Four days on the road, and the world was already starting to feel different.

  Araes was far behind us now. Its smoke-stained towers little more than smudges on the horizon. I hadn't realized how loud the city had been until we left it behind. Out here, the world breathed slower. Wilder. Golden grass waved in the wind like it had secrets to share, and we passed ruins half-eaten by ivy, bones of some forgotten empire where moss crept over cracked stone and hollowed-out gods.

  The roads were worse than I remembered. Every step was a reminder that the kingdom stopped caring about these parts a long time ago. But the sky was bigger than I'd ever seen. And quieter. Whole patches of stars were missing, just… gone. It made the silence Astra left behind feel even heavier. Like the heavens were grieving too.

  We passed a wandering merchant on the second day. Eyes wild, clothes patchy, and talking about voices in the rivers. He offered me a charm made from chicken bone and thread in exchange for a secret. Jax gave him a button and a lie instead. Got a broken compass in return. Useless, but he kept it anyway. Said it "pointed wherever the wind was interesting."

  The third day brought rain. Cold and needling, turning the world into gray watercolor. We found shelter in what used to be a temple, pilrs crumbling, roof half gone. I didn't pray. Haven't in a long time. But I lit a match and watched the fme flicker beneath the carved stone eyes of saints who'd stopped listening long before I was born.

  This morning, the fifth since we left, we finally saw it: Torvaen.

  It sat low between two hills, pressed against the edge of a pine forest like it was trying to disappear. Smoke curled up from its chimneys, sharp and thick with tar. From a distance, it almost looked peaceful. Almost. But I'd seen enough of the world to know better. Towns like this didn't survive on peace.

  "This pce always smells like pine tar and suspicion," Jax said as we followed the winding road down toward the crooked gate. "You'll love it."

  "Sounds charming," I muttered, shifting the weight of my pack. My shoulders ached, but I wasn't going to compin. Not to him.

  "There's a local drink that could strip paint off a wall. We could sample it, just to keep morale up."

  I gave him a look. "We're here for supplies. Not a bar crawl."

  He grinned, all easy charm and mischief. But underneath that, something quieter had settled in him these st few days. Less teasing when I was tired. More silence when the woods got too quiet. I'd caught him staring at the stars a few nights back, the smile slipping off his face like ash on wind.

  Torvaen greeted us with a creak and a groan. The gates didn't open so much as compin, like the town wasn't sure it wanted us here.

  Inside, it was smaller than I expected. Not in size, but in feel. Tight streets. Snted rooftops dripping with rainwater. Timber buildings leaned into each other like old friends whispering secrets. The people didn't exactly smile, but they didn't scowl either. Mostly they watched, measuring looks from behind cracked shutters and thick scarves.

  "Friendly pce," I muttered as we passed a hunched old man sharpening bdes outside a crooked door.

  Jax just chuckled. "For Torvaen? This is practically a parade."

  Torvaen greeted us with a creak and a groan. The gates didn't open so much as compin, like the town wasn't sure it wanted us here.

  Inside, it felt smaller than I expected. Not physically, just… older, tighter. Like it was bracing itself against the world.

  Jax took the lead as we stepped into its narrow spine of a main road. The pce smelled of pine resin and damp earth, with the occasional sting of iron drifting in from bcksmiths hidden in crooked alleyways. The buildings leaned at odd angles, wood warped by time, as if the town had grown stubborn in its old age.

  "Torvaen's been around longer than Araes," Jax said, casually, as we passed under a sagging sign carved with a two-headed deer. "Used to be a trade town, before the westward borders started colpsing. Had a dozen shrines once and there's only three left standing now."

  I blinked. "You read that in some dusty tavern wall?"

  He smirked but kept walking. "Nah. The stone markers outside the gate? Those aren't for show. They tell the founding lineage. Built by the Tuarans, old forest folk before Ara cimed the nd. They raised standing stones, practiced root binding. Real nature-bound magic. What's left of that got stamped out after the purge."

  Root binding. That wasn't the kind of thing you picked up scraping by in the gutters. I let the thought slide for now.

  We passed what might've once been a town square, though most of it had sunken slightly, crooked cobblestones swallowing rainwater and the remains of old offerings. A tall, lopsided statue sat in the center.

  Headless, arm outstretched like it was still pleading with the sky.

  "That used to be Maelrun," Jax said, nodding to it. "Patron of crossings and oaths. People used to leave tokens here before heading to the border. Swore they'd return."

  "Did they?"

  "Some did. Most didn't." He shrugged. "Borders change. So do people."

  There was a sadness in the way he said it. Soft, like he wasn't really talking about statues anymore.

  I watched as he stopped by an old wooden post carved with faded glyphs.

  "This one here?" He tapped it lightly. "Old signal marker. When the gods still had temples along the fringe, they used these to signal storms or raids. Fire at the top, ash down the shaft. Meant danger from the west."

  I squinted at the carvings. "You can read that?"

  "Not fluently," he said. "But enough to know this post is upside down."

  I ughed, because of course he'd know that.

  Then we ducked into the market strip. There were only a few stalls left open, mostly locals selling root vegetables, strange oils, or salt-brined fish. A woman sat weaving something from dried birch bark, muttering to herself in a dialect I couldn't pce.

  Jax greeted her with a phrase I didn't recognize. Her face lit up. She smiled—smiled—and handed him a thin charm strung with teeth. He took it with a quiet bow and tucked it into his coat.

  "What was that?" I asked as we walked on.

  "Old forest blessing," he said. "She said we looked like we were going to need it."

  "Do we?"

  He fshed a grin, but didn't answer.

  He kept talking as we walked. About the burnt-out tavern where a noble's son started a fight over false coin. The weeping tree near the chapel that only bloomed during eclipses. The ridge south of the town where rebels had once made a st stand, ages ago, blood soaking into the roots so deep that flowers still refused to grow there.

  He knew this town, not just in the way you know a pce from jobs or passing visits, but in the way someone studies. Learns. Remembers.

  Most thieves I'd met couldn't read more than a ledger, if that. But Jax spoke with this weird careful fluency, like someone who had been taught. Not just to survive, but to understand.

  I watched him quietly as we bought what we needed from a general store run by a man with too many eyebrows and not enough patience. Jax haggled like a local, tossed in a bit of gossip, and walked away with two oil fsks, a bolt of linen, and a wrapped bundle of smoked meat for half the price I'd expected.

  "You sure you've never lived here?" I asked, brows raised.

  "Nope," he said, all lightness. "Just good memory."

  I let it sit for a beat. Then added, "You ever think about becoming a historian?"

  "Oh absolutely," he deadpanned. "Stealing bread and dodging crossbows was just a phase. I was this close to donning a schor's mantle and debating old gods in some tower library."

  But his eyes flicked away. Just for a second.

  And in that second, I saw it again. The memory of that sealed letter in his room. The one with the parchment thicker than tavern contracts, pressed with a wax emblem shaped like a sickle.

  I hadn't read it. I swore I hadn't. But the image stuck with me. Elegant. Sharp. Not like the sloppy prints you saw on bck-market letters or forgeries. No, this one was official. Noble, maybe. Old.

  And now, walking through Torvaen, hearing him expin the rise and fall of forest cults and forgotten border wars made me wonder if Jax had been born a street rat at all.

  “Not bad for someone who grew up on the streets,” I muttered, trying to sound offhand. “You read better than half the scribes I’ve seen.”

  Jax tilted his head, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Funny. Coming from the girl who parses city ws like bedtime stories and writes cleaner than a noble’s aide.”

  My mouth opened, then closed. Damn him.

  “Esther taught me,” I said eventually, with a shrug too casual to be real. “She made sure I learned.”

  His eyes narrowed slightly, thoughtful. “Just Esther?”

  “That a problem?”

  “No,” he said, grinning faintly. “Just sounds like a lot of work for one person. Makes me wonder.”

  I scowled at him. “What, you don’t think she could?”

  “Oh, I think she could,” he said. “I just think you’re leaving out a chapter.”

  I crossed my arms. “And you’re one to talk.”

  He just shrugged. “Fair.”

  But the way he said it, easy and slippery, like someone well-practiced in dodging answers, left me wondering who exactly had taught him.

  Not that he’d ever tell me straight.

  We found an inn near the edge of the old town square.

  The Hollow Hearth.

  Painted in soot and moss, its door crooked and held open by a stone. Inside, the air was thick with smoke, sweat, and something earthy, like wet bark.

  The fire had long since burned down to a sullen glow, but the room was warm enough. A half-dozen travelers sat hunched at mismatched tables, speaking low and slow like they didn't want to disturb the ghosts in the walls. The innkeep didn't ask questions, they just slid a key across the counter and pointed us to a back table.

  Dinner was a thick stew that tasted better than it looked, something rooty and spiced, with ribbons of dark meat I didn't ask about. Jax polished his off with the enthusiasm of someone who hadn't eaten a full meal in a week.

  "You know," he said, mouth half-full, "this might be the best meal I've had since the festival back in Araes. The one with the exploding fruit."

  "You set that fruit on fire," I reminded him.

  "Still counts."

  We finished in silence after that. A good silence, for once. Warm. Uncomplicated.

  I should've known it wouldn't st.

  After dropping our packs upstairs, we stepped back out into the evening. The sun had dipped behind the trees, and the cold was starting to bite again, sharper now. I tugged my cloak tighter and followed Jax through the winding alleys like a second shadow.

  We picked up extra supplies from a narrow stall wedged between two leaning buildings. Spools of twine, a bone-handled knife, a folded rain tarp that smelled like smoked leather. The vendor eyed us like we might steal something, even as we overpaid.

  We kept walking, not toward anywhere in particur, just moving, getting a feel for the pce. Jax made a game of pointing out old houses and making up stories about who lived there: a potion-maker who poisoned her suitors, a recluse who collected war medals from battles that never happened, a butcher who couldn't stand the sight of blood.

  I ughed. Not loudly. But enough.

  Just as we turned the bend near the old shrine steps,I saw her.

  Golden hair catching the st amber light of dusk. Small, quick steps. A bundle clutched to her chest like it mattered more than anything else in the world.

  Arty.

  Her clothes were dusted in road and wear, but she moved with purpose. Not lost. Not afraid. And she wasn't alone.

  Behind her walked a tall man with a shock of white-blond hair, wearing a dark travel coat lined in fur. His hand rested lightly on Arty's shoulder, guiding, not restraining. And beside him, another figure followed. A man, maybe a little older than Arty.

  I didn't recognize the two men. But the taller one, I'd seen him once before.

  The air around them felt too still. Like the town itself was holding its breath.

  "Jax," I said, voice low.

  He turned, saw them too. His expression didn't change, but his body stilled. Like a wolf scenting fire.

  "Is that Arty?" he asked.

  Before I could move, before I could shout, They turned down another alley.Gone.