Supper did arrive as Goira promised, delivered to their door by two guards. A heartier meal of potatoes than Kaye had expected.

  They were suspicious enough of the guards watching the house carrying torches to decide to set up a watch and cover the window that gave view to the bedroom with a tarp. This way, everyone could sleep in a bed, and since they were being forced to rest earlier, they would get enough sleep.

  No one bothered them during the night or early next morning. Everyone agreed that they should leave as early as possible to not give the vilgers any more trouble. When they stepped out of the house, Kaye wasn’t surprised to find out that the guards were still there. Different people from those who stood watch during the night, but still there.

  Hogog raised a hand to the nearest pair. “Can you guide us out?”

  Nodding, the men gestured for them to wait.

  As expected, they went to get Goira, who arrived soon after. It seemed she had to deal with everything around the vilge, perhaps she was the chief’s daughter, though Kaye wasn’t sure how the leadership customs went around Mor. And we didn’t see any wounded, you’re keeping them way out of sight.

  “Once again,” Goira said, a hand raised in asking them to join her on the walk, “I am sorry for the circumstances.”

  “None of it is your fault,” Kaye said, hoping the ease the woman’s mood a bit, “and I thank you for not turning us away.”

  Goira took them north of the vilge, following the trail. This side of the barricade had been built much closer and sturdier. Their remaining weapons, Kaye could see as they freed up space for them to pass, were pced on top of some barrels.

  Kaye was close enough to notice Hogog leaning towards Goira.

  He spoke in a low voice, “If any other travelers come by, remember to search their packs.”

  Goira’s head raised in a gre as Hogog took a step away. Kaye smiled in an attempt at appeasing. When Goira met her eyes, the woman let out a deep, long sigh.

  Then they were on the other side, the palisade was pulled together, and there was nothing but nods of goodbye.

  “I’m surprised they didn’t let us help with anything,” Gima said.

  “They feel betrayed,” Uruoro responded.

  “I understand that, but we did give up our weapons.”

  “Not all of them,” Uruoro pointed out. “Though not fair, it is what they would need to in order to at least feel safe, and even then, that might not have meant trust.”

  “If we had anything to do with it,” Aien said, “we wouldn’t have come back to the same vilge. Those bandits might already have a buyer, and they are not going to stay in one pce.”

  “I don’t think they thought we had something to do with it,” said Kaye. “Perhaps they were just scared that someone would be ill-intended after knowing how vulnerable the vilge is. That’s why Goira didn’t tell us how many days ago the attack was, or how far away this Lord Caron is. I did get the sense she wasn’t talking about Geshin. People who could help in Geshin might charge, and I don’t think they would be able to pay for it.”

  Aien nodded. “Speaking of Geshin, everyone,” they slowed down to stare at him, but his tone was calm, “I should have said this sooner, but now that we are safer, I’ll only travel with you until I can find an Armsmaster. I think I might find one in a city like Geshin.”

  “What exactly are the Armsmasters?” Hogog asked.

  “They’re the best warriors in the known world. They travel, sometimes alone and sometimes in squads, offering their services and bettering themselves. If I need to, I’ll move to deep into Odanas where I’m sure to meet them.”

  Kaye felt something sinking in her stomach. Aien was a friend, after all, and despite how fast and confusing things had been, they had been through the worst of it together.

  “We can leave the heartfelt goodbyes for when it does happen,” Uruoro said in response to something Kaye hadn’t listened.

  “I might do the same,” Gima said.

  Aien started at her. “Join the Armsmasters?”

  “Are you sure?” Hogog asked almost in the same moment.

  “No, not them.” Gima regarded them with a heavy stare. “I never pnned on leaving Neru-Aran. I never pnned on leaving Sarak. I don’t want to go back, but I don’t want to fight either, which is something that might happen if I continue with you.”

  “We don’t want to be in any more fighting,” Kaye pointed out.

  “It might still happen, even if it’s just a coincidence of being on the road.”

  As if there had been some kind of signal, all eyes stared at Kaye for a long moment. Chances are higher if my first instinct is to always offer help, I understand, but it’s hard not to, even if I told myself I won’t be reckless anymore.

  Gima continued, “Are there any temples to Irina in Mor?”

  “Possibly, but I wouldn’t know where,” Uruoro answered.

  “There has to be Acolytes, at least,” said Aien, “but I have never been anywhere near here, so I can’t say for certain.”

  “Someone in Geshin will know,” said Hogog.

  Kaye had heard about Geshin — and Eruin — from Brun, the fat cook and storyteller from Captain Mavis’ crew, but seeing it was something else entirely.

  The Rift was a wound cut into the nd, opening space for the sea to invade in a long, tapering line the maps drew as a surprisingly precise, thin triangle, on which dozens of vessels could be seen, from rge moored trading ships to small gliding boats Kaye guessed were used to take passengers from one side to the other. On the east side from which they approached, the city of Geshin rose around the Rift; sea enclosing it to the west, farming fields in the east, the city stretching far north.

  And beyond the natural harbor formed by the Rift, was the twin-city Eruin. To Kaye’s eyes, both sides seemed to form a horseshoe with the connecting ends stretched into deformation. Indistinguishable from one another, as far as she could see from this distance, though she knew that Eruin was Odane and Geshin Morrish. If Brun’s history was correct, it was simply a matter of people moving to the nearest rge city, both sides wanting to take advantage of sea routes, and not any kind of well-defined border neither wanted to cross. Kaye thought that if a border did exist, the twin-cities of the Rift had defined it, not the other way around.

  It was hard to judge when the cities had been built in such different shapes, but Kaye wouldn’t be surprised to find out that together, the twin-cities were bigger than Neru-Aran. Kakinse, on the other hand, was but half of either Geshin or Eruin, and that was being generous.

  There was a pattern to their arrival in every new city. Finding a pce to stay at was the priority, but it was common to find inns and lodging houses out of rooms, which led them in a cycle of asking for directions and walking some more. It took some time, but they eventually found three vacant rooms in an inn, Aien being the one alone in the third.

  “It’s still early,” Kaye said when they met in the corridor after checking their rooms, “I’m thinking about looking at the notice boards we passed by.” They didn’t have much coin to spare, and Kaye was already expecting their stay in Geshin to be longer than in the previous cities, now that they didn’t need to be running away from anything.

  “The man of the ke needs to rest,” said Uruoro,” but don’t let me hold you back.”

  “Us four, then?” Hogog asked, pointing at Kaye, Aien and Gima.

  No one disagreed, and they left for the city again.

  Geshin was closer to what Kaye had expected from cities in this world. It was not as if there wasn’t beauty to be found in Sarak. Neru-Aran had been different from anything she imagined in what would have been a good way had their circumstances been different, but Geshin was strangely familiar. Plenty of the streets they traversed were paved with hard-packed rock and the city blocks followed a distinctively rectangur pattern.

  It occurred to her that she had bought passage to Geshin from Kakinse, in what felt like another lifetime ago. Kaye took a moment to remember the captain’s name, Loshi, and the eighteen silver coins it costed her. It felt so far back now, so much that Kaye struggled to imagine how she would react to Geshin being her first stop, and where she would have gone from here on out alone. She would never have met Uruoro or Gima, possibly not even Aien.

  I think I understand you now, Aien, Kaye thought. It doesn’t seem that hard to convince yourself that things had to go a certain way.

  Not tired, but her mind prone to wondering, Kaye found herself scantly paying attention to the job offerings in the notice boards. There was no such thing as a trader written nguage, so they ended up relying on Aien to transte for them, and he could only read so much. Kaye noted down everything of interest on her wax tablet.

  They were a couple streets away from one of the main squares, moving towards the address of a job offering as a caretaker in an orphanage that Gima was interested in, when Aien suddenly halted.

  “Someone you know?” Kaye asked, stopping.

  “Not someone…” he began walking towards an inn they were passing in front of.

  “Uncle,” Kaye called, and followed Aien inside the building as Hogog and Gima turned to look.

  Aien had stopped by a table in the mess room, the one nearest to the door and unoccupied, hand reaching for a white cloak that had been left in a chair’s backrest.

  “I wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” a girl’s voice spoke, a young blonde server behind the counter, “it belongs to an Armsmaster.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Aien said, pulling his hand away and gncing at Kaye. “This makes things a lot easier. You know their name?”

  The server shook her head as she walked around the counter. “There’s a whole squad of them staying with us and I have no idea which one forgot it. I don’t recommend looking for trouble with them.” She picked the cloak up and took it with her.

  It didn’t look pristine to Kaye, far from it, but it was white despite all the stains, which seemed to be uncommon for traveler’s cloaks.

  “I’m not looking for trouble, I want to join then. Do you know which Bde they are?”

  “Bde?” the server asked, raising her eyebrows.

  “They have an iron insignia, each pointy end in it is a Bde.”

  “They do have the insignias, but I didn’t know that so I didn’t look.”

  “Well, do you know when they’re coming back?”

  Again, the girl shook her head.

  “Go on without me,” Aien said to Kaye, “I know the way back to the inn.”

  “If you’re going to stay, you have to buy something,” the inn girl interjected.

  “I’ll eat dinner here, how about that?”

  “That sounds good,” the girl stretched out an open hand.

  It was the middle of the afternoon.