Chapter 2
Part 2
He didn't look back at the inn.
He could feel her watching. Not with eyes, but from inside. Like a second pulse under his ribs.
I don't need commentary, he muttered internally.
Velrona didn't answer.
Not aloud.
But he felt her shift—like gravity changing direction in the bones of his feet.
She was listening.
The outpost sat like a scab at the base of the Blackspine Hills—no walls, just three crooked streets and a shrine no one really prayed in anymore. The mud streets were beginning to harden again after last week's rains. A few ox-carts had already rutted them into jagged seams.
Erlin walked without purpose, which was his purpose. If he looked too alert, people would ask. If he avoided the market or well, people would gossip.
He had to be himself.
Which meant stopping at the feed station.
Which meant dealing with Jacek.
Jacek was a bastard even on his best day—tall, hairy, perpetually damp-looking, with a permanent sneer etched into his mouth like someone had cut it there and forgot to finish the job.
As Erlin approached, Jacek looked up from his ledger.
"Oh," he said. "It lives."
"Yeah," Erlin said, adjusting his tone just enough to sound annoyed. "And it breathes, too."
"Wouldn't have guessed. After last night, figured you were halfway eaten by tunnel-crawlers."
"I eat them," Erlin said.
Jacek squinted. "That supposed to be witty?"
Erlin shrugged and reached for a satchel hanging from the corner post.
"Touch that and I invoice your sister," Jacek warned.
"She's two towns over."
"I got long arms."
"You've got short legs and a long face."
The two stared at each other. This was familiar. A ritual. Part of the mask of Erlin that Velrona needed him to wear.
But now, under his skin, Erlin felt the ghost of a smile that wasn't his.
Velrona was enjoying this.
Is this how you lived? she asked inside him. Trading insults for status? Barking to stay in the pack?
Sometimes, he thought back. It works.
Sad.
He bit his tongue—his own tongue—for once.
Erlin moved on, drifting toward the central square. He waved to Kira at the well. Nodded at Bano, the courier with half a nose. Greeted a pair of merchants who hadn't liked him last week but smiled at him today—maybe sensing something was different.
Because something was.
Everything was the same.
He was the one who'd changed.
It felt like pretending to be someone else, even as he tried to pretend to be himself.
He ducked into the baker's stall and dropped two brass teeth on the counter. "One with sea-salt, one with root-bark."
The baker, a squat man with knuckled fingers, handed over two rough loaves and sniffed. "You smell like grave-dust."
Erlin smiled. "Been doing renovations."
The baker snorted.
Erlin left.
He walked to the edge of the market, sat on a sun-warmed stone, and began to eat.
Bread tasted different.
More vivid.
Less… real.
That's not the bread, Velrona said. That's your nerves. You're more awake than usual.
You're using my body as a tomb. Maybe I'm just traumatized.
You were half-asleep before I ever got here. Wandering. Looting. Begging for purpose without asking what it costs.
And you were better?
Silence.
Then: I didn't ask. I built mine.
That gave him pause.
He chewed the crust of the root-bark loaf and stared across the fields, watching smoke rise in the east.
"Most people here are waiting," he said aloud. "For harvest. For rain. For silence."
Not silence, she corrected. Oblivion.
He blinked. "What's the difference?"
Silence is rest. Oblivion is reward.
"Not everyone wants to be remembered."
Then why did you carve your name in the tavern's table?
He stiffened.
He had done that. Three months ago. Alone. After two drinks and an argument with Kira. He didn't even remember which blade he used.
"How do you know that?"
Velrona didn't answer.
He looked down at his hands.
They were his.
But they weren't.
Not anymore.
The hour passed too fast.
He felt it like a clock striking inside his spine—an ache, a breath drawn inward that never released.
And then she was there again, fully. Not just whispering.
Moving.
She flexed his fingers. Tilted his head. Tasted the last bit of salt on his lips and said nothing.
Thank you, she offered.
He wasn't sure if she meant it.
But she gave him one last thought before taking over completely:
Wear me well. I'm watching too.