The Friendly Arm Inn was safer than the road.
It was also worse than advertised.
I had taken the time to look over what passed for inventory — a habit I hadn't shaken yet. Weapons I already understood. Armor I couldn't afford to wear without dying first. A handful of consumables that promised solutions to problems I wasn't convinced I could survive long enough to have.
Nothing that justified turning a diamond into coin.
So I left it where it was, weight steady at my belt, potential unresolved.
We made it three steps beyond the gate before the road reminded me why people paid for walls.
The inn was already shrinking behind us — its bulk still visible over the trees, but distant enough that its safety felt theoretical rather than present. The Coast Way ahead lay open and indifferent, the kind of stretch that didn't care where you'd come from.
Jaheira stopped first. She didn't raise her staff or signal alarm — she simply halted, eyes narrowing as she took in the space ahead. Khalid mirrored her instinctively, shield still strapped despite the open gate behind us, his gaze flicking between the road and the guards already relaxing back into routine.
Montaron drifted toward the edge of the path, not retreating so much as positioning himself closer to consequences. Imoen slowed, curiosity overtaking momentum. Xzar smiled faintly, which was never encouraging.
That's when I saw her.
A woman sat just off the road, knees drawn up, face buried in her hands. She wasn't hiding. She wasn't blocking the path. She had chosen the precise distance that suggested she wanted to be noticed, but not enough to demand it.
No signs of a struggle.
No scattered belongings.
No one else nearby to explain why she was alone.
This sort of thing rarely held for long.
"Oh," Imoen said quietly. "That's… not good."
"This road does not reward solitude," Jaheira said.
Khalid frowned. "Sh-she's alone."
"That's the problem," Montaron replied.
Xzar leaned past me, peering into the treeline with open interest. "Most intriguing. This stretch usually resolves such situations decisively."
Jaheira shot him a look sharp enough to end the thought. "Enough."
The woman looked up as we approached. Her eyes were red, unfocused — not theatrical. Relief crossed her face when she saw us, immediate and unguarded.
"Please," she said. "I don't know who else to ask."
That tracked. People who survived long enough to ask usually learned who not to.
"What happened?" Jaheira asked.
"Hobgoblins."
The word landed poorly.
My mind did the arithmetic before anyone else spoke. Hobgoblins on the Coast Way usually meant absence, not aftermath.
"How many?" Montaron asked.
"Three. Maybe four."
"They took something," the woman said, as if that resolved everything.
Montaron's eyes sharpened. "What?"
She raised her left hand. Her fingers curled automatically around absence. "A ring," she said. "My father gave it to me."
I looked at her hand. Clean. No swelling. No torn skin.
So a hobgoblin had closed a fist around her wrist, applied enough force to remove jewelry, and decided that was sufficient.
Xzar leaned closer, fascinated. "Theft without slaughter. A rare behavioral deviation."
"They took only the ring," Jaheira said.
"Yes."
"And then left."
"Yes."
Montaron exhaled slowly. "Clumsy."
For a moment, the shape of the situation felt familiar — too familiar. A woman by the road. Hobgoblins nearby. A missing ring. A detour presenting itself as a choice.
I cut the thought off before it finished forming.
This wasn't memory. It was consequence.
Hobgoblins had been involved.
A ring was missing.
A woman was alive when experience suggested she shouldn't be.
Which meant — if this world continued to behave the way it had been —
I wasn't done here yet.
Montaron didn't say anything until we were well clear of the inn.
Not when the woman's voice cracked. Not when Imoen lingered, clearly waiting for someone older to decide what kind of people we were going to be. He waited until the Friendly Arm was far enough behind us that no one could pretend its walls meant anything.
Then Khalid spoke.
"W-we should help her," he said, quietly but firmly. "She's alone. And frightened."
Jaheira slowed, just enough to signal concern without stopping outright. "The road south is already unsettled," she said. "Every interference shifts the balance further. We don't yet know the cost."
Khalid swallowed. "If we leave her, that's a cost too."
Jaheira looked at him for a long moment, weighing.
Montaron snorted. "Normally, I'd agree with her."
That drew attention.
"I don't care about the ring," he said. "Not hers. Not what it's worth. Folk lose trinkets every mile on this road."
"That's reassuring," Imoen muttered.
"It's true," Montaron said. "What matters is where ye stop and where ye don't."
He jerked his chin back the way we'd come.
"We already bent course once," he went on. "Picked you two up. That made sense. World's rough enough without leavin' folk standin' in it."
Jaheira inclined her head slightly.
"But ye don't keep bendin' forever," Montaron said. "Sooner or later ye ain't goin' anywhere."
"And this woman?" Jaheira asked.
"This woman's noise," Montaron said flatly. "But hobgoblins ain't."
He glanced at me.
"Hobgoblins mean a fight whether we go lookin' or not," he continued. "They don't care about balance. They'll be there tomorrow even if we ain't."
Xzar hummed softly. "A persistent problem."
Montaron ignored him.
"So if we stray again," he said, "might as well be for somethin' useful."
Khalid frowned. "Y-you mean her?"
"No," Montaron said. "I mean him."
His eyes stayed on me.
"Bear already showed where ye slip," he said. "Hobgoblins'll show it clearer."
Imoen blinked. "So this is—what. Practice?"
Montaron shrugged. "Call it what ye like."
He angled off the road toward a patch of open ground.
"Before we meet 'em," he said, "we see what breaks."
Montaron didn't wait for agreement.
He stopped in the open ground and finally looked at me the way he hadn't yet — not as company, not as inconvenience, but as weight he might have to carry.
"Draw."
Imoen blinked. "Now?"
"Now," Montaron said. "Before it matters."
I hesitated — just long enough to feel it register — and brought my weapon up. Not wrong. Not clean either.
"Already," he muttered.
He moved without warning. Not fast — not yet — but close enough that I had to react instead of think. I stepped back, misjudged the ground, and felt the same slip I'd felt with the bear. Smaller this time. Still there.
Montaron knocked my blade aside and crowded my space.
"Dead."
He shoved me back half a step. I caught myself. Barely.
"That wasn't—"
"Ye're a bard," Montaron said flatly. "I know."
I blinked.
"Ye sing. Ye talk. Ye live by bein' somewhere else when steel comes out."
His eyes flicked over my stance, unimpressed.
"I don't expect great."
He stepped in again.
"But I didn't expect this."
That stung more than the shove.
"Bards ain't meant to win fights," he went on. "But they're meant to last long enough for someone else to."
He knocked my guard aside again, easy.
"Right now," he said, "ye ain't doin' either."
He came again.
I tried to adjust — lighter feet, eyes up, less thought.
He feinted. I flinched.
His blade rested against my ribs.
"Also dead."
"Ye think too much," he said. "Then ye panic and stop thinkin' at all."
Again. Cleaner.
"Ye watch yer blade, not me."
"Ye step back in straight lines."
"That stumble? That's where the bear had ye."
That one stayed.
I shifted. Shortened my retreat. Stayed upright.
Montaron noticed.
"That's recovery," he said. "Slow. But it's somethin'."
Then he pressed harder.
"Now stop waitin'."
"No," he snapped when I tried to answer. "Ye're survivin'. That ain't the same."
"Defense keeps you alive," he said. "But it don't end fights."
I blocked, redirected.
"And fights that don't end get other folk killed."
He feinted, watching.
I didn't answer.
"Still dead," he said. "'Cause ye never made me worry."
"Again."
He stepped back just enough.
"Now," he said. "Make me answer."
I lunged.
Too wide. Too eager. The slash cut air.
"That was awful."
"You're hard to hit," I said.
"Because I'm good."
"And because you're small."
A thin giggle drifted from behind me.
"Hush," Montaron said, without looking at Xzar.
The sound died instantly.
"Try again," Montaron said. "And try better."
I shortened the motion. Cut the arc down. Aimed not for him, but for where he was about to be.
He had to move.
"There," he said. "That."
He came back at me immediately. I scrambled, recovered, stayed forward.
"You don't need to hit," he said. "Just need to make 'em react."
I tried again. Ugly. Deliberate.
This time he broke contact himself.
"That's offense," he said. "Sloppy. Incomplete. But it changes things."
He sheathed his blade.
"When ye're scared," he said, "ye'll want to pull back. Don't. Step in. Make 'em answer ye."
"Hobgoblins'll swarm," he added over his shoulder. "If ye only react, ye're already dead."
Then he walked off.
Imoen stared. "He knows that wasn't fair, right?"
Jaheira didn't look at her. "Fair was never the goal."
I stayed where I was, replaying not the strikes, but the spaces between them.
Once, I would've labeled Montaron easily. Evil.
Xzar too. Madness and menace, neatly boxed.
It had been simple, before, to believe the world worked that way.
Montaron hadn't taught me how to win.
He'd taught me how not to be the reason someone else died.
That didn't make him good. Or kind. Or safe.
But it made him more than a label.
And that realization unsettled me more than the bruises would have.