Chapter 27: Lessons of String and Stone

  They slipped past the east gate before Brannic returned from Tomas’s shop.

  Today, Chronicle told her to bring clothes and string from the abandoned house.

  “Yes,” he said. “We’ll make a sling.”

  Her steps lightened at once.

  They practiced beyond the town’s edge, where trees thinned into open ground.

  Chronicle taught her patiently:

  How to fold cloth into a pouch.

  How to knot string so it would not slip.

  How to test tension without snapping fiber.

  Then stones.

  Not too smooth.

  Not too jagged.

  Weight mattered more than size.

  He showed her distance.

  Angle.

  When to release.

  A sling was not strength.

  It was timing.

  Ivaline learned quickly.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Her eyes shone as she tested her aim.

  “I heard birds taste good,” she said, almost to herself.

  Chronicle did not discourage the thought.

  “Mind your surroundings as well,” he reminded her.

  “We don’t know if those men will try again.”

  “I know,” she replied quietly.

  They both remembered the shadow.

  The retreat.

  The narrow margin they survived by last night.

  By early evening, she had three birds.

  Better than either of them expected.

  She smiled—not proudly, but with anticipation.

  Dinner.

  On the return, a figure stepped into her path.

  Townsguard Brannic.

  She froze for half a breath.

  Then relaxed when he held out bread instead of a hand on his weapon.

  “Tomas asked me to give you this,” he said.

  She stared at it.

  “I didn’t do it for thanks,” she said carefully.

  Brannic nodded.

  “I know. But the one who receives help can feel burdened if they’re not allowed to repay it.”

  He placed the bread into her hands anyway.

  “Let him rest easier.”

  She hesitated.

  Then bowed.

  “Thank you.”

  The butcher was next.

  He laughed when he saw her.

  “So you’re the one,” he said, loud and amused.

  “Scared off three idiots with a stick.”

  He reached behind the counter and produced a small bottle.

  “Special sauce. Don’t waste it.”

  She blinked.

  “For… me?”

  “For the meat,” he corrected.

  “And for being decent.”

  She bowed again.

  Less awkward this time.

  She receives the process meat.

  But losing just one bird out of three.

  That night, the birds roasted over fire.

  The sauce changed everything.

  Ivaline ate slowly.

  Carefully.

  With visible delight.

  “This is amazing,” she said.

  Chronicle recorded it.

  Not as a skill.

  Not as a threshold.

  But as proof.

  Good deeds had weight.

  Even when unclaimed.