Dain made sure to tread his own path back to the cave with the basket’s handle biting his palm. Inside, everything the Witch had demanded lay sorted in small cloth twists: fever-root shaved thin like curls off a plane, beadmoss scraped with his thumbnail into a puff of green, spitleaf bundled tight with string, two caps of clayheart fungus, and a handful of bitter berry-stems. Herbal ingredients. All for healing pills and potions.

  For how immobile and injured she was, the Witch had been nothing but picky the past month.

  He huffed, breath gone to fog even though it wasn’t that cold yet.

  ‘She could at least say thank you’, he thought.

  A whole month of fetch this, dry that, go away, and come back was starting to irritate him. Unfortunately, he’d sworn that he’d keep her presence secret from the rest of the town, so he hadn’t told a soul. Not Leo with his questions. Not Rell with his loud mouth. Not even tiny Lira, who thought secrets were sweets and tried to eat them.

  The Witch just wouldn’t go to town. Wouldn’t let him bring a real doctor, or even the cranky priest with the copper bowl and the lukewarm prayer.

  “No,” she’d told him, laying there with her starry eyes closed. “No town. No people. No eyes.”

  He didn’t even know what injuries she had left anymore. All the big cuts she had when he first found her were scars now, pink as fresh tongues, and her skin had stopped blooming with purple, but she was still so… so pale in a way that wasn’t just color. It was like sunlight hit her and slid off without sticking. She moved fine enough when she wanted to. She just didn’t want to often. Most days she lounged on the spare blanket he sneaked out of town for her like an old cat and gave him orders like he was her errand boy.

  ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘Were you fighting someone?’

  ‘Why’d you fall from the stars?’

  ‘Would it kill you to say ‘thank you’ just once?’

  … He supposed he wouldn’t be hearing her answer any of those questions anytime soon, but it wasn’t like he could just leave her alone, either.

  She wasn’t well enough to go outside and gather food and water for herself yet.

  As he returned to the cave—that he’d decorated and hidden from magic beasts with clumps of moss and bushes—the Witch was still sitting where he’d left her yesterday, back against the wall and pointy hat tilted down to shade half her face.

  “There you are,” she said without looking. “I nearly sent out a search party of watchlight beetles.”

  “Beetles don’t listen,” he said, setting the basket on the ground. “Here. Everything you asked for. Again.”

  She pushed up on her elbows, winced, then made a face at herself for wincing as she dragged herself over to the basket.

  “These,” he said, tapping the beadmoss bundle, “and the caps. And the bitter stems you said had to be green with that little purple vein. Took me forever to find them.”

  “‘Forever’ is a very long time,” she said lightly. “But your forever smells correct.”

  “So you can make your potions now, right?”

  “Mhm.”

  “So I can go now, right?”

  “Mm.” She reached out for the basket, fingers steady now, and pinched the herb pouches out. Then, just as he turned to leave, she said, “Stay.”

  He paused halfway out the cave. “Why?”

  She slanted him a befuddled look. “Because you saved my life, and it’s about time I repaid you. That’s called a ‘fair trade’, Boy. Stay, and I’ll show you something worth all your time.”

  Every day before, she’d tell him to go away the moment he gathered all of the herbs she requested. He never argued partly because she scared him, and partly because he had to haul water for Sorowyn Carpentry and find cheap cuts of bread and mend Rell’s shirt where it kept tearing the same place over his shoulder blade. He never had time to be curious.

  But today, his feet didn’t move. He told himself it was because she’d asked him to stay like a person asking for company, and not like a tyrant commanding a slave.

  “Fine,” he mumbled. “But make it quick.”

  She grinned. She slid the basket aside, cleared a space in the middle of the cave, and withdrew a small wooden board from under her cloak of endless storage. He still didn’t know how she was storing so many things under there, but when she set the wooden board on the ground and clapped, his eyes went from her cloak to the board in an instant.

  A seam of green light suddenly tore open across the board, and from the swirling portal came four bark-covered hands covered in white and yellow flowers.

  Dain flinched back. “What… what is—”

  “It’s an Altar,” the Witch said, cupping her chin in both hands. “What, you haven’t seen one before?”

  He shook his head, suddenly feeling very small. The hands weren’t even extending towards him, but he felt as though he was in the presence of something no mortal should ever make contact with.

  “It’s how people get relics,” the Witch said. “You better get used to seeing the Curator Gods’ hands if you’re gonna hang around here.” Then she separated the herb pouches in the basket, handed them off to the hands a few at a time, and seconds later, the hands spat half a dozen orbs back out of the portal.

  She downed the orbs one by one like medicine, wiping her mouth with the back of her sleeve—and when she caught him staring, cautious but curious, she grinned again.

  “You like relics, right?” she said, more of a statement than a question. “Wanna see something even more interesting?”

  He whipped his head away. “No thanks.”

  “Why not?”

  His face darkened. “I hate them,” he hissed. “They killed maman. They killed papa. They killed my friends. They destroyed half of Corvalenne. Relics are only good for killing and nothing more.”

  The Witch tilted her head. “Is that what the townsfolk tell you to say, or is that what you believe?”

  He went still. The cave felt too claustrophobic all of a sudden, and the four flower-bloomed hands looked like they were staring at him instead of dealing with the Witch.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “... I’ll be back tomorrow,” he said, turning and trudging for the exit.

  “What about my lunch?” the Witch complained. “Can I get something before you—”

  “Get it yourself.”

  “But I can’t really walk. You expect me to go out into that scary forest all by myself?”

  “Get it yourself, hag.”

  Dain wiped the last smear of berry filling from the corner of his mouth, stood, and rolled his shoulders.

  He fished a small coin-pouch from his satchel—what little money he still had from the silverplume owl request—and headed for the stairs.

  At the foot of the steps, he palmed the pouch to the chef on his way out.

  The chef opened the pouch, blinked at the clink, and went red in the beard. “Mister Sorowyn, I can’t accept—”

  “Already accepted,” Dain muttered, and made for the door before the man could throw the money back at his head.

  Behind him trailed hurried feet and a soft voice, telling him to wait. He didn’t. As he walked out the tavern and stretched his bandaged arms carefully, Anisa caught up to him with Yasmin, her smile polite but just very slightly breathless.

  “We know each other’s secrets now,” Anisa said, falling into step, “so why not work together? You will need help with connections, introductions, and the like if you are to hunt down and corner the one-eyed. Granted, undercover as we are, we are not exactly flush with… no, in fact, we have absolutely no money at the moment.” She cleared her throat delicately. “But I am Obric-born and Obric-trained. I know our roads and our people. I can help.”

  “You are daft,” he muttered, limping back towards the inn. “The one-eyed were willing to sink an entire town to start a war, and they were willing to crush Granamere with golems that—for the record—I didn’t technically defeat. It was the Guild’s automaton. You don’t think they’ll go for you if they figure out you’re hunting them down as well?”

  “Of course they—”

  “Chisel me blind, you’re the Second Princess of Obric. If I die, that’s on me, but if you die, that’s on me too. I’m not gonna be responsible for starting a war I’m already trying to stop.”

  That got her to scowl—an elegant, offended little thing—and he half-smiled despite himself, reaching the inn and pushing through the door without looking at her.

  He traded one lady for another, though.

  Wenna stood behind her counter, setting new bottles on the shelf in neat rows. There weren’t many patrons now—the tables were emptier than they had any right to be—but the inn felt less hollow than it had when he first arrived.

  Maybe because he was starting to get used to this place?

  Whatever the case, Wenna looked up and stared at him. He stared back. A beat of silence passed—and then she smiled the way a person did when they didn’t know how to say a nicer thing without crying.

  “... Thank you,” she said simply. “For not leaving me there. You could’ve just… you know.” She flapped a hand at the smashed wall that wasn’t smashed anymore. “Let me be rubble.”

  He scratched his jaw. “I was standing right there. You were hard to ignore.”

  “Ha.” Wenna ducked below the counter and came up with a familiar bottle: the bilefrost gland he gave her, which she’d stuffed into a bottle of starflower alcohol. She tossed the bottle at him, and he caught it without thinking. “Take it back. You don’t gotta pay me for your stay—”

  He tossed the bottle back in the same motion. “The room is the room, and your life is your life. Different ledgers.”

  “Then what do you expect me to—”

  “I’m a merchant, innkeep,” he said, shrugging as he headed straight for the stairs. “Fair trade keeps the world running. It keeps the gods giving. I sleep here, I pay here. If you feel like evening the life-saving column, then… one day, when I fall out of the sky and land here as an injured seeker, save my life and keep a room warm for me.”

  Wenna grinned at that, quick as a coin flash. “I can’t wait for you for that long.”

  He snorted. Halfway up the stairs, he looked over the banister. “Also, I lied earlier.”

  “About?”

  “The gland. It’s not worth more if you stew it in starflower alcohol. The bilefrost effect actually gets diluted by the alcohol, so it’s just a ‘gland’ now that won’t sell for even a hundred curons.”

  She clicked her tongue at him. “Go break a vault.”

  “I’ll make it up to you with some golem plates. I saw a whole sack of them up in my room—”

  “Just go,” she said, waving him off. “Before I come over there and make you fight me for the right to give you a discount.”

  He saluted her with two fingers and continued upstairs. The steep steps made his bad leg complain, but not as much as when he woke up earlier. That berry pie had really put in a ton of work.

  Just as he reached for his door, he spoke over his shoulder to the two shadows dogging his heels.

  “I’m leaving tomorrow,” he said. “The end-of-week caravan to Braskir will be here at dawn. Driver’s going to ask for two thousand curons for the one-way trip, but since I’ve only got about seven hundred, I think I’ll haggle him down to six hundred. Either way, I need rest tonight, so good luck with whatever you’ll be doing from now on.”

  His hand stretched toward the doorknob—then a sharp thump of iron-capped wood struck the floor in front of his boots.

  Yasmin’s staffblade barred the way.

  He scowled at her. “Move.”

  Yasmin’s eyes were cold iron. “You’re a hypocrite.”

  “... Excuse me?”

  “You preach fair trade as a merchant,” she said sternly, “and you despise favors given without cost. Yet you would walk away now, after saving our lives twice, and deny us the right to repay you properly. Do you think buying you gear, food, and relics balances the scale against my lady’s life?”

  “Well, it’s certainly not life for life, but I consider the materials you’ve bought me to be life-saving, so—”

  “If my lady chooses to follow you into fire until the debt is even, then so be it,” she said. “Her safety is mine to guard. It is of my concern. Do not be so conceited as to think it yours.”

  Yasmin didn’t flinch after her declaration. Her chin was high, her grip was firm on her staffblade. Confidence radiated from her—steady enough that Dain felt the weight of it—and for a moment, he almost laughed at how seriously she took her duty.

  Instead, he let his eyes drift past her to Anisa, whose gaze was softer but no less determined.

  So he sighed, shoulders loosening—and a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

  “... How much coin do you have between the two of you?”

  Yasmin flicked her eyes to her lady. Anisa, without hesitation, lifted her hand in a small, graceful gesture. “Roughly eight thousand curons. Enough to buy three one-way caravan seats to Braskir and cover a handful of nights once we arrive.”

  “Eight thousand…” He rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. “Not terrible.” Then his voice hardened just slightly as he faced Anisa. “But if you’re going to trail me, forget the amulet and forget your titles. No Second Princess, no favors, and no guards tripping over themselves to bow. As far as the world knows, we’re nothing but pauper adventurers with holes in our boots. If you can’t stomach being dirt-poor, best turn back now.”

  “Well, I have always wanted to be a real adventurer…" Anisa’s lips curved into a grin. "But you already knew that, did you not? You just wanted me and Yasmin to beg to help you, hm?”

  He let his grin spread wider. “Rule number one of being a merchant: make every trade seem fair.”

  Anisa snorted. “Then, how about we reconvene at dinner?” she suggested, clapping her hands softly. “I still wish to learn a little more about you, so—”

  He brushed past Yasmin’s staff, nudging it aside with his arm, and pushed his door open. “We’ll have plenty of time to talk on the road north,” he said over his shoulder. “I’ve got something else to do tonight.”

  “And what would that be?”

  He paused—glanced back just long enough for silence to make the answer—and then closed the door on both of them.

  Inside, he leaned against the door, breathing once through his nose before letting his eyes drift to the desk across the room.

  There sat his cracked Altar, the grain split like a wound, and beside it slumped a sack of salvaged gargoyle golem plates. He was sure the mechanical core wasn’t there—he’d destroyed it with his cane, unfortunately, while most of the golem's other interesting parts were reduced to scrap by the Guild automaton—but the generic metal plates themselves were still materials from an Uncommon grade golem, and they were positively brimming with mana.

  An early rest could wait.

  What he wanted right now was a new relic, and to get it, he’d finally test the other part of his title ability.

  here with 20 advanced chapters, and the link to the Discord server is , which has exclusive daily facts about the world, galleries of the maps, and announcement channels where readers may get early access to new stories!

  follow/favorite/rating! It'll help me out a ton!