always been mine.

She chuckles. “I see you haven’t changed much.” She takes his cheek in her warm hand and turns his face to hers. “Don’t do that. It’s not true. You’re not the monster you make yourself. Far from it.”

She is reading his surface thoughts, isn’t she? Hello…? Listening in, are we?

They both share a little laugh.

As if I could help it, is what her response turns out to be. You were the one who told me this goes both ways, remember?

He does. It makes him chuckle again. He teased her that day, about how she might need to get better at controlling her emotions if she doesn’t want him to get a taste of them. Was he emotional just now? Guess I was.

And what emotions are those?

Their floating dance takes them further away from the throng, gives him more room to breathe. They have somehow ended up in the fields, further away from the walls they were inside seemingly just a few moments ago. When has that happened? Truth is, he’s not sure. He hasn’t really been thinking about it. He only knows that this feels … good. Her hand lingers on his neck, where it has somehow come to rest, playful fingers trailing through a short lock of his hair that has managed to escape the bounds of the leather thong he keeps his long hair bound with.

“Good. I hope you don’t mind this then”, she says.

Her hand moves back to his cheek, caressing it with her thumb, then to his chin, to drag his face closer. Her eyes are dancing, too. Her lips, so close to his own, are smiling. A rather insolent smile, at that. She takes leave of his chin suddenly, as well as his dancing lead, turning around into a quick gyration, winking at him, then takes ahold of his elbow with her own, turning them both. Quickly at that, too. Had he not been back in full, he would’ve stumbled for sure. As it is, his experience and natural grace save him from that.

He adjusts just as quickly as she has shown herself able to do these days during the dance from inside the city’s boundaries to out here, where there’s more space. It elicits a small, happy laugh from her anyway, her eyes twinkling like stars. He loves that smile in her eyes. Loves the throaty sound of that laughter as well. This new stranger is quickly growing on him.

Almost as quickly as his heart turns up the beat to adjust for the new steps. He knows this dance. Knows it quite well, in fact. It doesn’t belong in this time, nor this place. It’s also not quite as innocent as all the ones she chose before.

It lets her get close, trailing her fingers across his arms and upper body, his neck and sometimes his cheek. He’s almost surprised how silent any voices in his head are at that. Changed, indeed. This being here, familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, doesn’t elicit quite the same, confused responses that he had before. Years before, by now. Maybe it’s because they’ve grown apart? Maybe that’s a good thing. He can’t quite make out if that was her voice or one of his own. Does he mind? Not much, he finds, surprised. Not right now, anyway. Not with her joy all around him. Not with her teasing… on him. It’s nothing like their swim in the woods, or that … accident at the lake. Maybe it’s because there’s nothing insecure about her anymore?

The words in the back of his mind get lost in their dancing. The dance is much too quick to allow for much thinking. It’s dance or fall. He can’t even stop her hands from trailing. Does he want to? He doesn’t know. He just can’t think straight. Her smile, her twinkling eyes, the insolence in everything she does, as well as the lines she keeps to… yet? … they all conspire to steal away whatever thoughts might have come up otherwise. Not fair.

She laughs. A full-belly laughter that sounds rather close to a big cat purring while it stretches before a pounce. Definitely different. She never laughed like this before. Unrestrained. And yet conscious. So very conscious of what she’s doing. Did she pick that up with the [people] she’s been running wild with lately? She picks up the pace, grabbing his upper arms. “Stop overthinking.”

Good advice, as their feet fly across the ground in matching rhythm. A rhythm that only keeps speeding up. So not fair. She somehow manages to wag a finger at him despite the whirl and rush of this dance.

Slowing time, hm? Two can play that game. The dance becomes a whole lot easier to follow, as he moves to do the same. Like this, it’s more like a usual twirl and switch dance, one or other variant of which they dance in all the villages here, too. Those dances always seem to stay the same, somehow. Must be something very basic about it all. It’s made to make you dizzy and maybe fall, and laugh a lot. That’s what it is. It’s just joy.

He catches a small nod of hers. We’ve had too little of that lately. All of us. A sentiment he can only share in. Still. Dancing like this, her trailing hands are a lot more obvious than they would otherwise be. He almost feels naked under her exploring fingers. Despite them doing nothing much, not really.

She winks at him.

Of course she knows. She knows full well what she’s doing. This woman would never do anything she isn’t fully conscious of. Her almost predatory smile only widens, showing a lot of sharp teeth. Yeah. Not human, indeed. What have I gotten myself into this time?

“Don’t worry, I don’t bite”, she jokes. “Not much anyway.” She winks at him again. “Unless you want me to, of course.” The last part is somewhere in between statement and question.

He feels unsure how to respond. That somehow seems to embolden her.

“That’s not a no”, she whispers, coming rather close to him with her next gyration. Even if it makes her almost miss his outstretched elbow to turn around the other direction.

She doesn’t seem to regret that one bit. If anything, she obviously relishes his hand that instinctively grabs her waist to keep her from falling, turning her the correct way, throwing her head back to laugh again and grab his waist with her other hand in response. His hand, too, seems to conspire with her, deciding to linger where it fell. No more turns after that. Just whirling around each other, in a challenge to see who gets dizzy first. They both end up in the grass in the end, no clear winner to this contest to be found. Both having to sit down and take a breath for a moment.

She stretches rather alluringly while doing so.

He can’t help but sneak a peek. Too much woman to look away in full. He raises a questioning eyebrow.

She only winks at him. Of course she does.

Remember? This woman does consciously whatever she does. This included.

He cranks his neck and shoulder a little until one of them pops, to get the cricks out that threaten to settle after that last rapid movement. Maybe a bit too much spins in just one direction after all. She smiles knowingly, but keeps otherwise silent. Letting him settle again. Letting their heartbeats slow down after the exertion in companionable silence, watching the other dancers. She sits up. Sidles a bit closer to lean against his shoulder. They sit there some minutes more, leaning against each other. The silence feels rather comfortable. There’s enough noise and light and whatnot from the others all around. They go ignored by all, or so it feels.

„You should really teach her more about the skills a wife needs.“ were the exact words he said. I remember that one well, because it sparked some perverse amusement in me.

„You’ll never find a husband for her, that way.“ was the follow-up, I think. And this after I‘d come to accept he was really a nice guy at heart, despite all appearances to the contrary. Guess he was still enough of a jerk.

My mentor just told him: „Take care of your own matters, Uhland“, very matter-of-factly.

He was well within his rights, too. I was his apprentice, not Uhland’s, and no one got a say in a master‘s matters, least of all personal ones.

Least of all Sintram’s.

And I was very happy about that. Because, if you asked me, once he‘d opened up and wasn’t such a grump to be around anymore, he was the best I could‘ve possibly asked for. We always shared chores. And I mostly got to do the ones I liked or at least didn’t mind, not the ones I hated. Sintram was used to leading a bachelor‘s life after all—he‘d had to do everything on his own before I’d come around and convinced him to take me on. Guess he was just happy to have someone to share with at all.

Strange how Uhland could talk that way, seeing how he, too, was an eternal bachelor. But I guess… maybe he just had so many friends and affairs, he ended up being quite at ease with a luxurious living relying on others to do the work. Or maybe he‘d just grown up somewhere where that was normal, though I couldn’t imagine where that was supposed to be.

This time, apparently, he‘d succeeded in getting both of us annoyed, though.

I shouldn’t have taken it as license to gripe the way I did. But I guess I thought it safe, and maybe I also remembered Sintram‘s first betrayal of me a little too well—or rather, what it‘d felt like at the time; until afterwards, when I finally understood the matter better.

So maybe it was that which prompted my snarkiness this day.

„He can’t leave well enough alone, can he? Do you think he‘ll ever drop that matter of his opinion about me being a girl and what females should do or not do if he had a say?“ I inquired of my teacher that night as we‘d settled down in our hut—him doing the dishes, like always, me occupying myself prepping some new arrows and giving the whittling tool a new edge. He was the older friend to the man, after all. I wasn’t quite sure if I‘d even call Uhland my friend yet, what with his recurring needling, despite how much I liked his stories. The man was damn well near unbearable to me sometimes.

„Can‘t change an old bear.“ he replied, shrugging, not even looking up from the sink.

„We did hear the same, right? How can you stand that?“ I insisted.

He lifted one lazy eyebrow at me. I don’t.

Yeah, yeah, I know. I waved at him, unconvinced.

„You didn’t sound very … insistent, is what I mean.“ It was true.

She can take better care of herself than you ever could. So go educate yourself before you go on accusing other people.

His words might‘ve been taken as biting. But his tone had been much too mild for his usual manner of how he talked when he meant his putdowns to sting. More like someone who‘s had this topic come up way too many times already and is just replying by reflex. Which nettled me. How many times had Uhland said such things to him when I wasn’t around to hear it?

„Well, as long as you‘re not changing our arrangement.“ I glanced at Papá at last, since no reply seemed forthcoming; a wry smirk starting to bloom on my lips. „Because I for one am quite happy with it.“

I should‘ve stopped there. I couldn’t.

„I don’t need a husband.“ I said, leaning back on the rough trunks of the hut‘s walls, basically sprawling on our big cot. His cot, officially.

I noticed how Papá turned around by a tiny increment, of course. Curious maybe. Possibly concerned. Or maybe he had already picked up on the tone lurking behind my voice now. But I didn’t heed it.

„You‘re doing well enough as houseband, methinks,“ I jibed and smirked at the notion as well as my newly created mock-word, using my best Uhland voice. „Should be quite enough if one of us knows how to wive, eh?“

Because I‘d caught the implication my papá apparently hadn’t—or pretended not to notice at the very least: That he knew wife skills well enough to teach them, had he cared to. I couldn’t quite believe either of the men hadn’t picked up on that one.

How else was Sintram to teach me? Send me to one of the village women? As if they‘d know what to do with me. Or not be vexed about the intrusion.

I didn’t get further than that in my thinking, because by then he‘d reached the cot and proceeded to douse my insolence by the coldness of the washing water still clinging to his skin and the general unfairness of the sudden tickle attack that made me unable to stop giggling as if I truly were some small slip of a child still, shrieking at nothing and quite unable to defend itself. Even if I upturned the whole hut in my mad dash out of reach, spraying whatever was still on the table into every direction by unthinkingly—or maybe rather: not caring—just jumping across it; poor feet first, who‘d gotten it worst, sliding across to get to the chair to use as shield in my impromptu defense.

Also, quite deliberately flinging at him whatever I got into my hands to fend him off. Because that one didn’t play fair, and he didn’t care either.

Quiet footsteps whispered on the gravel outside.

Footsteps that knew no hurry, but seemed as single-mindedly focused in their soft-footed approach as a predator stalking prey. There was a gravity to them that belied their own hush as well as the lean shadow causing them.

Before they ever reached the inn, the first heads inside were already turning; focusing unconsciously on the door, slumped postures raised, without ever knowing why. Voices fell into a hush. Gazes flickered, unsettled, searching for a danger that hadn‘t even entered into existence yet.

One or the other person suddenly left off what they were doing as if caught red-handed — the mug of beer that might be one too many already, their work of building a house of cards that wasn‘t quite age-appropriated for them anymore, … slid their plate away; dropped the dice… flinched.

Even the children froze in their games, without being able to pinpoint why. It most certainly couldn’t be the hissing cat—and Anur‘s little dog was hiding behind his owner, tail between its legs. Feréll suddenly grasped my hand as if he wanted to emulate the mutt.

„Lili. Lili, what is that?“ His voice was barely a whisper.

The heavy ironwood door opened as fast as it possibly could. Almost as it has decided it suddenly wanted to be the cloth or thin leather flaps we used at home, and quite as silently. Despite normally being of a rather creaky voice.

As if to make good for that acute lack, it banged against the closest, heavy supporting beam with a cracking thud and hurry, the beam the only thing stopping it from spreading its momentum onto the nearest table—and the people sitting at it. They weren’t the only ones to wince and recoil.

Even the teenage rowdies that had just been arguing with Anur‘s mother -the inkeep- at top volume, because she refuses to hand them any more beer, suddenly feel deathly silent. A good part of them turned around in a snap—the rest hastily took to their heels in retreat; all but one who ducked his head as if that might hide him.

Feréll’s fingers dug into my skin. „Lili, I‘m scared.“

I laid an arm around him in safe support and gave him a little reassuring squeeze.

„There‘s no need, Feréll. It‘s just the hunter, hm?“ I softly stroked his hair.

But Feréll‘s eyes only got bigger at my words—and I saw how the gaze of our second little one did just the same.

Oh, I would neck Bertram!

„…every seven years. And this year, he came for Aemon’s wife.“

The words still echoed in my own ears as well.

Bertram und his thrice-forsaken expansion of the old story of the Black Tower. The vampire that purportedly dwelled in there—the very same whom one long-gone forebear of our hunter‘s was said to have killed. Only Bertram now claimed our hunter was no ancestor that man at all. But the original still: struck with the same curse when he took the old one‘s head.

And, according to Bert’s newest addition, he now came to snatch away some people every few years.

To eat them.

[ Excerpt of „Origin“, book 1 of the Hunter series.

More on: patreon.com/Teesian_Archives]

“Don’t look at your feet,” he softly corrected, taking their hand in his once more.

“Here.” He tightened his grip the slightest bit. Drew his hand a tiny bit back. “Don’t look for my feet, either. You go where my hand goes. I pull — you move forward. I push,” he softly pressed against their palm, “you move backward. Simple as that.”

Their eyes locked with his, protest already bright in them. “But—”

“No,” he said. “Don’t think about that either. You just concentrate on my touch, nothing else. And move with that.” He stepped a bit closer, gently rested his other hand on their shoulder’s wing, at seeing their old gesture of doubt — left corner of their lower lip softly drawn in by a tooth. Still the same tell. Should train it out of them.

“Stop worrying. Just follow my lead. You’ll be fine.”

Their eyes suddenly lit up into an amused blaze of gold, the curve of their lips turning up at him. “Well. It’s your feet that will suffer, if this goes even worse, not mine.”

Their low chuckle filled a hollow inside him that he hadn’t even known he carried. He could feel his own mouth curving in response and his grip tightened. His arm drew them in close.

“Ready then?” he whispered, bowing slightly to their ear, some of his old mischief filling him up and slipping out. “Because ready or not, you‘re gonna learn one way or another.”

Shouldn’t have asked me of all people otherwise.

“Look at me.” His voice had turned the warmth of a hearth fire, if still hushed like snow. “You did good.” His hand moved to my crown and slowly travelled down the back of my head to cradle it, pulling me closer. “That voice in your head right now? You know what that is. It’s not you.”

He didn’t tell me that everything would be alright or that the world would look much different tomorrow. Didn’t even try to calm me by saying they’d come around. We were both past such comforting lies and promises that had no guarantees.

But his softly stroking hand and his velvet voice conspired to turn into the warm darkness of a soft blanket pulled around me and over my head as his second hand found my back, and that was that. Even if my fingers still trembled.

My slow exhale was an unheard sigh, muffled by his chest as my shoulders finally sank down.

I almost jumped at the bear’s back in my anger when I came back to that little scene, fingers stretched out like claws, ready to bite and tear, my lucky catch all forgotten for a moment. Never thinking about how little human teeth would do against the thick pelt of that beast, much less those soft nails of my too-little fingers.

I wonder if the bear would’ve even noticed the weight on its back.

Thankfully, I reeled myself back in before I embarrassed myself by trying to ride -or rather throttle- a fucking BEAR of a size where I wouldn’t even get my arms around its neck. The bear suddenly shook itself as if confused about something, then trotted off, dragging most of my food -and destroyed nets that I had made so painstakingly- along in its jaw. And all I could do about that was fuck-all nothing.

.

I KNEW he was around.

.

I couldn’t see him anywhere, well-hidden as he was, but I knew anyway.

Ever since bringing me here, he had barely left for even a few minutes.

The only time I hadn’t noticed anything of him being around at all was... well. While I had been gone just now.

None of this was coincidence. This was another one of his simulations of “what might happen in the real world out there” that I would have to expect and be able to deal with.

.

This was a test.

.

And if it was a test, it couldn’t be about attacking a beast when he hadn’t even yet taught me how to sneak up on one. Not that the bear had seemed like it would notice anything, lost in its bliss of munching down on MY food, scattering what little shelter I had managed for myself in total carelessness - and likely ignorance.

My hand went between my eyebrows, kneading the skin there, in an unconscious gesture I had picked up from other people by now. Likely the hunter himself, no less. The bear... that bear was just some dumb animal.

My mentor hadn’t yet even told me how he decided which one to kill and which one to let go. And I had almost gone and went to recklessly rip his hide for what it had done. Not only would it likely never have stopped to think where the food came from, just happy to find it, it would also not know what it had just demolished nor... I exhaled a deep, slow breath. Then another. Calm yourself. It’s just an animal. It doesn’t know better. Just smelled tasty food and went for it, especially with no owner in sight. And why shouldn’t it? It has as little idea about possessions as a gemba, I bet.

And ‘rip its hide’? my long-lost and very-hard-learned ratio chimed in for the first time during the whole incident. More likely it would’ve skinned you.

.

Yeah. I guess I could see how a little child like me jumping on a big bear like that would seem ridiculous. I’d have made a total ass of myself had I given in to that impulse. *And* surely angered the hunter a great deal, no less. Since he would then likely have had to kill the poor bear for my sake, the beast trying to defend itself and possibly ending up in a rage of its own, annoyed by that fly on its back it wanted to swat away. Assuming I’d even succeed in jumping that high, but...

He’d never have let the bear swipe a paw at me.

This was likely my fault for coming back unexpectedly early. More likely than not he had planned for the bear to be long gone by now - and the bear leaving suddenly like that? Yeah. I knew only one ‘thing’ around here that seemed likely to have caused its abrupt leaving. And that ‘thing’ was a man. A certain hunter, to be precise.

.

Gods, I hated his guts right now. Hated this type of lessons. There was no sense hating the bear, but...

I blew out some more air. Unclenched my fists again. This time a true sigh escaped. I couldn’t even blame him, could I? At the very least, he’d just made one big bear really happy.

That wasn’t something to hate someone for, now was it? Dumb, Lili. Really dumb.

And I had asked him to train me. Badgered him about it, really. Prodded and pestered and pleaded with him to no end. If he judged that this meant I should be doing some more collecting of materials for a new hut — either because he’d been dissatisfied with my construction skills, judged it too flimsy, and thought I should practice or simply just for the practice or even for no reason at all, just because such things happened ‘in real life’?

I had no grounds to complain. He was well within his rights.

And I’d do better to remember that.

.

I’d be lucky if I hadn’t already failed his test by my response -or lack thereof- to this whole incident. What if he had expected me to run away? Or hide? Or... do any of the other myriad of things I could’ve done differently instead of just stare daggers at the beast in a rage, doing nothing at all in reality but stand there, huffing and puffing? Shit.

I’d better hurry to make some new shelter before the rain set in or, more reasonably, find some likely hole or tree to crawl into.

I eyed the surrounding trees with new suspicion under my calculations.

The bear had gone quite far up to bring the net down - maybe if I hadn’t placed it where it had hung, right above my shelter for convenience’s sake, it wouldn’t have even thrashed it when dropping down... Another defeated sigh. Let that be a lesson. I should hang the next one further away. And hope he’ll be at least somewhat satisfied by that. I hadn’t known bears could climb that high. At most, I had expected gembas to get to it and take their fair share, but... not some lumbering rock of a beast like that one. Well. Now you learned something, eh?

.

Ugh. Some good that did me. Hanging it high in the trees was still the best idea I could come up with.

I quizzically eyed my former larder tree again.

The deep gouges the bear had left in its bark, not just when climbing up, but even more so when it had dropped down, sliding very unceremoniously down one side in a hurry, dropping the last few feet right to its big butt — and on my not-so-much-hut. Maybe I should just stop trying to make a hut at all. Climb right to the top of one of the grandfather trees instead and make a nest there.

But I just knew the wind up there would likely rip away any attempt at making a roof. It’d be miserable. Could I go somewhere in between? Just use the natural cover of the tree itself, keep close to the trunk, maybe wrap some extra around there to make things a bit more comfy? If only he’d allowed me at least some tools. I was sure I could’ve made some platform, if only I’d had a few good nails. Surely rocks would do in a pinch to pound them in?

Sure, I could try and travel back to Jannai, ask her for some, but... he’d skin my hide for trying, wouldn’t he? This test was about sheltering in wilderness. With nothing at hand. Not about finding one’s way back to a village and begging for help. It was about surviving on my own.

.

My feet finally lead me back to my destroyed camp site. If one could call it that much. Hands sifting through whatever remained, taking stock.

Shredded pieces mostly. The branches I’d used as cover were only good for firewood now, having thoroughly cracked under the bear’s weight. The creeper vines I had braided and knotted en lieu of rope were now only short, frayed pieces running through my hands. It had taken me hours to make them in the first place, even with all my knowledge of nets and it not being hard at all to find them. They grew basically everywhere here. The trick was finding the right ones that wouldn’t tear or break or rip as soon as you put real weight on them. Then the right technique to weave them together once you found those that were both strong but also still flexible.

Actually... that just gave me an idea. My hand tightened over the small remainder of improvised rope.

But my eyes had gone up the trees again. A platform, huh? Whoever said I need nails for that? Silly me.

I just needed a tree with the right size of branches and spread in between, and... likely some finagling with additional branches to lay across, since of course I didn’t have anything to split logs with, much less anything resembling actual boards. But I didn’t need boards either. Branches would do just fine. It would be a horrible amount of work to strip them by hand, but... no. I was thinking about this all wrong.

Why strip them at all? The smaller twigs would actually help stabilize it all. And make it a bit more cozy, if I found some that were softer instead of prickly. I finally dropped the destroyed bit of not-rope and set to work. This would likely take me days of work, and I’d still be miserable throughout again, but it might be worth it.

He’d never said how long he’d let this test run. No time limit. Just a bare-bones task and advice of “I expect you to survive until I fetch you again. Suggest you start with thinking about food and then shelter”.

Food would be a problem again, now that the bear had run off with almost every supply I had managed to stockpile for the hungrier days when I didn’t get lucky. But I needed rope for either, and it wasn’t the most pressing problem since I’d found that one tree bearing edible fruits. Thank you, gembas.

The little apes were still dear friends of mine, little as they seemed to appreciate my intrusion. But they would manage. There was enough for all of us for a while, and they were good at finding more. And in winter, I had vowed, when the trouble was reversed, when it was their thin times, I would make good on what I’d taken from them, leaving out stored fruit for them.

I knew they would appreciate that, liking fruit best of all but usually never finding any in winter. Even if they would likely never remember the why of it, and not just by then, but at most of a few weeks in already. They seemed entirely to unable to remember who I was, even after all these years. Still took me for a predator, even though I hadn’t touched any of them since the last time Armin had me run around after them to shoo them away from the fish.

World.

It felt like ages ago. And yet it could only have been like what... two or three years?

Years. A slight pang ripped through my heart.

I hadn’t seen a single one of my human friends all that time. I refused to even think of my brother, braiding the next vine a little too tight and ending up having to undo it again to take out half of the vines because I’d shredded them, the fibers already fraying. Or more likely not looking closely enough while gathering them, ending up with the wrong vines, if they shredded this easily. Either way, time lost, work done for nothing, since they were unusable for my purposes. Couldn’t trust a rope that frayed before you even hung it anywhere.

The first time I ever laid eyes on him left me unsettled by an onslaught of bewildering impressions. In some ways, they came all of a sudden, like the light abruptly vanishing behind our mountains at night and just as suddenly gracing us again by early morning when it had climbed the peaks again. And yet, in others, they were more like the soft fall of autumn leaves or the way the first blades of grass raise their heads in spring. Nothing like the sharpness of fear — but just as inexorable, inevitable, nonetheless.

I had been utterly absorbed in the quiet wonders of watching a lizard, when it happened.

Amidst the familiar hues of warm, earthen tones and a rarer touch of gleaming gold, a handful of scales scattered in between shimmered in luminous greens whenever they caught the brighter, direct shafts of early sunlight piercing through the diffuse veils of morning mist that always shrouded our village. Fascinated, I watched the shifting flows of color play along its supple little body as it nimbly scurried across the rough stone one moment, then paused in wary stillness the next, picking up its pace only slowly again in vigilant watchfulness under my eyes. At times, it would stretch out lazily in a beam of bright sunlight, as if it finally understood I wouldn’t attack it, advancing its tiny claws so slowly it seemed as if time itself had slowed, while its small forked tongue flickered to taste the air — only to suddenly burst into motion the next moment, darting along several handspans at once.

In the midst of my spellbound observation, something suddenly drew my gaze upward.

Perhaps it was a flicker of motion I sensed, without yet registering any details. Perhaps it was the shadow falling across my right eye, changing the colors.

In any case, I blinked and looked up.

The first thing I saw was a tall, relatively narrow silhouette—a shadow one might have called sinewy, though that word was not yet mine. A shadow… maybe because he was dressed so darkly. But the shadow was more than mere clothing. It was something about his presence, his mood, gathering around him like an aura clinging to his lean form, a pressure in the air, heavy like a gathering storm.

But within that somber outline, for the briefest instant, flashed something bright, something green. Something that reminded me of the lizard’s mesmerizing scales. A hue and tint much like plants underwater, swaying and drifting past my vision, shimmering in the golden dance of sunlight filtering through ripples in the water.

With another, single blink, it was already gone again, as if a shadow passing overhead, a silvery-gray fish gliding by—or perhaps a cloud in passing, veiling the sunlight with its presence and silencing the colors.

That shimmering, glittering depth of darkness, too, vanished abruptly, leaving only the impression of cloudy sky behind.

For the eyes I found myself staring into were neither of that deep darkness –not the velvety black I had thought I’d seen just a moment earlier– nor of those dark, iridescent wood colors gleaming with brighter spots of sunlight I had believed I’d perceived.

They reminded me far more of clouds, or maybe pale stone.

The brightest gray, standing out all the more strikingly against his sun-dark skin and all the gloom surrounding him –the deep, black hair, his dark garb– lending his gaze an unsettling intensity that caught and held me.

The darkness I’d thought I’d seen might have come from the way his bright irises deepened into an uneven ring of slightly darker gray along their edges. Or maybe it was just the flutter of his dark, dark hair under the bright glint of a stray ray of sunlight, reminding me rather strangely of the smoothness of honey. Perhaps there’d been some green to his eyes after all, since I had thought I’d seen its luminous glint? They might have been gray-green in truth. Who knew?

I couldn’t be sure. It was gone all too quickly, and I didn’t get the chance for another, closer look since a sudden, agitated commotion at the edge of my perception tore my attention away.

Laurie’s chestnut ringlets, which I had always envied, bounced up and down as she frantically waved at me over the tall grass — at the same time trying, and hilariously failing, to hide behind a boulder. Her two intentions clashed so ridiculously that I nearly burst out laughing. But when I turned my head, I also saw Bern, already a lot bigger than me—continually trying to blow some stray strand of his unruly dark hair out of his eyes—running towards me with an outstretched hand, already seeming breathless. He promptly grabbed me by my arm, and jerked me along with him.

I was lucky I’d already half-risen, seeing Laurie’s antics, or he might well have just dragged me across the ground. I did not yet understand what was going on, but their urgency was its own command. I followed Bern to the next corner, hurrying along without further questions for once, until he let go of my arm. His stride was longer than mine back then, but I had always been fast, if only I wanted to. I usually escaped when we played tag — and if I didn’t, I was likely to squirm out of a grasp and dart away, zigzagging like a hare.

I quickly let go of that useless thought. It was obvious the others weren’t after a game right now. But then what? Had someone fallen, been hurt, maybe gotten stuck, and they needed help? Though, if so… why was Laurie trying to hide, no matter how clumsily she went at it? And why, then, did Bern stop just behind the corner of the next house?

He halted me with a gesture, immediately turning to peer back toward the square we’d just left, then shushed my questions with a hiss before I could even finish my first word.

Curious now, I squeezed in beside him, straining to see, and was just about to step forward again, too, since there was plenty of room — and I still couldn’t make out what all the commotion had been about. By now, the stranger had come in further from the fields, advancing on the village square. Someone I had never seen before, I realized belatedly, as awareness set in. Until then, I had been too absorbed—perhaps lost to daydreams, too wrapped up in my observations—to notice how he was not one of the familiar grown-ups.

It had been mere seconds since Bern had yanked me away, so the enticing stranger had not yet reached the other side of the square. I hurriedly scanned the square for anything else, but still could not find any reason for all of this, when Bern jerked me back once more, holding me close now, one arm wrapped protectively around me.

I squinted my eyes at him as he bent close, voice low and urgent.

“You really dunno who that is?”

I shook my head, as one does when honest. “No. Why?”

Why all the fuss? was my only remaining feeling as my body calmed down from the sudden exertion – nothing seemed particularly remarkable, at least not in a threatening way. Though I would’ve really liked to not get ripped out of my observation. I wanted to get close again.

I’ll spare you most of the dialect that tinted our conversation back then – otherwise, you might not understand a word. Let’s just say: in Mist’s Ford, it was pretty broad.

“What!? Ya seriously dunno!?” Bern’s words were a sharp intake of breath. “That’s the hunter!”

I only stared at him, waiting for some kind of explanation.

“The hunter. Can’t ya see?”

I still gave him the eye, puzzled.

I mean, I knew what ‘hunting’ meant, in a very broad sense – chasing voles and badgers, or someone running after a butterfly… And sure, I also knew the stew our inn occasionally offered wasn’t made of fish, for once. That the meat came from some bigger, forest animals, something I’d picked up from the adults around, but…

“Oh, c’mon! Haven’t ya parents taught ya anything? Or older sib–” He cut himself off, realizing I didn’t have any older brothers, like he did. No sisters, either. “Um… well… I mean… did no one ever warn ya that the hunter would come and get ya, if you dinna stop right there?”

Again, I shook my head in silence. In my family, no one ever spoke of such things. We already had Feréll’s constant sickness looming over us – we didn’t need more shadows to chase.

A big huff and puff escaped from Bern’s lips. “Fine. Then just… just look. See how everyone clears the way for him? Didn’t ya see how he looked at us?”

I twisted a bit in his arm then, just enough to lean forward again — to get a chance at doing what he wanted me to do. There he strode, cutting a dark figure against the morning mist, crossing the square at a measured, unhurried pace. Slow, and certain. Unlike anyone else around, especially right now. The empty eyes of a dead deer slung over his shoulder stared back at me, making me flinch.

The death that clung to him – that was the first fear I ever associated with him. But it wasn’t him who made me flinch. It was that stupid deer.

Bern seemed pleased by my reaction, anyway.

“They say he chops off heads of those sentenced ta death…” he confided, voice deliberately pitched low and as ominously grave as he could achieve.

I nearly flinched again –if only because I hadn’t expected Bern to talk that way– but then this voice cracked in a cough, ruining the entire effect. Instead, I narrowed one eye at him, head tilted like a bird.

“Nonsense. What’s that even supposed to mean, ‘sentenced ta death’? Nobody aroun’ here’s ever punished with anythin’ worse than chores we don’ like!” I wriggled until I finally succeeded in slipping out from under Bernd’s arm altogether.

“Ya’re stupid.” I quickly took a few steps away from him.

Judging by the look on his face, Bern seemed stung a lot worse by my offhand remark than I had intended.

Before I knew quite how to react—since I hadn’t meant for that to happen—I quickly peered around the corner again, trying to catch another look of the stranger before he disappeared. “He wasn’t all that bad…” I murmured.

But my voice now rang with uncertainty, even to my own ears. The deer swayed gently on his receding back, its lifeless stare still fixed on me, and a faint shiver trickled through my veins.

I looked back at Bern, still looking bedraggled, and laid a hand on his arm.

“Hey… don’ look like tha. Didna mean it that way…” I mumbled.

“Ya sure?” His voice lifted a bit, just like his gaze, but it still wavered. “Cause stupid Nam”—meaning his older brother, Burnam, sometimes called by a misnomer that basically translated to ‘clod’—“he says the same.” Bern stared at his feet, nudging his toes together. “Even heard my Da’ say, how I’m nah the sharpest knife in the shed…”

“Oh, Bern.” I nudged his side. “Dun be silly. You were the one who thought up the badger trap.”

He lifted his head, searching my face. “Ya think so?”

He knew as well as I that it had been a real clever idea, too. Sure, it had only partially worked – ‘cause the materials we’d used hadn’t been able to withstand a badger’s strength, but that didn’t make it a bad trap. And least of all Bern’s fault. It had worked brilliantly on the vole.

“Sure. Now c’mon! I wanna see where he’s goin.”

“What!? No! Lili, we can’t–”

“Oh, c’mon. Since when are ya some scaredy-cat?”

“I’m nah–”

“Exactly. So come on.”

“Oh, fine…” He rolled his eyes but relented.

After all, the hunter had put some daylight between himself and us by now. And since I was now playing the good kid, stopping at every corner, trailing behind at a safe distance, even Bern was quiet.

Well. So that was the first stranger I’d ever seen in the village.

Truth be told, he wasn’t much of a stranger. He still belonged to our village – even if we didn’t see him very often, what with how long he seemed gone in the woods, and how his hut was quite a way removed from the outskirts. But still. He was our hunter, not someone else’s.

And despite how everyone seemed to warn me away from him -or maybe even because of it- I soon developed a strange fascination with him. He became my first long-term observation project, much like my beloved salamanders.

I didn’t yet believe Bern’s words about him being the executioner. Why the hells did our village have need of an executioner? Ox dung and cat’s piss.

People seemed strangely afraid of him, I’d give him that. But I didn’t yet understand why.

That weight of death clinging to him? A few blank deer stares?

By the Mist and all leaping Mist’s Tears, I hated the dull, wrong eyes of the dead fish looking up at me, too, but I still gutted and cleaned them every day. Death was just a normal part of life. The life that fed us just meant that we could live. Where was the bad in that? That was just nature. Once we died, something else would make our parts into something new, too. And all was well and good that way. So why was he deemed different?

No one could tell. Or maybe they just didn’t want to.

Meanwhile, I got hung up on the fact that there was no reason for their fear. No cause. It was all one big mystery.

He was a mystery.

And I loved a good mystery. I might never find the solution to this specific one, but I’d be damned if I didn’t at least find out what kind he was.

The fact that his hair shimmered in the light like raven’s feathers, reminding me once more of the iridescence of my lizards, or how his bright, bright eyes seemed to have pierced right down into my soul, finding the one thing no one else could see, surely had nothing much to do with it. After all, I was only a child.