Rain had blessed Lower Rosewood with mud, and nothing more.
Dirty lanterns lined the makeshift gate, shadows wobbling across warped planks. He hesitated just outside, tasting smoke, spilled wine, the swollen musk of desperation. Each breath drew in memory—nights his feet had ached on roads much like this: the lawless edge where sects turned their faces away and the broken survived one coin at a time.
Beside him, the girl flicked her hair back, sticky with sweat and rain. Under the lantern-light, she didn't look quite so threatening. Just tired. Her jaw clenched with unspoken questions, and he recognized, sharply, an old wound: she didn't trust towns any more than he did.
"Stay close," she murmured, knuckles pale around her blade's hilt, but the warning wasn't for bandits—it was for the town itself.
He nodded. Hunger rode his bones, dull and hollow, but the relic sparked beneath his collar, restless. Cloistered hands tugged at dreams: warmth, a meal, anonymity.
The boards creaked beneath their boots. Inside Rosewood, there was no welcome—just eyes, narrow and quick, peering through grime-streaked shutters. He met every gaze steady, thinking: Outcast recognizes outcast.
They passed stalls empty but for rotting root-veggies, heads-down elders knuckling dice in smoky corners. A dog slunk behind, so thin he could count its ribs.
He moved like he belonged, because no one here truly did.
A man barked—more cough than voice: "No handouts. You two keep trouble to yourselves."
His companion laughed low, all venom and bravado. "We're here for a roof and water, not a fight."
The inn appeared, such as it was—three stories if you ignored the missing beams, a sign with a sunken boat swinging in languid complaints. The last time he'd slept with walls around him, he'd woken to a torch and an accusation. It still felt like a lie to walk inside.
Warm air hit his face, thick with boiled cabbage. Tables hunched with drunks, a hush falling as they stepped through. No one wanted trouble, so everyone stared.
The innkeeper showed three teeth in a wary smile. "We've coins. We'll pay." The girl's voice was flint, her hand already at her purse.
They sat in a corner that didn't feel safe, only less exposed. Someone—maybe mercy, maybe habit—brought them a bowl of gray porridge each. He ate slow, letting the warmth fill his chest, fighting not to flinch when laughter or boots crashed close behind.
"You don't have to watch for knives all the time," she said, softer now.
He took a moment with the lie. "Can't unlearn it."
She prodded her food. Rain slicked down her temple, blended with tears or sweat, he couldn't guess. He looked away, then back. "Why the mountain, really?"
She shrugged. "Same reason you did, probably. World chews some of us up early. Some of us just spit back."
He smiled, hardly more than a twitch. Her words were a blade—sharp, honest, digging for truth. He tried returning the favor. "Name?"
She hesitated, tongue caught behind her teeth. "People call me Jun. It'll do."
He offered nothing in return. Names were weapons, traded sparingly.
A shadow passed outside the window. Instantly they both tensed, hands ghosting old scars—fight, run, hide. He asked the relic silently for its watchful pain, anything to keep monsters at bay.
In that moment, the inn's hush snapped in half. Three men bundled in trader's sashes and crimson belts—color of low-sect runners—shoved through the door. Their armor was mottled, swords dulled by more threats than action, but their eyes were sharp and hungry. The biggest one, face thick with old scars, swept the room.
"Room for a game?" His tone left no question. He saw Jun, then him—eyes lingering on the outland robe, on mud that never quite washed away. A slow, shark's smile.
The inn's mood shifted: tension tightening the air, the flavor of violence brewing in throat and stomach.
Jun leaned close. "Don't start anything."
He stared into his bowl, letting the relic thrum—warning and promise. The leader swaggered to their table, fists heavy on the wood. "Never seen your kind before," he jeered. "Which gutter spat you out?"
He didn't answer. Not worth the fight. Silence was its own shield. But Jun's eyes narrowed.
The second man, crow-quick, spat on the floor. "Boys who hide their faces; girls with knives. Maybe we ought to check for sect marks?"
A hand reached for his collar. Instinct burned. Jun moved first—knife drawn, pressed cool against the leader's gut. Not threatening boldness, only the steady promise that pain cost nothing tonight.
"Try it," she said, voice as cold as midnight water.
Tension grew. The inn's silence fractured into furtive coughs, chair legs screeching back—no one wanted blood, but no one would stop it, either.
He wanted to run. To vanish. The relic heated, eager for its price, but he held still, fighting that old urge—to beg, to yield, to vanish among moss and stone. He met the leader's stare with emptiness, not challenge. Curses sometimes worked that way.
Something in his eyes—something they recognized. The leader blinked first. "Keeping your rags, then. For now."
With a hiss as slow as poison, they moved on, laughter forced, danger shifting to the next table.
Relief didn't sweeten the porridge. But the moment passed, and no knives found flesh. Surviving was its own victory.
After, Jun watched him, head tilted. "That relic," she said, "what's it really do?"
He thought of all the fake answers he'd rehearsed, all the secrets he'd guarded even against sleep. For once he let the truth breathe: "Makes miracles. Punishes equally."
She nodded, as if that explained the empty bowls, the hunger that never left, the cold that could drag sharpness from the bones.
"I think it wants you to pay," she said. "Every time."
He smiled—not happy, not sad. "I know."
A moment—silent, rich with all they'd left unsaid.
"Get some rest. I'll keep watch first," Jun said, adjusting her seat, knife glinting on her thigh. He wanted to protest—he always watched for knives—but suddenly the struggle caught up, and his head sagged onto a borrowed blanket.
The world blurred: muffled voices, the scrape of boots, Jun's shadow steady as a wall beside him. He drifted toward sleep, relic glowing at his chest—reminder, threat, lifeline.
A dream rose—strange, too vivid. He stood knee-deep in ash, the mountain a skeleton behind him, hands tingling as the relic sang in a voice not quite human. "To belong," it whispered, "is the cost you cannot pay. You walk storm roads so others don't have to."
He woke shivering in the blue gray before dawn. Jun still sat, sharp-eyed and squid-limbed, a sentry against nightmares, real and imagined. He took her place, nodded thanks, eyes red as the lantern light.
The storm had passed. Rosewood's filthy streets waited. In a few hours, either sect spies or scavengers would root through the town for easy scraps—his kind of trouble. But right now, he belonged to the hush: a relic pressed to his heart, a stranger-turned-ally at his side, and the uneasy, stubborn hope that just maybe, this night wouldn't end like all the others—with blood, with flight, with only ruined names to carry forward.
The mountain waited. The gods, silent. And for the first time in a long while, he thought: Maybe tomorrow, he'd start living, not just surviving.