The walls of Kakinse were a long line of straight tree trunks with their top ends sharpened, behind which wooden ptforms had been built, at least close to the gates where there was need for guards. Kaye spared a few gnces to the two roads that joined where they were stationed, awaiting inspection to enter the city through its north gate. The first road was the one they took around the city’s farming fields, which she wagered was used to bring in supplies and where workers trodded through every day. The second road joined the first coming down straight from the north and Kaye could follow it with her eyes until it disappeared behind a hill. She knew that that road could be traveled for weeks, leading to a dozen different cities and twice as many vilges, all the way to Odanas.

  Kaye and her father had to leave the cart while a trio of guards inspected it, but it was quick and uneventful. Nothing suspicious was found, not that Kaye had any idea what they could have been looking for in the first pce.

  With the oxen’s leisured pull, the cart rolled into the city. Nagra after Nagra, some with their own carts and others by foot, some walking towards a main street while others took different paths to whatever pce they wanted to reach, to meet whoever they knew. Kakinse had a downwards slope to it, from north to south, where the harbor was located though Kaye couldn’t see it from where they were. It was a city of unpaved, bare earthen streets she imagined hadn’t been cleaned out in any way, but had all the grass stomped to death by generations of citizens going about their lives. Almost every building she id her eyes on was of pin wood and few had any sort of fence or outer wall.

  Her father guided the oxen through the streets, clearly used to the route, and in the back Kaye watched the people of the city seeming to pay them no mind before something caught their attention and they watched for a moment. She knew it had to be her hair, since the Nagra’s arrival was only as special as any event that happened annually and sted through the whole winter.

  A while ter, Kaye caught sight of a local market through gaps in the buildings, bustling with chatter, but they went around it, down through a path that was cut in half by another one that led to a well where a crowd of women carrying buckets waited in line, to arrive in a rather rge street of the tallest buildings yet; simple, two or three-story structures, all of them shops of some kind with the upper floor serving as housing.

  They stopped by a building with the front door halfway open.

  “Here we are,” Gairin said from the coachman’s seat. “Kaye, can you give me a hand?”

  She leapt out and walked around the cart to help support her father’s weight as he slid down.

  “Are you well?” Kaye asked.

  “As well as can be, my legs are just shaky.”

  “From going up and down the hill?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  She nodded, waiting for him to let go of her arm, which was taking long.

  “Maybe you should stay here. I can go inside and talk. And someone has to watch the cart.”

  Gairin shook his head. “Oh, no, I’m fine, see? I’m not here to buy anything and there’s no need to worry. It’s the middle of the day.”

  As if the matter was settled, he walked towards the door. Kaye followed a moment ter. She knew her father was old and he’d had that limp for years, but they had rested before joining the road and he was sitting the whole way. It didn’t feel like the right moment to press the issue now that they were already there, but Gairin was clearly pushing himself.

  They walked into a modest room. Half the space was empty and the other had a table and plenty of shelves, their contents hidden behind fps, where a middle-aged man was looking for something. At the sound of a floorboard creaking, he turned.

  “You’re still alive?” was the first thing he said, his brows furrowed.

  Gairin straightened. “I’m not losing that bet.”

  With a big, teeth-showing smile the man approached and they hugged. He was mostly bald save for a few strands of brown hair, a smidge taller than them but broader in every way, from the belly to the shoulders to his rge arms.

  As they pulled away from each other, he asked, “So this is her? Your famed daughter?” he raised a hand to his chest. “From me into you, or however you folk say it.”

  “The one and only, Kaye Nanur. Kaye, this is my good friend Rair.”

  “And from me into you,” she answered though the man had skipped most of the words. “Famed?”

  Rair smiled. “Most people don’t even believe you exist, girl. Before the day is over you will have children asking how you painted it green. I always believed, before you ask. Your father gives me plenty of reasons to want him dead but lying isn’t one of them.”

  “And which are?”

  “There was this woman—”

  “Stop, I’m not having you poisoning her young mind with that one.”

  “How would you even know which one I was about to tell? How many stories about women do we—”

  Gairin spped Rair’s belly. “Can that thing still handle ale?”

  Kaye let out a short ugh.

  “The sun’s barely out, old man. We’ll leave that for tomorrow. In case you’re old enough to be forgetting things, know that you have never beaten me before.”

  “Last time was ages ago! I have been practicing.”

  “Yes, ages ago, so why the change?”

  “Why? What do you think?” Gairin gestured towards Kaye.

  She had never seen her father this way before. The way they were speaking sounded as if they were repeating a conversation they had a long time ago and Kaye guessed they were forcing themselves to hide how much fun it was. There was history between these two, so much she felt she was intruding again. She didn’t remember her father ever talking about Rair, not in any direct way.

  Within her thoughts, she lost some of the words they exchanged.

  “...Been going down recently. Less ships were coming in every year. The city isn’t about to die or anything, but there’s only so much of the same stuff you can sell. Quite a few ships arrived recently but I think that’s just a coincidence.”

  “What about you?”

  “Me? I’m fine. Business is slow but there is business. People will always need candles, or everything else that I do. Gets me by, and that’s enough.”

  “Did you sell everything from st year?”

  “Sold some, traded some. Nothing’s lying around anymore but it took a while. Sorry, friend, but I’ll have to take less this time around.”

  “Of course, I understand. We can help, if there’s anything you need.”

  Rair smiled. “Me? Help? From you? Nah. What do you got?”

  “Kaye, can you help us unload?”

  She did so without compint, carrying baskets and packs inside, rushing to do it fast so her father didn’t get the chance to pull much weight. Rair talked through the whole thing.

  “… Nanur arrows, though, these sell like fine ale. I’ve never held a bow in my life but the hunters swear by them. Even the ones that make their own get some of these from me as a good-luck charm, kiss them and give them names. I’m afraid I can’t take the bows, but the mittens? I’m going to make myself a bed of the stuff. As for the pelts, we can decide on a price ter, see if there’s anything you need that we can trade for. I imagine you’re going to spend a lot on that daughter of yours, yes? ...”

  The man never seemed to stop.

  “And so t’was that the gnarly thing reached for our boat. You’d think they thrashed around but no, no. Its tentacles approached us with calm, slithering as if the thing was just curious or had no reason to fear. Never before had it been hurt by surface-dwellers and though the High God of the Seas—blesser and curser that he is—hides far, far worse creatures in his dark waters, this thing must have been used to ruling some of those waters. Fish weren’t even worthy of being looked at by it. No, from its size, the only thing it must have eaten were sharks. Maybe whales, though perhaps rger than it, that wretched thing’s tentacles could wrap around one and eat the creature still alive as it swam. And the stench. Sealord! The stench. I have spent more years at sea than any of you have lived. I have given up on taking baths long ago since nothing could ever wash away the smell of salt and entrails. Yet. Yet! The tentacled beast smelled outright foul. Strips of meat must have been rotting in its teeth from the meals it made on the seafloor for ages, for I gagged and would have vomited if it sted a moment longer. Then! A shadow against the sun. Someone standing close to the bulwark in the vessel above us. A cloaked figure raising its hand. It was the Acolyte himself, shouting for someone, anyone, to throw the harpoon, as if it could make a dent in the creature below us. To this day I don’t know who threw it, but someone did, and the harpoon flew like an arrow to stab against what little of the creature we could see. It barely flinched, merely trembling its tentacles, which was enough to spsh water on our boat and threaten to capsize it. The lightning came then, shot down from a clear sky where there was no storm or dark clouds to speak of, a thunderous roar that fshed in front of my eyes and blinded me the moment it hit. After that I only heard and felt things. The waters became turbulent, I imagine from the monster’s st burst of movement as life was squeezed out from it. Something smelled sweet and charred. There were shouts of appuse. Our small boat was pulled up by the crew and I was told that the core of the thing’s body floated though its tentacles reached down, giving a hint of but never truly showing its massive bulk. The harpoon could clearly be seen, they told me, standing upright in what seemed like an islet of flesh, until it was reduced to a mere bright spot, reflecting the sun’s light, then disappeared entirely as we sailed away.”

  A round of appuse went around the table, fists and mugs hammering against the wood.

  Kaye listened to the fat man intently, not hearing a word of what Gairin or Rair said though they were sitting by her side. She spent the rest of the day following the two as they caught up in conversation and banter, through the market where she refused most offers her father made — she’d rather have the money and the tradeable items themselves, they’d serve her good after she fled, though she was still to come up with a way to keep them —, walked around the city following Rair in a couple of deliveries, which brought them to a tavern when night fell.

  Kaye turned to realize she’d forgotten half her meal, resumed eating it. The bread was fine, but the soup had cooled into lukewarm.

  It seemed the stories had ended, for the men around the long table were now talking about how boring their nd-dweller jobs were. She knew they were mostly if not entirely false, but there were names and events there that must have happened, otherwise someone would have called him out for it. A lord or ruler from Mor called Midget; a bridge that colpsed during a battle under the weight of both side’s soldiers; a conflict at Sarak’s borders in Saldassa that was so bloody Mor had to sign a peace treaty despite fielding an invading force three times rger than Sarak’s army, such was the might of the Headhunter cns. Whether the same man had really witnessed all of it, at least the pces surely existed and some names were recognizable to her.

  Rair stood up, carried their mugs towards the balcony. Gairin was looking at her.

  “Daughter, is it fine if we go now?”

  Had they been waiting for the stories to finish? She wasn’t trying to hide her interest after all. “Of course.”

  They left the tavern, and the walk back to Rair’s house was a slow one, with Gairin frequently asking for rests, then dragging his feet when he did walk. Kakinse was mostly dark by then, but they stuck to the main streets where there was the occasional torch, a few citizens with mps and some light shining out through windows.

  Rair lived alone upstairs, though the size of the house told Kaye it wasn’t always like that. He made some space in the living room for Gairin with extra bedding, then showed Kaye her room before leaving them with a lit candle.

  It seemed like a good moment to say it, so she walked back to the living room. Gairin was sitting with his back to the wall, massaging a spot in his right leg. After staring for long enough, he took notice and gnced up at her.

  “Yes?”

  “Father, you know that’s only going to get worse, don’t you?”

  “This? I’m just old—”

  “No, you’re not just old. You have been pushing yourself the whole day and pretending it doesn’t hurt. What is mother going to do if you hurt your other leg and can’t walk?”

  “It happens all the time, dear. I’m aware I’ll only get weaker, but Taya works hard and I have you and your uncle to help me.”

  How do I convince you without saying you won’t have me for long?

  “That’s still no reason to hurt yourself. When I left with that hunting party, I knew the others would make up for my mistakes, but I didn’t put myself in any more danger than was necessary because of that.”

  He seemed confused. “I’m in no danger, Kaye. Rair won’t leave my side for days and sometimes I wish he did.”

  “But it hurts, doesn’t it? Sometimes you want to do something and you get frustrated that you can’t do it the way you used to. I know that. We all know that, even if you don’t talk about it. All of us will feel better if taking a little longer means you’re feeling better.”

  Gairin raised a hand to his messy hair, staring down. “Daughter, do you remember how many times you asked me about Kakinse?”

  “More than I can count.”

  “All these years I have been waiting for the day I could bring you here. More than once, I thought maybe I would die before that day, but here we are. If I had rested today and we left Korok’Kan tomorrow, would the man telling the stories be there? I don’t mind a little hurt if it’s for you.”

  Kaye shifted her weight. She hadn’t been expecting that.

  Though it was hypocritical of her, though she had thought about fleeing without ever reaching Kakinse, she had to say it.

  “Just one day ter isn’t going to make a difference, and you can’t say he won’t be there tomorrow. You don’t know that.”

  “I’m sorry for dragging you along today, it must have been boring for you.”

  “That’s not what I… It’s just…”

  It shook her, realizing that for all she thought about herself as a grown-up, things that should have been obvious still escaped her notice.

  Lost in wondering about the future, she hadn’t been paying enough attention, had she? For a moment, it was like she was actually fifteen again.

  “Sorry, father, that’s not what I meant. I’m not asking you to stop doing things for my sake, and coming to Kakinse was the only thing in my mind for a long time, but could you please take a little more care? Knowing how much you have done for me, I’d rather slow down than have you try to keep up.”

  Gairin showed a thin smile and she could tell he was hurt in a different way now. “I can do that.”

  They went to sleep after that, though by the time her father started snoring Kaye’s eyes were still open, staring at the dark ceiling.

  She id there for a long time, thinking about how much of a liar she was.