The streets of Ravencrest were narrow and winding, and we were quickly lost in them. Each lane was packed with close-set houses and the occasional shop wedged between, as if the city had grown by accident rather than design. We searched for an inn until my patience thinned and my stomach began to ache, then finally stopped to ask a local who looked like he belonged here

  “Sorry,” I said, pitching my voice neutral. “We’re new in town. Could you point us toward an inn for the night?”

  The portly man wore plain clothes that had seen too many meals and not enough washing. He stared at us a moment before answering.

  “Your best bet’s Harry’s place,” he said at last. “Down on Grostop Lane.”

  “I don’t know where that is,” I admitted.

  He sighed, his irritation plain now.

  “Straight ahead. Left down Turnish Lane. Then a right onto the main road. Grostop’s on your left. You can’t miss it.”

  And with that he was gone, swallowed by the maze.

  I resisted the urge to grind my teeth. There was nothing to do but follow the directions as best we could. We took one wrong turn, doubled back, then found the main road at last — broader here, scored deep with wagon ruts, busy even in the grey light. It only took a few more minutes to spot a hanging sign carved with a goose in profile:

  THE GOOSE’S GANDER

  From the outside it looked clean enough to trust.

  We stepped through red-painted doors into a small entry hall that served as a front desk. A cheap wooden counter sat empty, a bell perched on it like an accusation. Stairs rose to the left, and to the right a door let out the warm roar of a tavern — laughter, talk, the low thrum of music.

  Illara rang the bell.

  After a moment an older, thin man emerged from the tavern door. He wore a frayed green coat and bent spectacles. He must once have dressed well, but time had worried him down to something leaner and more tired.

  “Room for two?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Illara said, too quickly, “and a double bed, please.”

  He gave us a brief look, then turned to a ledger.

  “Double’s no cheaper than two beds,” he said without looking up.

  “That’s fine,” Illara replied. She didn’t blink.

  His finger ran down the page, then stopped.

  “Room two-oh-five is open. How many nights?”

  “How much per night?” I asked.

  “Two copper each for the room. Five copper each if you want supper with it.”

  My stomach answered for me before my mouth did.

  “Room and supper,” we said in unison.

  Illara glanced up at him. “Six nights. For now. With the option to renew.”

  “A week’s worth, then,” he said. “Payment in advance.”

  I counted out six silver and set them on the counter. He didn’t react to the weight — just swept them into a small box beneath the desk.

  “Name’s Harry,” he said. “Proprietor. Marks here.”

  He indicated a column in the ledger. I signed Drisnil’s name; Illara wrote hers beside it with practiced, careful strokes. Apprentice training, at least, had given her that much.

  Harry handed over a key.

  “Second floor. Third door on your right. Supper’s already being served, but it won’t be long before the kitchen closes, so if you want it hot, I’d go now.”

  We went up the stairs two at a time, found the room, and let ourselves in.

  It was small but tidy: a narrow double bed, a little desk, a washbasin, and a single window looking down into the wet street. The air smelled faintly of soap and old wood. We dropped our packs, locked the door behind us, and turned straight around.

  When we stepped into the tavern below, warmth hit us like a blanket. The place was lively — long tables scarred with years of use, benches packed shoulder to shoulder, and a firepit glowing in the center. A man near the hearth played a lute, plucking out something quick and bright while voices rose around him.

  We found space at a table beside an older woman who had clearly been drinking since well before we arrived. She squinted up at me.

  “An elf,” she said, as if I were a curiosity someone had left behind. “Don’t see many of those. How old are you, then?”

  I blinked, thrown by the bluntness.

  “About… one hundred and thirty.”

  She barked a laugh. “Older than me, and you look half my age. Some folk have it lucky.”

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  A barmaid stopped by a moment later, towel slung over her shoulder.

  “What’ll you have?”

  “What comes with the room?” Illara asked.

  “You get tonight’s special,” the maid said. “Lamb’s fry in pig broth, and one round of house ale.”

  Illara nodded. “That, please.”

  “Be right out.”

  The maid vanished into the kitchen.

  Illara watched her go, then leaned closer to me with a sly smile that was almost her old self.

  “So, Drisnil… don’t suppose you want to earn us some coin?”

  I raised a brow. “How do you propose I do that?”

  She tilted her head toward the lute player. “You could sing another song. Take a collection.”

  I considered it. We were tight on funds. I had gems sewn into my clothes — a last resort I didn’t want to spend unless I had to.

  “Alright,” I said, already shifting on the bench. “I’ll ask him for a tune I know.”

  And before my nerves could catch up, I stood and made my way toward the firelight.

  As the bard’s last note faded, I slipped through the crush of bodies toward him.

  “Hey,” I said quietly. “If I sing a song, want to split the take fifty–fifty?”

  He was young, with a brown goatee and bright blue eyes that had seen just enough road to think it was still kind. He grinned.

  “Deal. You better be good, though.”

  “I’ll try not to disgrace your stage.”

  He chuckled, then leaned in as I whistled the tune I had in mind. His brows lifted in recognition, and he nodded along with the rhythm.

  “Right,” he said. “I’ve got it. I’ll set you up—come in after the first line.”

  He kicked back into the melody, lively and stomping, and the room’s chatter thinned the way it does when people sense something about to happen. I stepped up onto a bench near the fire pit, pulled my hood back just enough to be seen, and let my voice carry.

  The Road’s Got Teeth (But So Do I)

  Oh the road’s got mud and the road’s got rain,

  And the road’s got folks who’ll smile at your pain,

  There’s a ditch for the weary, a bluff for the proud,

  And a thief in the bracken who thinks he’s unbowed—

  But I’ve walked through worse with a torn-up coat,

  So I tip my hood and I clear my throat.

  By the time the chorus came around, the bard had the downbeat thumping like a heartbeat under my words, and the room caught on fast.

  Hey-ho, the road’s got teeth,

  It’ll bite your heel and it’ll steal your wreath,

  But if you’ve got nerve and a blade held true,

  You’ll leave it bleeding before it leaves you.

  Hey-ho, don’t whine, don’t cry—

  The road’s got teeth… but so do I.

  The second chorus belonged to the tavern more than to me. They sang loud and cheerfully wrong, stomping out of time but with a kind of joy that didn’t need polish. Illara moved through the tables with a cap she’d borrowed from someone’s peg—bright smile, easy laugh, the sort of charm that made even tight-fisted farmers dig for coppers.

  I carried the song through a few more verses—about drizzle-slick ambushes, foolish thieves, and warm fires earned the hard way. When I hit the last chorus, faster and sharper, the whole room roared it back at me, stomp-stomp-clap, ale sloshing and faces flushed.

  The applause came like a wave. I hopped down, breath warm in my chest, and met Illara near the table.

  She tipped the cap into my hands. Coins clinked—a good weight, haphazard and honest. We counted it out together, then took the agreed cuts: a share for the house, a share for the bard, and the rest for us. The remaining pile was roughly a silver once we’d traded coppers into something simpler.

  “Well,” Illara said, eyes dancing, “that was effective.”

  “Don’t get used to it,” I muttered, but I couldn’t hide the small lift in my voice.

  By the time we sat down again, our food and ale were waiting. The meal was plain—lamb’s fry and pig soup that smelled more like pepper than meat—and the ale tasted thin, but hunger turned it into a feast anyway. We ate quickly, warmth returning to our fingers with every swallow.

  The tavern was still lively when we stood to leave. I caught Illara watching the way coins slid across tables, vanished into mugs, reappeared in drunken wagers. She looked at our purse, then back at me.

  She didn’t have to say anything. I understood.

  “Come on,” I said, nodding toward the stairs. “Let’s not spend what we just earned.”

  A bucket of water sat in the corner of our room, towels folded beside it. The surface shivered when I nudged it with my boot.

  Cold. Of course it was cold.

  Illara caught my expression and gave a tired little laugh. “No hot bath for heroes?”

  “Not unless we steal a kettle and charm a fireplace.”

  She set her cloak aside, then paused, glancing back at me. There was a quiet question in her face—something between uncertainty and trust.

  “We should wash,” she said softly. “Before the road decides to claim us through sheer grime.”

  I waited until she nodded again—inviting, sure—before I moved closer. We undressed without ceremony, the heat from downstairs already gone from our skin. The air raised gooseflesh along her arms.

  I dipped a towel, wrung it out, and began to scrub the dirt and sweat from her shoulders. Mud streaked away in dark ribbons.

  She shivered at the first touch of cold. “Still raining in here,” she muttered.

  “Complain and I’ll stop.”

  “Mm. Don’t.”

  I worked carefully, mindful of bruises I hadn’t noticed until now: a livid mark on her forearm from where a bolt had grazed her in the ambush, a scrape at her hip. She didn’t flinch. Her hands were steady, but her breath still carried a faint tremor from the morning.

  “I’m excited about what comes next for us,” she said after a while. Quietly, as if she didn’t want the words to spook themselves. “You’ve been on the road a lot, right? Knowing your age… what is it like?”

  I hesitated. Geoff had barely travelled farther than his own comforts. Drisnil had spent decades moving between places that wanted her services and feared her presence.

  “Yes,” I said carefully. “I’ve been to many places. Mostly alone. I’ve spent… a long time away from anything I ever called home.”

  Illara looked back over her shoulder. “Do you miss it?”

  “No.” The answer came fast, and I felt Drisnil’s memories press hard against the back of my skull—stone corridors, poison lessons, smiles that meant knives. “I’m glad to be away. It wasn’t a good place to live.”

  She turned forward again, thinking about that in her quiet way.

  “Did you like travelling alone?”

  “At the time,” I said. “I thought I did. But… now that I have a companion, I don’t think I could go back to being alone again.”

  There was a soft sound behind me as she smiled.

  “Your turn,” Illara said. “Sit.”

  I turned, and the cold water hit my back like a slap. I hissed.

  “Oh?” she teased, scrubbing soap into my shoulders with mock solemnity. “Not so tough after all. You do feel the cold.”

  “I never said I was tough.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  Her hands were gentle when they moved, firmer when I tried to pretend I wasn’t shivering. When she finished, she rested her forehead briefly against my shoulder blade, the gesture small and utterly sincere.

  We dried off in silence. When we were dressed again, Illara stepped close and wrapped her arms around me. Her body was warm from the wash, her hair damp against my neck.

  “I’m glad you didn’t leave me behind,” she whispered. “Thank you for being there.”

  Something in my chest eased in a way I didn’t want to name too quickly.

  “Thank you for coming after me,” I said.

  We climbed into the bed beneath the rough quilt. The mattress was lumpy, the room cold at the edges, but Illara curled against my side as if she’d belonged there all along.

  Sleep found me quickly—helped along by exhaustion, by the steady rhythm of her breathing, and by the strange comfort of lying beside someone I’d sworn to protect… and someone I didn’t want to lose.

  “The Road’s Got Teeth (But So Do I)”

  Tempo: lively 6/8 or quick 4/4, lots of stomping on the downbeat.

  Feel: rowdy travel song, half-brag, half-wink.

  (Chorus is meant for the room to join in.)

  Verse 1

  Oh the road’s got mud and the road’s got rain,

  And the road’s got folks who’ll smile at your pain,

  There’s a ditch for the weary, a bluff for the proud,

  And a thief in the bracken who thinks he’s unbowed.

  But I’ve walked through worse with a torn-up coat—

  So I tip my hood and I clear my throat.

  Chorus

  Hey-ho, the road’s got teeth,

  It’ll bite your heel and it’ll steal your wreath,

  But if you’ve got nerve and a blade held true,

  You’ll leave it bleeding before it leaves you.

  Hey-ho, don’t whine, don’t cry—

  The road’s got teeth… but so do I.

  Verse 2

  Met a man in the drizzle, “Help me,” says he,

  Lying flat as a fish where the kind folk’d be,

  But kindness is a coin and he wanted it free—

  So I showed him the cost of his little deceit.

  Now he snores in the ferns with a bruise on his pride,

  And I’m warm by the fire with my purse a bit wide.

  Chorus

  Hey-ho, the road’s got teeth,

  It’ll bite your heel and it’ll steal your wreath,

  But if you’ve got nerve and a blade held true,

  You’ll leave it bleeding before it leaves you.

  Hey-ho, don’t whine, don’t cry—

  The road’s got teeth… but so do I.

  Verse 3

  There’s a town for the clever, a jail for the bold,

  There’s a song for the young and a tale for the old,

  There’s a meal for the honest, a seat for the sly—

  And a bed for the lucky when the ale runs dry.

  So pour one for the strangers who still made it here,

  And I’ll sing you a toast you can taste in your beer.

  Chorus

  Hey-ho, the road’s got teeth,

  It’ll bite your heel and it’ll steal your wreath,

  But if you’ve got nerve and a blade held true,

  You’ll leave it bleeding before it leaves you.

  Hey-ho, don’t whine, don’t cry—

  The road’s got teeth… but so do I.

  Verse 4 (optional, punchy closer)

  If Pelor sees fit to forgive my ways,

  He can do it tomorrow—tonight, we raise!

  To friends who stay and friends who roam,

  To coin well-earned and a roof called home.

  And if some fool thinks I frighten too much—

  Let him pay for the song and keep both his hands shut.

  Final Chorus (faster, stomp-stomp-clap)

  Hey-ho, the road’s got teeth,

  It’ll bite your heel and it’ll steal your wreath,

  But if you’ve got nerve and a blade held true,

  You’ll leave it bleeding before it leaves you.

  Hey-ho, don’t whine, don’t cry—

  The road’s got teeth… but so do I!