My body didn't react the way bodies were supposed to.
No collapse.
No scream.
No dramatic fall.
Just stillness.
Like someone reached inside the world and switched it off.
The soldier tried to keep going—because soldiers finished sentences even when they hurt.
"If you can't find her then—"
Nerissa moved.
She stepped in front of me so fast I barely saw it, hands lifting—not to strike.
To refuse.
"That is enough," she said.
Quiet.
And somehow that quiet hit harder than shouting.
The soldier blinked.
Nerissa's eyes sharpened—no longer receptionist, no longer friendly.
Guild.
"Not here," she said. "Not like that. Not to a child."
The soldier's jaw tightened.
His gaze slid past Nerissa, back to me—one heartbeat—then dropped.
He didn't apologize.
Soldiers didn't.
He just nodded once, small and rigid.
"Understood."
Then he stepped around us and out of the hall.
The others followed, boots clacking cleanly against stone like they hadn't just brought ruin through our doors.
Outside, wheels creaked.
Only one cart rolled away—the one carrying Garrand toward the capital.
The guild doors swallowed the sound of hooves as it disappeared down the road.
Barrek's hand hovered near my shoulder like he wanted to grab me and didn't know if he was allowed.
He didn't touch.
Ruth's fingers curled into a fist.
Joren stared at the floor like it might crack and swallow all of us so we wouldn't have to hear the rest.
I stayed still.
My mind reached for the sentence the soldier hadn't finished.
Nerissa blocked it with her body.
She crouched so her eyes were level with mine.
Her hand settled on my shoulder.
Warm.
Steady.
"Trey," she said softly.
My name sounded wrong, like it belonged to a boy in a different day.
"I don't have answers yet," she said. "I'm going to get them. But right now… you need to breathe."
My chest rose.
Fell.
The movement felt optional.
Nerissa's thumb pressed lightly into my shoulder, grounding me like a hand on a ship's rail.
"I want you to stay here," she said. "With me. With people."
People.
The word felt far away.
My mouth opened.
"No," I said.
It came out flat.
Not rude.
Not angry.
Just… a fact.
Nerissa's brows knit. "Trey—"
"I need to go home."
Barrek made a sound in his throat. "Pup, maybe—"
"No," I repeated.
This time my eyes dropped from Nerissa's face.
Not to hands.
To the floor.
To the idea of a table, a door, a house that still smelled like stew.
Nerissa exhaled, long and careful.
She looked at me like she saw something and didn't like it.
"All right," she said.
Then, immediately, "I'm walking you."
Barrek stepped forward like it was obvious. "I'm guarding the house."
Ruth nodded once. "Me too."
Joren scratched the back of his neck, voice strained. "If you're guarding, I'm guarding. I'm not letting you two hog all the guilt."
Nerissa's mouth tightened for a second.
Then she nodded. "Thank you."
Barrek grunted like gratitude made his skin itch.
Ruth rolled her shoulders like she'd just been assigned a job.
Joren tried to grin and failed.
Nerissa guided me toward the door.
As we passed the bench outside, I saw it.
The fruit basket.
The one I'd dropped like it didn't matter.
Apples. Pears. Peaches.
Some bruised now. Some already soft at the edges.
Sweetness turning sharp.
My hand moved without permission.
I picked it up.
The handle bit into my palm.
Nerissa's gaze flicked to it. Her expression tightened, but she didn't comment.
The city was still living.
That felt wrong.
Vendors still shouted. Someone argued with a donkey. A child ran past with a toy sword, shouting victory at nothing.
I didn't hear them.
I heard wet coughing.
I heard wheels.
I heard the soldier's pause before the last.
Nerissa walked beside me.
Barrek, Ruth, and Joren followed behind—close enough to catch me if I fell, not close enough to crowd.
I carried the fruit like it was proof.
Like it could still become a surprise.
My legs took me home.
The door was exactly where it had always been.
The lock was exactly the same.
The house didn't know what the world had done.
Nerissa paused at the step and touched my shoulder once more.
"If you need me," she said quietly, "you can run back to the guild. Any time. Day or night."
My head started to nod automatically.
I stopped myself mid-motion.
My throat tightened.
"I know," I whispered.
Nerissa tried to smile.
It didn't work.
She stepped back.
Barrek shifted slightly, blocking her view of me like he was sparing her the sight of my face.
Ruth leaned on the fence like she was casual.
Joren pretended to examine a crack in the road.
They were all pretending.
I opened the door.
The house smelled like old stew and clean wood.
Like the past.
I stepped inside.
The fruit basket landed on the table with a soft thud.
Peaches rolled.
I didn't catch them.
I closed the door.
The click sounded too loud.
For a breath, the room felt darker.
Not because the sun changed.
Because something inside me finally did.
I stood there.
Alone.
The silence pressed in.
And then it broke.
Not with a scream.
With a small, broken sound that crawled out of my chest like it had been hiding.
My knees hit the floor hard.
Pain shot up my legs.
I didn't care.
My hands grabbed the edge of the table.
My fingers shook.
"Myrina," I said.
The name came out like a crack.
Like a plea.
My hand drifted to the fruit basket.
My thumb pressed into an apple.
Soft.
Too soft.
A dent formed.
Rot breathed up—sweet and wrong.
My throat closed.
A sound tore out of me, louder this time, ugly and raw—the kind of sound you make when something is taken and your body doesn't know where to put the empty.
"I did it," I whispered to the house, like she could hear me from somewhere. "I worked. I got it with my sweat. I picked the stupid quest. I— I—"
My voice collapsed.
The fruit shifted under my shaking hands.
Peaches rolled off the table.
Thud.
Thud.
I flinched at the sound like it was a slap.
My eyes blurred.
Tears spilled—not polite ones.
Not quiet ones.
They poured like my body had been holding them back for a month and the dam finally gave up.
I crawled forward without thinking, forehead pressing into the table edge.
I cried into wood.
Into fruit.
Into the empty space where her boots should've been kicked off.
"You said you'd bring me a souvenir," I sobbed.
The words scraped my throat raw.
My gaze drifted—half blind—to her room door.
The crack under it.
The air that always smelled like leather and stubbornness.
My body moved like it was being pulled by a rope tied to hope.
I stumbled into her room.
The bed was neat.
Neater than she would ever leave it.
Because I had made it neat.
Because I thought I'd be mad at her later for making me do it.
My eyes snapped to the bedside table.
The rock.
The dumb joke she'd planted like a seed.
My hand closed around it.
Cold.
Ordinary.
Just stone.
My fingers squeezed until my knuckles hurt.
"Not funny," I told the empty room.
I stared at the faint charcoal smudge like she'd meant to finish it later.
Later.
The word tore something open.
I staggered back into the main room.
The fruit smell followed—summer turning into punishment.
I dropped the rock onto the table. It bounced once, rolled, stopped.
My hands grabbed the basket handle again.
I tried to lift it.
My arms failed.
The basket tipped.
Fruit spilled.
Apples thudded.
Pears rolled under chairs.
A peach split open on the floor, soft flesh smearing like blood that didn't know what to be.
I stared at it.
And my chest buckled.
A sob punched out of me so hard it stole air.
I clawed at my shirt, at the cord under it, at the guild emblem that was supposed to mean something.
I couldn't make it mean anything.
My legs gave.
I fell.
The world tilted—fruit becoming ceiling, ceiling becoming floor—
And then there was only darkness, and a distant voice calling my name like a rope thrown into deep water.
***
Outside, Barrek had been pretending to lean on the fence like he liked the weather.
Ruth had been pretending to watch the street.
Joren had been pretending he wasn't listening.
None of them were good at pretending.
The first cry hit the street like a knife.
Barrek's shoulders jerked.
Ruth squeezed her eyes shut.
Joren's breath hitched.
"Gods," Joren whispered.
Barrek swallowed hard. "Pup…"
Ruth's voice shook—angry and soft at once. "He's just a kid."
Joren scrubbed his face with both hands like he could wipe the sound away. "No," he rasped. "He's Myrina's kid. She raised him. That's why it hurts like this."
Barrek stared at the door like he could guard the sound out.
"Stay out," he muttered. "He needs it."
Ruth nodded sharply. "He needs it."
The crying kept going—rough, breathless—
Then—
silence.
Not a gentle one.
A sudden one.
Like someone cut a rope.
A heavy thud followed.
Wrong.
Barrek moved first.
He didn't knock.
He pushed the door open.
Ruth and Joren followed.
Rotting fruit hit immediately—sweet and sour.
The table was chaos. Apples scattered. Pears under chairs. A split peach smeared across the floor like an accusation.
And there—
Trey.
Collapsed. Small. Pale.
Hands twitching like they were still trying to hold onto something that wasn't there.
Barrek's chest tightened until it hurt.
"Pup!" he barked—and the word broke.
Ruth dropped to her knees, fingers checking for breath with a gentleness that didn't match her fists. "He's breathing," she snapped, like she was yelling at the world for daring to make her check.
Joren hovered, useless—then his hands finally moved.
He grabbed a cloth and pressed it to my forehead like he'd watched healers do it a thousand times.
"Where's Nerissa?" he whispered, voice cracking.
Barrek scooped me up like I weighed nothing. Like I was something precious someone had dropped.
"Ruth," Barrek growled.
Ruth's head snapped up.
"Run," Barrek ordered. "Get Nerissa. Get a healer. Get anyone who can bring the world back."
Ruth was already moving.
Joren stumbled after her, then paused long enough to glance at the rock on the table—gray, ordinary—like a joke told too early.
Then he ran.
Barrek stood in the doorway with me in his arms, staring at the street like it might offer an explanation.
It didn't.
So he did the only thing he knew how to do.
He held on.