I slid the bottom bolt home. The sound of metal meeting its groove was the only honest thing I’d heard all day. In Caesarca, a bolt isn’t just iron; it’s the border between the world where you are the hunter and the place where you can finally afford to breathe.

  I set a glass on the edge of the table. The water inside shivered—the old house seemed to be settling in for the night along with me. In my cloak pocket, the tube with the forged maps felt heavy. A lie for which men had died today.

  Then, she appeared in the doorway. Anakiss.

  Shoulder against the frame, the wet tips of her black hair clinging to her cheek. She smelled of cold rain, bitter mint, and that specific smoke found only in The Crooked Dagger. She entered soundlessly, a shadow tired of hiding from its own master.

  "You vanished again," she said calmly. "Where to this time, Faurgar?"

  "I came back," I replied, watching her through the twilight. The light of a single candle caught only her ember-like eyes.

  "That’s not the same thing."

  I nodded. I didn't want to argue; I had no colors left for that on my palette. I removed my gloves and laid them on the table. The dirt from the conduits was still etched under my fingernails.

  "Are you hungry?" she asked after a long pause.

  "I ate by the river," I tried to smirk, but lips accustomed to masks didn't obey well.

  "That’s not what I meant, Faurgar."

  She always hit like that—right under the ribs, at the spot where normal people keep a conscience and I keep a void filled with orders. I stepped closer. I stopped a palm’s breadth away, feeling the living, frightening warmth radiating from her body.

  "May I?"

  "Ask one more time—and I’ll leave," she whispered, but didn't retreat an inch.

  I touched her temple, carefully brushing away a damp strand. My finger traced the thin scar near her cheekline—our shared "autograph" from the past. She didn't flinch. To an artist, a scar is a line that tells a story better than any portrait.

  If Sapkowski were describing this, he would mention the scent of sweat and old leather. If Max Frei, he would add the coziness of an old blanket. To me, it was a composition of bodies, shadows, and heavy breathing. We moved without haste, like people who know each other's maps to the last inch but fear hitting a new collapse every time.

  "Why did you come?" I asked when there was still air between our words.

  "So I wouldn't have to sleep alone," she answered honestly. "And so you wouldn't sleep like a stone tonight. You’ve started turning into a statue too often, Faurgar."

  She pulled me toward the bed. The old floorboards groaned; the house sighed with us. Our kisses were neither reconciliation nor promise. They were a simple, raw acknowledgement: we are both alive, we are both still here, and this night is the only thing that cannot be taken from us.

  "You'll still leave tomorrow," she said later, when our hearts had settled.

  "Yes. To the North."

  "And I’ll still return here," she added. "Not to you. To this city. Caesarca… it’s like us. A bad, cold home that somehow became ours."

  By dawn, Anakiss rose. She donned her cloak without looking at the dusty mirror. Her movements were sharp, professional—the shadow returning to its form.

  "Say something," she asked at the door.

  "Take care of yourself."

  "Try to do the same," she replied. "At least until tomorrow evening."

  She left without looking back. I remained on the edge of the bed, watching the morning light of Caesarca seep through the cracks in the shutters. The room still smelled of mint and smoke. I touched my cheek: there was a thin, barely visible line from her nail.

  A trace until morning. It was enough to believe the night was real.

  Priorin slept like the dead.

  For the first time in his life, he lay on a real, shamelessly soft featherbed in a royal suite at The Radiant Dragon. He had eaten, drunk, and collapsed into the pillows like a felled oak.

  He was snoring so loudly that the walls of the room vibrated, and the crystal pendants on the chandelier—Elaine’s pride—jingled in terror with every exhale. But in his sleep, the Leonin was smiling.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  In his dream, he was ten days away from a great journey.

  ...The heat from the stoked stove, the low, pressing ceiling of the ancestral cave. His mother—broad, powerful, with a heavy golden mane—hauls a massive pot onto the table.

  "First food, then heroics," she says. "Never the other way around, pup."

  His father frowns. "The Pride holds to ancestral land, not empty dreams. Beyond those mountains, there is only death."

  "We need growth!" the young lion replies stubbornly. "I will prove it. I will become the one they look up to."

  ...He bolted upright in bed with a terrifying growl. The ceiling was unfamiliar, white, too clean. It smelled of expensive soap and fresh pastries. A knock at the door, and it swung wide.

  "Get up, Lion!" Elaine wheeled a tray into the room as if she were ramming enemy gates. She smelled of the oven, melted butter, and something sweet from a nearly forgotten childhood.

  "Mmmrr... five more wars..." Priorin mumbled, clutching his axe like a favorite pillow.

  "Five more spoons, and that's your war," Elaine snapped. "In my house, we eat before we heroize."

  Priorin eyed the tray. "Mother-Thunder, Elaine... is all this for me?"

  "For you, you big oaf. Eggs in cream, the roast you like, honey buns, milk, porridge with cherry jam... and a meat pie. Eat before it turns into a pumpkin."

  "I’d marry you, Elaine," Priorin purred, the vibration shaking the floor. "But I’d die of happiness and weight gain in a week."

  "Marrying me is too late and utterly pointless," she snorted. "Eat."

  He took a bun delicately between two fingers and growled with delight.

  "If I die today," he said with his mouth full, "let it happen right on top of your pie."

  "You won't die," she said calmly, pouring him milk. "Because I’ve hexed you. My rule: whoever doesn't finish their morning porridge must return to finish it for dinner. So either come back alive, or eat to the bottom right now."

  He scratched behind his ear, suddenly childlike. "Elaine... if I return... can I have more of those honey buns?"

  "You can. But only if you sleep like a person next time, not across the bed clutching an axe."

  She left, and Priorin fell back into the pillows for one last minute. He was still that stubborn lion pup who had slammed the door on his pride to "prove" himself. But now he had people he could finally call his own.

  I tossed and turned, unable to believe this was real. And that it was for me.

  The bed was frighteningly soft; the sheets smelled of lavender. I had chosen a modest inn in a quiet quarter. My own door. My own air. My own "tomorrow."

  The voice in my head—Krauser—rasped with its usual pedantry:

  "Wasting gold. Money should go to steel and healing salves, not the smell of dried grass. You nearly became a dockside ornament today."

  "Today is for the grass, Krauser," I whispered. "Give me one hour to just be Flint."

  Krauser was my second skin, my rage, my way of surviving. He was the one who took control in the conduit when the arrows started flying.

  "Softness makes you slow," Krauser continued. "Freedom in Vellaris doesn't forgive mistakes. Especially after what you did at the river."

  "I'm grateful you got us out," I said, touching my bandaged shoulder. "But you fought like a suicidal maniac. Charging arrows isn't a tactic; it’s madness."

  "It was the only solution," the voice snapped. "Say thank you to the Scentless Man."

  "Faurgar?" I closed my eyes. "He saw something, Krauser. He wasn't looking at the fire; he was looking at us."

  "He’s dangerous," Krauser sounded almost respectful. "He caught my scent. So sleep in your lavender while you can. Tomorrow we’ll have to play twice as well so he doesn't decide to open us up like an old tin can."

  I took a grape from the plate, savoring it.

  "Weakness," Krauser snorted.

  "Today I need to rewrite my memory," I said. "Replace the smell of prison mold with this scent. So it stops hurting inside with every breath."

  "Remember this scent," the voice said, finally dropping the vitriol. "So you know exactly what you’re losing if you miss. Freedom is indeed worth killing for."

  I fell asleep without the fear of waking up in chains.

  Gellia took a room by the city wall. It was a narrow, cheap space, more like a monastic cell. A single candle traced a yellow line on the windowsill. Her armor lay on the table in strict order.

  She took an oiled rag and began to polish the breastplate. In the matte glint of the steel, her face reflected—haggard, with dark circles under her eyes. Her thoughts were as bitter as the ash of her burned monastery.

  Faurgar. He was calm as the steel under her hand, but it was the calmness of a dead man. In the port, he didn't just command; he owned people through his badge. When he slit the throat of the bound prisoner, Gellia felt a chill she had no right to feel. Fear. Faurgar didn't frighten her with strength, but with the absence of anything human. He was a Function. She knew: if her death became "efficient" for the mission tomorrow, his hand would not tremble.

  Priorin. He was the only one she respected as a fighter. Honest, primal strength. But even in him, she saw a problem. Priorin was a beast led by instinct. He needed a leash, and she knew if she didn't become that leash, he would burn himself and everyone else out in a fit of "heroic" stupidity.

  Flint. The Hadozi filled her with physical revulsion mixed with pity. In the conduit, his magic was a scream, not a triumph. He was the weak link, a spark in a powder keg. He joked when he should have prayed. He was a mistake.

  She touched the hidden pocket of her cloak. The letter from the Mother Superior of Erthrusia burned her fingers: "You are a broken blade, Gellia. You no longer belong to the Wings."

  "You wouldn't understand me," she whispered to the empty room. "I don't even fully understand myself."

  She felt like a traitor to her own ideals, hiring herself to Trudius. But there was no other road to the Black Wolf. To have her revenge, she had to descend into this filth.

  Outside, Caesarca breathed with the river. Gellia closed her eyes, but there was no sleep—only a darkness where Faurgar continued to watch her with his empty, evaluating gaze.

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