By some small miracle, posting a formal request for a guild job wasn’t the hardest thing I’d ever done.

  Just embarrassing.

  Talia had walked me through the process in that dry, amused way of hers, showing me how to fill out a proper request slip. I’d scrawled down everything I could think of. Destination: western fringe; purpose: travel escort; duration: uncertain; danger level: probably. I kept it short. Vague. I figured I’d be lucky if anyone even gnced at it.

  I hadn’t even finished sealing the slip when Jax plucked it from my hands like it owed him money.

  “Oh, look,” he’d said, already halfway down the hall, “stars aligned turns out I’m free.”

  Talia didn’t even try to stop him. She just snorted under her breath and muttered something about fate being zy.

  So, that was that. Official, apparently. Jax was my guide.

  Gods help me.

  The next morning, I took over one of the big oak tables in the corner of the guild common room, spreading the map out with the reverence of someone handling a sacred relic. I smoothed the creases, weighed down the corners with mugs and books, and squinted at the jagged inked coastlines like they were written in a different nguage.

  Because as it turned out, they kind of were.

  I’d never left Araes, not really. I knew the slums and the alleys like the back of my hand, but the wider world? It might as well have been myth. The southern hemisphere was a swirl of names I couldn’t pronounce, borders drawn in fading ink, and winding routes that cut through forests, mountains, deserts. No roads, no cities, just ndmarks that sounded like warnings.

  Caorthannach’s Reach.The Bleeding Spire.Whispering Morrs.

  I traced the line from Araes to the west, where the map faded into the hazy, uncharted blot that marked the Holy Land. My finger stopped just before the ink bled out.

  And that’s when Irah dropped a mug beside my elbow.

  “You’re about to take a wrong turn straight into a canyon,” he said, voice light but not unkind.

  I blinked up at him. “What?”

  He tapped the map. “That’s not a road. That’s a riverbed. It floods.”

  “Oh.”

  I straightened, trying to look like I’d known that already. Irah, mercifully, didn’t comment.

  Instead, he pulled up a chair.

  “Jax told me what’s going on,” he said, not looking at me. “Not all of it. Just enough.”

  I opened my mouth to argue, but he raised a hand.

  “It’s fine. I don’t need details. But if you’re heading west, you’re going to want to pn more than just ‘go that direction until the sky colpses.’” He tapped a few points on the map, his finger nding on a crooked trail near the southern ridge. “This is the safest pass. And here—” he pointed again, “—there’s a smuggler’s outpost. Not official, but good for resupplying if you don’t mind odd company.”

  I leaned in, following his markings with growing awe. “How do you know all this?”

  “I used to run with Jax,” Irah said casually. “Back when the guild still kept maps by memory instead of ink.”

  That... made sense. Sort of. It also made me feel about five years younger and a hundred miles less prepared.

  “I’m not used to this,” I admitted.

  “Pnning?”

  “...Not being alone.”

  Irah didn’t smile, exactly, but something gentled in his expression. “Good. That means you’re doing it right.”

  Irah leaned back, tapping one st trail with his knuckle. “Stick to the edge of the Bleeding Spire. Avoid the ridge if the winds pick up, sandstorms get nasty there.”

  “Right,” I murmured, nodding like I’d remember all of this. I wouldn’t. I was going to draw little icons or something. Maybe a skull and crossbones over the worst parts.

  Before I could thank him properly, a familiar voice drifted in from behind me.

  “Well, well. Are we having a strategy meeting without me?”

  Jax.

  Of course.

  He strolled up to the table like he hadn’t just gotten two hours of sleep and probably pickpocketed someone on the way back. He tossed a small cloth bundle onto the edge of the map. It unfurled to reveal… bread rolls. Slightly crushed, slightly warm.

  “Breakfast,” he said, sitting backwards on a chair. “Don’t say I never bring you anything.”

  I blinked. “Where did you—?”

  “Don’t ask,” Irah said immediately.

  “See, he gets it.” Jax fshed a grin and reached for a roll.

  I gave him a long, ft look. “We’re trying to pn here.”

  “So pn.” He took a huge bite, chewing noisily. “I’m just here to color-commentate.”

  Irah stood, brushing crumbs off his sleeve with the long-suffering patience of someone who’d clearly done this before. “I’ve done my part. I’ll let you two finish up.”

  “Coward,” Jax muttered through his mouthful.

  Irah raised an eyebrow. “Guide her properly. No detours. No stunts.”

  “Me?” Jax put a hand to his chest, scandalized. “Never.”

  Irah gave me one st gnce, a mix of warning and goodwill, before he disappeared down the hall.

  I turned back to the map, trying to refocus. “We’ve got three main checkpoints if we follow Irah’s pn. Smuggler’s outpost. Then the pine forest. Then we—”

  “Detour,” Jax said.

  I narrowed my eyes. “What did Irah just say?”

  “I’m not saying ignore him,” Jax said, leaning forward. “I’m saying we modify. We cut through here—” he pointed, “—it’s steeper, yeah, but faster. And there’s a spring, which we’ll need.”

  I gnced at the spot. “It’s not even marked.”

  “It’s real,” he said with a shrug. “We used it once on a job. It’s kind of hidden.”

  “Of course it is,” I muttered.

  Jax smirked. “You don’t trust me?”

  “Statistically? No.”

  He chuckled, but then his smile faded just slightly. “I’ll get you there, Dawn. I promise.”

  I looked up.

  He meant it. No teasing. No wink. Just a steady, quiet promise wrapped in gold eyes and too much silence.

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  He sat back, chewing the st of the bread. “So… do I get a fancy title now? ‘Mercenary Extraordinaire’? ‘Hero of the Southern Fringe’?”

  I rolled the map and swatted his arm with it. “How about ‘Sand Mule’? Since you’re carrying half our gear.”

  “Rude. Accurate, but rude.”

  I grinned despite myself. Just a little.

  I was halfway through re-rolling the map when Jax leaned forward again, fingers drumming against the edge of the table with all the patience of a child denied sweets.

  “We leave tomorrow,” he said.

  I paused. “That soon?”

  He shrugged. “Supplies are ready. I’ve got my gear stashed. You’ve got… what, like three knives and a grudge?”

  “Four knives,” I corrected.

  “My apologies.”

  I shot him a dry look. “You’re sure you’re not forgetting anything important?”

  He held up a finger. “Oh right.” And then, with a smirk so wide I could feel it before I even looked up, he added: “We leave at dawn.”

  A beat.

  He waited.

  I stared.

  “…Really?”

  “What?” he said, all innocence and feigned confusion. “It’s poetic. Symbolic. Has a nice ring to it.”

  “Has a stupid ring to it.”

  He grinned, delighted with himself. “Oh come on, you have to let me have this.”

  “I should make you leave at dusk just to spite you.”

  “Wouldn’t work. Still counts. You’d just be running toward me instead of the horizon.” He winked.

  I rolled the map again, tighter this time, possibly imagining it was his face. “You are the worst.”

  “And yet,” he said, standing and scooping up the leftover bread, “here we are. Partners.”

  “Temporary partners.”

  He gave me a mock salute. “See you at dawn, Dawn.”

  “I swear to the stars, if you say that again—”

  But he was already walking backward down the hall, tossing a roll in the air and catching it without looking.

  I groaned into my hands.

  Tomorrow. Stars help me, I was actually doing this.

  ~

  I spent the rest of the day gathering what I could.

  It wasn’t much.

  A pack from the apartment, patched together from old canvas and hope. A worn cloak. My knife belt. Some dried food, a half-full waterskin, a spare pair of boots that still pinched at the heel. Not exactly heroic gear, but it would do.

  I stared at Esther’s side of the room for a long time after that.

  I didn’t pack anything of hers. It felt wrong. Like admitting she wasn’t coming back. Like stealing.

  I left her space untouched.

  I paid rent ahead of time. Enough for a month, maybe two. Just in case.

  And I left a note for Rogan. Vague. Formal. “Family matters have come up. I won’t be able to return to the Weeping Mermaid for some time.” No details. Just enough concern woven into the words that he couldn’t say no, even if he wanted to.

  I considered asking Arty to cover my shifts. She still owed me a favor but between her status and the people at the Weeping Mermaid… it wouldn’t go over well.

  Letting go of it all. the apartment, the job, the safety of what I’d built should’ve felt heavier. But it didn’t. It just felt quiet.

  Like I was closing a door that had already begun to drift shut.

  The next morning came faster than I expected.

  I was up before the sun crested over the rooftops, slipping out into the still-blue hush of early morning. Araes was soft at this hours. No shouting, no smoke, just the distant sound of gulls and the sea breathing against the docks. The city didn’t feel like a beast trying to eat you alive. Not yet.

  I found Jax waiting near the eastern gate of the guild, leaning against one of the stone pilrs like he’d been carved there overnight. A pack slung over one shoulder. Bdes at his belt. He looked entirely awake and wore that same insufferable ease like a second coat.

  He spotted me and smiled. A zy, crooked thing that tugged at the corner of his mouth like he already knew the joke and was waiting for me to catch up.

  “Well, well,” he said as I approached. “Right on time.”

  I arched a brow. “I was worried you’d oversleep. Or fall into a canal.”

  “Please.” He pushed off the pilr, the leather of his coat whispering with the movement. “I’ve been ready since the stars went out.”

  He paused, letting it hang in the air a beat longer than necessary.

  Then, smug as ever: “Told you we’d leave at dawn.”

  I groaned, dragging a hand down my face. “You’ve been waiting all morning just to say that, haven’t you?”

  “Days, actually,” he said, falling into step beside me. “You have no idea how long I’ve been holding that one in.”

  I didn’t respond. Just adjusted my pack and faced forward as the gate creaked open ahead of us, the road spilling out like a vein into the waiting wilds.

  The air beyond smelled different. Wilder. Older.

  We walked through the threshold in silence.

  And just like that, we left Araes behind.