The inn was quieter than the tavern. But not by much.

  It smelled of wet wood, fabric, and a sweetness underneath - similar to the smell of a combination of oak and honey. The floorboards seemed to complain under every step. Some steps across it feeling lower than the others - like as if it was about to swallow whoever stepped on it.

  The lanterns burned low, casting dull flickering shadows across its worn out walls made of stone and mortar.

  Maya followed the short white-haired woman up the narrow stairs without asking where they were going. She already knew - the top floor, closest to the rooftop, where footsteps could be easily heard and windows could be watched without leaning out.

  Nikolai took the rear without instruction. He didn’t like the fact that she had walked beside strangers tonight, but he did not question her.

  The taller woman - silent, broad-shouldered, hood still drawn - took the corner by the door the moment they entered the room. She stood with her weight settled on her heels. One hand holding onto the sheath of her katana like it belonged there more than her own breath.

  No greeting.

  No negotiations.

  Just positions.

  Maya closed the door behind her with her heel and laid her back to it for a moment, listening. Absorbing.

  The town was settling. The last drunk laughter settled into slurred murmurs and then into nothing. Somewhere below, a couple quietly argued. A chair scraped. A dog barked once and stopped.

  The room was large enough for two beds and a table, but it felt smaller with the four of them in it - like the air had escaped when they walked in and every moving body was fighting for their share of it.

  A small thump sound of thick fabric breaks the silence as the white-haired woman dumps her cloak over the chair. She sat side-on to the table and almost immediately began wiping her blade as if she had been doing it for years without once even thinking about it.

  The movement was efficient. Almost angry in its neatness and precision.

  Maya moved to the wall and stood, hood still up. She watched.

  The tall woman remained still near the door. She did not speak. She did not ask. She did not shift unless the white-haired woman shifted first.

  Nikolai moved to the window and checked the street below through a gap in the curtains. He did it without making it obvious. He was good at that.

  Maya’s eyes returned to the taller woman. Able to observe her properly this time.

  Her silence was not that of intimidation. It was something else. It was structured - held in place. Ritual silence. Contractual silence.

  The way she watched her Master was the tell.

  Not admiration.

  Not fear.

  Permission.

  Maya grew up in a court where permission was weaponized. She recognized it the same way she recognized the shape of a blade.

  She looked back at the white-haired woman. The ribbon was gone from her hair. That absence made her feel unfinished, like something had been cut away and left behind.

  Maya’s fingers brushed the inside of her sleeve where the ribbon now rested.

  A small weight. A thin strip of red that shouldn't matter, and yet it did.

  She watched the tall woman again.

  No speech.

  No complaints.

  No questions.

  Just obedience.

  Then it clicked.

  Maya said it before she could reconsider.

  Not accusatory. Just factual.

  “You haven’t granted her speech?”

  The white-haired woman paused mid-wipe of her blade and looked up.

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  Confusion, plain and sharp.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Maya held her gaze for a breath.

  There was no lie in it.

  No playing dumb, neither measured evasion.

  She truly did not know.

  A thread of something cold slid through Maya’s chest - not pity, more like recalibration.

  The white-haired woman moved like someone who understood violence in all its forms - and maybe she did - yet, she didn’t understand a basic binding.

  Maya exhaled once and let her shoulders loosened as if the thought had never mattered.

  “Nothing,” she shrugged.

  The conversation ended as quickly as it had begun.

  Maya sunk to her heels at the wall before un-hooding her cloak and wrapping it in front of her.

  Her eyes were closing soon after, before flickering - dozing off, but desperate to keep herself awake. She felt her head going heavy before sudden jerks, trying to keep herself awake.

  The sound of cloth on steel stopped for a short moment, as the white-haired woman spoke up.

  It was directed to the taller-woman by the door.

  “You get some rest too, I’ll stay up for now,” she said.

  Not stern. But flat and serious.

  Without hesitation, broad shoulders moved as her hands pulled her sheathed katana out of her strap, before long legs bent as she slid down the wall into her resting position.

  Maya’s eyes felt like they had only closed for a few minutes before she heard Nikolai speak.

  “Two men at the corner. Not drunk - watching. But not at us.”

  The white-haired woman didn’t look up. “Rebels?”

  She was no longer wiping her blade anymore, but it was sheathed and held upright by her side as she too was now sat on the ground on the opposite wall to Maya.

  “Unsure,” Nikolai replies. “But they’re not here for ale.”

  The taller woman had awoken now too. Still in the same position as how Maya saw her last, but the focussed look on her face portraying her readiness - like a mother direwolf in its cave.

  Maya felt the echo of the alley still clinging to her skin - blade at her throat, breath against steel, the humiliation of being pinned and the worse humiliation of having liked the clarity of it for a few heartbeats.

  She swallowed the thought down.

  Outside, somewhere far beyond the towns - possibly around the hills - a pressure rolled across the night.

  Not thunder.

  Not wind.

  Something else.

  Maya felt it through the floorboards first. Like a large hammer had struck the earth. But, nothing else moved. The lantern remained flickering the same way, the dust remained settled on the minimal amount of furniture in the room.

  The white-haired woman’s head snapped slightly towards the window, nostrils flaring once like an animal testing the air.

  “Destructive,” she murmured.

  Nikolai’s hand tightened on the curtain. “Raze,” he said under his breath, as if naming it made it any less dangerous.

  Maya didn’t answer.

  She hadn’t smelled anything. She didn’t have that gift.

  But she felt the aftertaste somehow, somewhere deep inside her.

  It was structured. Internal. Someone had done that on purpose, somewhere not close enough to be a threat - yet, but not far and weak enough to ignore.

  The white-haired woman stood, and the tall woman on the other wall stood in tandem.

  No words were exchanged. None were needed.

  Maya watched their synchronisation and felt a thin coil of irritation in her stomach. Binding without speech. Command without ritual. It shouldn’t work.

  And yet it did.

  Walking to the door, the white-haired woman opened the door just a finger’s width, listening, and probably smelling the hallway.

  Nothing.

  She closed it again.

  “We leave in another hour before light.”

  Not a suggestion.

  Maya did not argue.

  Instead rubbing her eyes and massaging her temples.

  Like as if there was an unknown contest and comparison of synergies against the tall woman and her Master, Nikolai speaks to his,

  “Yes. You did fall asleep for a while.”

  Maya stood up and gave herself a big stretch, thin fingers interlocking with each other as she raised them above her head. Her figure small, but not short. Her torn dress revealing her lean legs and the hourglass figure of hers as her stretch helped release the cramp feelings she was getting around her.

  She walked to the edge of the bed and sat herself down. She rested her hands in her lap and let her breathing slow. Not because she was calm, but because she couldn't afford not to be.

  Every time she closed her eyes she would see the bridge.

  Every time she exhaled too hard she would feel the spiritual pressure of her aura press against her ribs. Eager to escape.

  She pictured the alley again. The blade in her throat. The weight between her thighs. The white-haired woman close enough to see the anger in her eyes.

  If she lost control again, it would not be contained by walls.

  The white-haired woman began wiping her blade again. The motion slower now, but only slightly.

  A rule, Maya realised.

  Maya stared at the door and decided to make one of her own.

  Don’t flare,

  Don’t beg.

  Don’t trust.

  Outside, the town continued to sleep.

  Inside, no one else did anymore.