The road widened before we reached it.Stone crept in beneath our boots in careful stretches, worn smooth by years of traffic. The trees thinned, disciplined rather than wild, and the air changed—less damp, more traveled. Ahead, voices drifted faintly on the breeze. Laughter. The groan of a cart axle under weight.
Then the inn rose into view.
It stood apart from the road like it had chosen the spot deliberately—thick stone walls, squared towers, torchlight burning steady along the parapets. Solid. Obvious. The sort of place meant to be seen from a distance.
A banner hung above the gate, stirring lazily in the evening air—an armored arm extended in greeting, gauntlet open, promise and warning held in the same gesture.
And yet—
I could see it clearly enough—the nearest tower, the gatehouse, the line of wall stretching away to either side—but not all of it at once. My attention kept fixing on pieces: the open gate, the guards at the threshold, the road behind us. Every time I tried to take it in as a whole, the shape slipped, as if the rest refused to settle into place.
I slowed without meaning to.
Imoen didn't. She stopped only long enough to look up, eyes moving easily from wall to banner to tower, taking it in with quiet appreciation before glancing back at me.
"Almost there," she said.
Montaron was already watching the gate. Not the walls. Not the inn itself. The people. His gaze tracked the guards' movements, the angle of their spears, the way their attention sharpened as we approached.
Xzar craned his neck, openly delighted."Oh," he murmured. "I do like places that pretend to be polite."
The guards saw us well before we reached the drawbridge.
It was wood, not stone—broad planks reinforced with iron bands, laid flat and unbroken. No moat yawned beneath it, no water or void demanding a toll. Just open ground and the understanding that anyone passing this way was meant to be seen.
The guards' expressions were neutral, practiced. Not hostile. Not welcoming. Their eyes moved with purpose—counting, weighing, cataloging. When they reached me, they lingered a fraction longer than comfort allowed.
I felt nothing press in on me.
No tightening.
No pause.
Just the expectation of it.
Montaron inclined his head slightly as we approached—not deference, not challenge. A gesture meant to acknowledge the exchange without slowing it down. The guards returned it after a moment, attention already shifting past us to whoever came next.
We crossed without stopping.
I glanced back once—at the road we'd walked, the trees closing in behind it, the way the dark reclaimed ground as soon as it was left alone.
The bridge stayed where it was.
No barrier raised.
No signal given.
Just the sense that if we turned around, someone would remember.
Inside the walls, warmth and motion took over—lantern light, overlapping voices, the promise of food and noise and people who expected tomorrow to arrive.Safe, every sign insisted.
I adjusted the strap at my belt without thinking, fingers brushing the pouch.But Montaron didn't move far from me as we stepped fully inside.
The noise hit first.
Not loud exactly—layered. Voices overlapping, chairs scraping, a laugh that lingered a beat too long. The smell followed: food heavy with spice, damp wool, old wood soaked through with years of smoke and spilled ale.
I stepped inside and felt my attention fracture.
Not scatter—fracture. Like the room refused to arrive all at once. I registered the bar to the left, the stairs rising beyond it, a knot of travelers near the hearth. Each detail was sharp, insistent. Together, they never quite formed a whole.
Imoen moved easily ahead of me, already weaving through the space without looking back. She belonged here in a way that didn't announce itself.
Montaron paused just inside the door, long enough to take stock. His eyes marked exits, corners, the spaces between tables. Then he nodded once, decision made, and continued forward.
Xzar stopped dead.
"Oh," he breathed, delighted. "This place has stories."
Someone brushed past me. I flinched before I could stop myself, pulse spiking for no reason I could name. Nothing followed. No tightening. No pause.
Just embarrassment.
Near the bar, a voice rose above the din—"…wife's been gettin' prickly on me arse," someone complained, followed by a burst of laughter that seemed wildly out of proportion to the words. The sound washed past me without invitation.
I forced myself to keep moving.
Behind the bar, a woman paused mid-pour and looked up as we approached, setting the mug aside with practiced efficiency. She wiped her hands on a cloth and reached beneath the counter for a ledger, already moving through the motions of someone used to handling rooms rather than decisions.
"Rooms?" she asked, tone neutral, eyes flicking briefly toward the stairwell before returning to us.
The word caught me off guard.
Not because it was unexpected, but because it required an answer. A simple one. I hesitated, searching for the response that felt right instead of merely adequate.
Montaron answered before I could.
"Two rooms," he said. "For the night."
The woman behind the bar slid a mug across the counter to a waiting patron, then looked up.
"How many beds?"
"One in each," Montaron replied. Then, without pause, "We draw for ours."
Xzar brightened instantly."Ah. Chance enters the equation."
"Cards," Montaron added. "And ale."
"Loser gets the floor," Xzar said cheerfully, already pleased with the odds. "I do enjoy tradition."
"Ye snore," Montaron said flatly. "This keeps it fair."
"How generous," Xzar sighed. "A contest of endurance and regret."
Montaron turned slightly, attention shifting. "Other room's for them."
His gaze flicked between Imoen and me, already finished with the decision.
Imoen didn't even blink. "That's fine," she said easily.
I opened my mouth. Closed it.
She glanced at me, brow creasing just a touch. "What?"
"No—nothing," I said too quickly. "Just… wasn't—"
I stopped. The words wouldn't arrange themselves properly.
She'd said it like it was nothing because, to her, it was. We hadn't grown up wanting—Gorion had seen to that—but we had traveled together long enough to learn that space was often shared, plans adjusted, privacy treated as a convenience rather than a given.
Comfort born of familiarity. Of trust.
Montaron had already turned back to the innkeeper. "One bed in the other room," he said. "For them."
There was no emphasis. No calculation. Just allocation.
The innkeeper nodded, scribbling without comment. Whatever she thought of the arrangement, it didn't merit curiosity.
Imoen smiled at me then, familiar and unbothered. "We've shared rooms before," she said, as if explaining something obvious.
I nodded, because that seemed like the correct response.
It still felt like I'd missed a step.It didn't feel correct.
The exchange moved on without me.
The inn quieted as the night settled in.
Footsteps faded down the hall. A door closed somewhere nearby. The noise from below dulled into a low, constant murmur—voices, laughter, the clink of cups—contained now by stone and distance.
Our room was smaller than it had sounded downstairs.
One bed. Narrow. A washstand by the wall. A single shuttered window that looked out onto stone instead of sky. The air still held the day's warmth, trapped by wood and close quarters.
I stopped just inside the door.
"I can take the floor," I said, too quickly. "It's fine."
Imoen set her pack down and looked at me, genuinely puzzled. "Why would you do that?"
"Well—" I gestured vaguely. "Because… the bed."
She frowned. Then laughed, soft and brief. "We've shared space before."
"Yes," I said. "But that was—"
"Candlekeep," she supplied easily, already loosening the straps on her pack. "Guest rooms. Long nights studying. Gorion hovering just close enough to make sure we didn't get into trouble."
It felt different.
I hesitated, then nodded. "Right. Of course."
She studied me for a moment, head tilted. "You're acting like I suggested something scandalous."
"I'm not," I said. "I just—"
She smiled then, quick and knowing. "Turn around."
I blinked. "What?"
"I'm getting comfortable," she said, already reaching for the hem of her tunic. "Unless you've suddenly developed a habit of staring."
I turned so fast I nearly overcorrected, facing the wall like it had personally offended me.
Behind me, fabric rustled.
"You know," she said casually, "you're a lot more tense than I remember."
"I'm not tense."
"You are," she replied. "You just hide it differently."
I focused very hard on a knot in the wood paneling. "I didn't realize I was hiding it."
"Well," she said lightly, "you always were better at pretending things didn't bother you."
The bed creaked as she sat, then shifted again as she stretched out.
"You can turn around now."
I did.
She lay on her side, propped on one elbow, watching me with an expression that was half-curious, half-amused. Her hair was loose now, chestnut strands falling around her shoulders, framing a face that looked exactly as I remembered—and somehow not at all the same.
"There," she said. "Problem solved."
I swallowed. "Right."
I reached for the buckles at my shoulders, shrugging out of my leather armor and setting it carefully by the wall. The relief was immediate. I hadn't realized how much tension it carried with it until it was gone.
I sat on the edge of the bed, careful not to take too much space. The mattress dipped slightly beneath my weight.
Neither of us moved for a moment.
"This isn't strange," she said.
"I know."
"It doesn't mean anything," she added, just as easily.
"I know that too."
She smiled, satisfied, and rolled onto her back. "Good."
I lay down beside her, staring up at the ceiling.
From somewhere below, Xzar's voice carried up the stairwell—loud, triumphant, and entirely unbothered.
"Monty! You cheat like a professional and drink like an amateur!"
There was a pause. Then Montaron's voice, sharp and unimpressed.
"Sleep, Xzar."
I couldn't help it. A small breath of laughter escaped me.
The space between us was familiar.
That, somehow, made it worse.