The town did not welcome them.
It tolerated them.
Lyra felt it the moment they passed through the gate—no guards stopped them, no questions were asked, yet every glance lingered a fraction too long. The kind of place where people learned to survive by noticing who didn't belong.
You stayed silent.
Not hidden—restrained. Your presence was folded inward so tightly that even you could barely feel it. The effort was unfamiliar, like holding breath without lungs.
The streets were narrow, built for shade rather than beauty. Wooden signs creaked above shop doors, their paint faded by sun and dust. People moved with purpose, eyes forward, conversations kept low.
A town that forgot names quickly.
"This place…" Lyra murmured. "No one stays long."
You understood why.
They found lodging in a small inn pressed between a tannery and a shuttered chapel. The innkeeper didn't ask questions. He never did.
"Two coppers," he said, sliding a key across the counter. "No trouble."
Lyra nodded and climbed the stairs.
The room was small. One bed. One window. She leaned your sheath against the wall carefully, as if worried you might bruise.
Only then did she allow herself to relax.
Her shoulders sagged.
"I'm scared," she admitted, staring at her hands. "Not of dying. Of choosing wrong."
You let your presence seep back just enough for her to feel you.
That fear keeps you human, you replied.
She exhaled.
Night fell early.
Voices rose from below—laughter, arguments, the clatter of mugs. You listened not with ears, but with awareness, sensing the currents beneath the noise.
Greed.
Desperation.
Hope, thin but stubborn.
You had felt it before.
"This town is a crossroads," you told her gently. "People pass through to become someone else."
She looked at you sharply. "How do you know that?"
Because you had been held by hands like these before. Hands that wanted to rewrite themselves.
Before she could respond, a knock sounded at the door.
Three short taps.
Controlled.
Lyra stood slowly, heart racing.
She didn't reach for you.
Good.
"Who is it?" she asked.
"A friend," came the reply. "If you're carrying a blade, we should talk."
You felt the pressure immediately—the presence of another Relic nearby.
Awakened.
Watching.
The woman who entered wore traveler's clothes and a half-smile that never reached her eyes. A spear rested against her shoulder, its metal dull and scarred.
But the spear was not the source.
The dagger at her waist was.
Resonant, you realized. But not kind.
"Relax," the woman said. "I'm not with the Sanctum. If I were, you'd already be dead."
Lyra's fingers twitched.
The dagger pulsed, its awareness brushing against yours like a blade scraping stone.
You shouldn't be free, it whispered—not in words, but in intent.
You did not respond.
The woman sighed. "Name's Kaelra. And before you ask—yes, it talks. Constantly."
She tapped the dagger's hilt.
"Most relics do."
You felt the lie beneath that statement.
Most did not choose.
Kaelra leaned against the wall. "The Sanctum is tightening its grip. Towns like this sell names for protection. Borrowed names. Borrowed lives."
She looked at Lyra. "And you're walking around with something they'd burn cities for."
Lyra's jaw tightened. "I didn't ask for this."
"No one does," Kaelra replied. "That's the joke."
Her gaze flicked to you. "Your blade's hiding. Smart. But it won't last."
The dagger at her waist shuddered.
It remembers too much, it hissed.
You met its awareness for the first time.
And recoiled.
It remembered conquest.
After Kaelra left, silence filled the room again.
Lyra sat on the bed, hands clenched.
"That dagger…" she whispered. "It felt wrong."
Yes.
Some relics were forged by what they survived, you said. Others by what they inflicted.
She looked at you then—not as a weapon, not as a guide, but as something fragile.
"You're afraid," she realized.
You did not deny it.
Not of the Sanctum.
Not of destruction.
But of becoming something like that dagger.
Outside, the town slept uneasily.
And somewhere beneath the white stone spires, bells began to ring again.