Safe Enough

No one found them during their first two days in Trademeet.

By the third morning, the rented room had almost stopped feeling like a place to hide.

It was too small for comfort. Maeril had struck the same cot frame with her shin twice. The bed barely held them, especially while she guarded her injured shoulder and Rishi kept his bruised ribs clear of her elbow.

The cot had become a table instead. Their packs lay open across it beside spare cloth and gear they no longer kept bundled for immediate flight. Both cloaks hung dry from pegs. A gray ring of road dirt still marked the washbasin beneath the shuttered window.

Rishi’s staff and Maeril’s satchel rested against a chair with one short leg. Someone had wrapped the last heel of bread and left it on the seat.

Even the floor had become known to her.

One board complained when Maeril stood near the basin. Another creaked beneath Rishi whenever he crossed too carefully after waking. On the first night, every sound had been a warning. Now they were only defects in a rented room.

Trademeet woke beyond the shutters with great noise and no urgency.

Carts rattled past. Someone argued over the price of bread. A child shouted, received an answer from farther down the street, and shouted again.

After the rain crossing, when every hoofbeat might have belonged to a pursuer, such ordinary clamor felt impossible.

No one entered the yard to ask questions. No fist struck their door. No voice below described a green tiefling traveling with a bruised monk.

Teren had promised them safe enough.

Not safe. He was too honest a man for that word. Trademeet was merely large enough to swallow strangers, busy enough to delay questions, and far enough from the Battlescarred Bard that the waiting lie had not overtaken them.

Maeril had known Teren for less than a day. She had still trusted his directions and the refuge he named.

That remained surprising.

She lay still and listened to the town prove him right.

Sunlight edged between the shutters and made the dust visible. Boiled grain scented the air from the common room below.

Beside Maeril, Rishi slept deeply. His breath came slow and even, no longer broken by the hurt beneath his ribs.

Good.

She turned her head on the pillow.

His split lower lip had dried into a dark line. The cut looked ready to open if he smiled too widely, though wide smiles had never presented much danger where Rishi was concerned.

Sleep had eased his jaw and softened the watchfulness around his eyes. Bruises remained. Exhaustion remained. For once, he was not trying to carry either of them upright.

Maeril watched for one breath longer than necessary. Then she looked away before tenderness became something she would need to examine.

A mild wind rattled the shutters.

Rishi’s fingers flexed against the blanket. His breath changed, and his eyes opened slowly. They found the ceiling, the window, then Maeril.

“Still alive?” she asked.

He considered the evidence. “Apparently.”

“Good. I am too bruised to carry you downstairs.”

Rishi smiled. His lip split again and ended the expression early.

Maeril rose onto one elbow. Pain shot through the shoulder that had struck the inn floor. She ran her tongue across her teeth.

The bitter trace of acid was finally gone.

Memory supplied the assassin’s blistering face, and the taste nearly returned. Maeril pushed both aside.

From the ruined chapel, it had taken another guarded day to reach Trademeet. They watched each rise before crossing it, listened to every cart, and measured every approaching traveler twice.

The town appeared by degrees: roofs, smoke, wagons, then the blessed ugliness of people more concerned with selling onions than hunting fugitives.

At the first inn whose keeper seemed incurious, the woman behind the counter asked for coin, the number of nights, and whether they wanted breakfast.

No names. No explanations.

Maeril had nearly kissed her.

Beside her, the mattress shifted as Rishi eased upright.

“Bad?” she asked.

“Better.”

“That was not the question.”

“It is the answer least likely to put me back in bed.”

“Monk honesty. Technically present. Morally irritating.”

“Wizard concern,” Rishi said. “Technically kindness. Mostly threat.”

Maeril raised one eyebrow. “Mostly?”

They washed, dressed, and went downstairs.

Travelers crowded the common-room tables over bread and thin porridge. Workers moved between them carrying bowls, cups, and plates of something fried beyond recognition.

The innkeeper’s daughter brought a pot of hot water and announced, “Market’s full today,” as if reporting the weather.

Maeril thanked her.

The girl’s first glance took in Maeril’s horns and tail. Her second found the coins on the table. She accepted them without flinching or touching a holy sign. The curiosity she gave Rishi’s bruises held no judgment.

Coin. No questions, Maeril thought. I could get used to this.

Through the open door, a vendor proclaimed the price of sweet cakes. Someone called him a liar. The crowd laughed.

Maeril turned toward the sound. “I have spent enough time upstairs.”

“The chair will miss you,” Rishi said.

“The chair knows what it did.”

She stood. “Come on. Let us see what kind of trouble honest commerce can become.”

Trademeet opened around them in the full noise of morning trade.

Wagons stood in uneven ranks. Patched awnings stretched above the stalls, and lengths of bright cloth stirred in the wind. Smoke carried the smells of bread, onions, and spiced meat through the crowd.

Everywhere, people argued over prices with the bright indignation of those who expected to survive the disagreement.

Maeril stopped before a pot of stew thick with beans, sausage, and onion.

“That,” she said with grave reverence, “is food. Actual food.”

“Yes.”

“Two bowls?” Rishi asked.

Maeril considered the question. “Three. The third is emotional compensation.”

The woman behind the pot grinned and ladled accordingly.

Maeril tasted the stew. Too much pepper. Soft beans, good sausage, and onions cooked as if someone respected them.

She closed her eyes. “Sacred.”

They ate at the edge of the stall while the market passed around them. Rishi went slowly. Heat and food brought a little color back into his face.

Something in Maeril loosened.

After the bowls, they wandered.

Maeril stopped for herbs, wax, paper, and several items whose usefulness became steadily harder to defend. Rishi followed with patient silence until a leatherworker’s stall caught his attention.

Waxed thread hung above rolls of tools, leather scraps, cakes of beeswax, and stoppered bottles of oil.

Maeril followed his gaze. “The boots.”

Rishi nodded.

Cleaning had exposed the damage beneath the mud. Stitching had torn along one side. A toe was badly scuffed, and the leather still held the strain of feet that had shaped it before his.

The leatherworker offered three weights of thread. Rishi tested each between finger and thumb before choosing one. He added a finer thread, a small awl, beeswax, and a square of soft cloth.

Then he opened a bottle of oil and smelled it.

“Too harsh.”

The leatherworker produced another. Maeril uncorked it and breathed in.

“Better. It still wants something green.”

“For the boots?” the man asked.

“And for the feet of a monk who believes suffering builds character.”

Rishi looked at her.

“I respect your discipline,” she said. “I refuse to smell it for three days.”

The leatherworker considered them both and named a price.

Maeril corrected him.

When they left, Rishi carried the repair tools. Maeril carried the oil with the satisfaction of someone who had prevented a public calamity.

Farther along, road-sellers had gathered beneath a single broad awning. Maps hung above their tables. Route books and travelers’ guides lay in uneven stacks below.

Maeril opened several before a worn, stitched volume caught her eye.

Forest of Tethir and Wealdath Margins.

“Wealdath,” Rishi said.

She looked up from the title.

“You wanted to go there.”

He remembered.

“I said it interested me.”

“More than once.”

Maeril narrowed her eyes. “I was attempting subtlety.”

“It did not survive repetition.”

She opened the guide before he could enjoy himself further.

Maeril bent closer to the page. “Moss that grows only beneath ancient shade. Resin you can harvest without wounding the bark.”

Farther down were mushrooms among wet roots and white-veined vines that no sensible hand touched bare.

“A real forest,” Maeril said.

“You have known forests.”

“Not like this one. Not this old. Roots growing through kingdoms and wars. Trees alive before half the borders on these maps were drawn.”

She turned a page with care.

“And this is only the margin.”

They bought the guide and two maps. One was official. The other carried handwritten corrections marking wells, shrines, and the safer crossings.

Rishi studied the guide while Maeril compared the maps. The notes on roots, slopes, and forgotten paths held him longer than any list of plants.

“I would like to see how people move through a forest that old,” he said.

“Of course you would.”

Rishi looked at her. “You want to go.”

Her hand remained on the open page. “Yes.”

“Then we go.”

Maeril’s expression softened.

For a moment, the guide lay open between them while trade flowed on every side. Neither looked back toward the north.

Maeril packed the book where she could reach it.

Before midday, they returned to the inn and collected their packs. They wrapped food, secured the maps, and protected the repair materials against rain.

Soon afterward, they reached the southern edge of town. The Trade Way ran ahead between low grass and hedges, toward Mosstone and the old forest beyond.

Maeril adjusted her satchel. She looked back once, then faced south.

“Come on. Before I buy a third map just to correct it.”

Rishi set his staff to the road.

Together, they left Trademeet and started toward the Wealdath.