The common room of the Inn was louder than a battlefield.
It smelled of roasted onions, hard cider, and unwashed wool. The fiddle player was standing on a sturdy oak table, stamping his foot in time with a frantic, joyous reel. The villagers of Mourn-Hold were not celebrating a harvest; they were celebrating survival. They drank with the desperate thirst of people who had spent weeks listening to things scratching at their doors.
Vane sat in a corner booth. His back was against the rough timber wall. He held a mug of cider in his hand, watching the room over the rim.
He was used to silence. He was used to the calculated quiet of the Academy or the tense stillness of a hunt. This noise was chaotic. It was messy. It made his danger sense itch.
But he stayed.
