They broke camp at dawn.
The trees were still shadows when Garran kicked dirt over the last of the coals and checked the perimeter one more time. Lysa had already packed her kit and was tightening the straps on her quiver. Naera moved between tents with efficient motions, rolling canvas, muttering a few quiet words as she dispelled the wards she'd set during the night.
Trin helped where he could—collapsing a tent pole here, lifting a crate there. His new armor creaked softly when he moved, the leather still settling to his frame.
"Looks like you survived your first proper field night," Lysa said as she passed him, slinging her bow over one shoulder.
"There were fewer catastrophes than I expected," Trin replied.
"You say that *now*," Garran said, hoisting his pack. "Give it time. The road hasn't heard you brag yet."
"I did not—" Trin began, then let it go. "Very well. I will be careful what I praise."
Naera smirked faintly. "That's the first true sign you're adapting."
They left the hollow where they'd camped and rejoined the old stone way, now bathed in soft morning light. Mist clung in low pockets, seeping out between tree trunks like slow breath. Birds had returned to their usual songs here, far from the dragon's basin, and the air no longer carried that heavy, molten undercurrent.
They walked in a loose formation: Garran at point, Lysa ranging ahead in short sallies, Naera and Trin side by side at a comfortable pace.
"Report first, wash later," Garran was saying. "The captain will want to hear about the lair before we even think about baths or beds."
"Tragic," Lysa sighed. "We find a dragon and still end the day with paperwork."
"Be grateful we're not the ones writing the royal petition," Naera said. "The Arcanum will want to fight over phrasing for weeks."
"They can argue over how to spell 'large angry lizard' all they like," Garran said. "We just have to say where it sleeps."
Trin listened, absorbing the easy rhythm of their complaints. It felt…normal. Pleasant, even.
The first trouble of the day arrived shortly after the sun cleared the highest branches.
Lysa's hand lifted—two fingers, quick and sharp. Garran's fist went up in response, signaling a halt.
"Something's moving ahead," Lysa called softly, already shifting into a low stance. "Four—no, five shapes. Not walking like men."
"Beasts?" Garran asked.
"Likely," Naera said, eyes unfocusing slightly as she reached with her senses. "Blood's hotter. Minds simpler."
Garran slid his shield from his back. "All right. Let's make this quick. No heroics, no chasing stragglers."
Trin flexed his hands, feeling the faint hum of what little power remained in him. It was still there, but shallow, like a well after a long drought. Not enough for miracles. Enough, perhaps, for timing and instinct.
The creatures burst from the undergrowth a heartbeat later—lean, doglike shapes with mottled hides and too many teeth, eyes gleaming with feral hunger. Their bodies were twisted in small, wrong ways: joints bending a little too far, claws too long, patches of scales interrupting fur.
"Wildmutts," Lysa muttered with clear disdain. "Someone's been dumping alchemy waste again."
Garran stepped forward, shield raised. "Hold the line. Let them break on us."
There was no great drama in the fight.
One lunged; Garran met it with his shield, letting its weight glance off before driving his sword into its exposed side. Another veered toward Naera; she flicked her staff, a brief flare of force knocking it sideways long enough for Lysa's arrow to take it cleanly behind the eye.
Trin moved with deliberate control. He was no stranger to combat, but he was learning the limitations of this body—its slower reactions, its finite strength. When a beast snapped at his leg, he pivoted just enough, bringing his forearm down to deflect its head, then drove a short, forceful strike into its throat. The crack was ugly and final.
Within moments, the creatures lay still, dark blood seeping into the dirt.
"Nothing broken?" Garran asked, scanning his people.
"Fine," Lysa said, already retrieving her arrow. "They bite worse than they think."
Naera wiped a smear of gore off her sleeve with a grimace. "Whoever's doing this is getting careless. They're mutating the wildlife too close to the roads."
"Another problem for another patrol," Garran said. "We have our report. Let's keep moving."
They did, leaving the bodies to the forest.
Hours passed. The trees began to thin, the canopy opening enough that patches of sky peeked through. The old road grew more defined: fewer roots, more visible stone. They were, Trin sensed, not far from more settled lands.
He could feel the change in the air—not of power, but of pattern. The forest's wild rhythm was giving way to the subtler geometry of cultivated fields and worn paths.
Which was why the second trouble of the day did not surprise him.
"Stop," Lysa said suddenly, her voice low but edged.
This time, she hadn't ranged far ahead. She stood now in the middle of the road, weight balanced, eyes scanning the trees.
Garran came up beside her. "What is it?"
"Too quiet," she murmured. "Not in the dragon way. In the 'someone told the forest to hush' way."
Naera's fingers brushed the pendant at her neck. "I feel…intent," she said. "Human minds. A cluster of them. Tense."
Trin's gaze swept the tree line. He didn't see anything at first—just trunks, leaves, patches of shadow. Then, slowly, shapes resolved. The subtle line of a bow's limb pressed against bark. The glint of metal in the underbrush. The stale scent of unwashed cloth and oil.
"Ambush," he said quietly.
"Yes," Garran replied. He did not reach for his sword. Not yet. "Show yourselves," he called out, voice carrying. "You're not as invisible as you think."
For a moment, there was no answer.
Then a man stepped out from behind a tree to their left.
He wore a mismatched set of leather and bits of mail, the kind that had seen many owners and few full repairs. A scarf covered the lower half of his face despite the lack of dust. His bow was strung, but the arrow pointed toward the ground—for now.
"Road tax," he said. His voice tried for authority and landed somewhere near strained bravado. "For using our stretch."
"Your stretch?" Garran asked. "Funny. I don't see your name on the stones."
"Stones don't belong to anyone," the man said. "Land does. We keep it safe. You pay, we let you pass."
"Safe from what?" Lysa muttered. "Heavy purses?"
Naera's eyes flicked through the trees again. "Four on the left," she murmured under her breath, "three on the right. Two behind us, poorly hidden."
"Bandits," Trin said softly.
"Desperate, not stupid—yet," Naera replied.
Garran exhaled. "We're not here for blood," he called to the leader. "We're scouts. Freewardens. We have news the crown will want yesterday. You hold us here, and you'll have more than us to worry about when they find out why the report was late."
The bandit shifted, uncertainty flickering across his eyes. "Freewardens still pay," he said, but with less conviction.
"We can pay," Lysa said. "In advice. Pick better targets."
That earned a soft chuckle from Trin despite the tension.
The bandit's jaw tightened. He lifted his bow, the arrow rising to point at Garran's chest. Around them, other archers revealed themselves more clearly, bows drawn, strings creaking.
"Coin," the leader insisted. "Now."
Garran's expression hardened. "No."
The arrow loosed.
Trin saw the moment Malachor would have called the wind, the moment Althera might have folded space. Nothing like that answered him now. There was only the hiss of the arrow, the curve of its path, the simple mathematics of its speed.
It was not aimed at Garran.
The leader's hand had twitched at the last moment, thrown by doubt or fear or some half-conscious calculation. The arrow flew toward the one who had not yet drawn a weapon.
Toward Trin.
Naera saw it too late to throw more than a flicker of force. Lysa's hand jerked, but her own arrow hadn't left the string yet. Garran's shield was a hair out of line.
The shaft struck Trin square in the left side of his chest, just below the collarbone.
He staggered with the impact—not in pain, exactly, but from the surprise of the blunt force. The arrowhead punched through leather and cloth with a dull sound.
For a heartbeat, the world narrowed to that point of contact.
The old instinct rose: to step away from harm, to rewrite the moment, to unmake the arrow's trajectory. But there was no time, and that power was too shallow now to wield so carelessly.
So instead, he simply…accepted it.
The bandit leader's eyes widened, triumph and horror warring as he realized what he'd done.
"Wrong move," Garran growled.
In the span of that breath, everything exploded into motion.
Lysa's arrow flew, pegging the man's bow hand before he could reach for a second shaft. He screamed, dropping the weapon. Garran surged forward, shield up, rushing the front line before they could regroup.
Naera's staff flared as she sent a ripple of concussive force to the right, knocking two archers off their perches behind trees. They went down hard, breath driven from their lungs.
On the edges of it all, Trin stood very still.
He looked down at the arrow jutting from his chest. It had sunk deep enough that, on a normal man, it would have been serious. Maybe fatal, if the head had nicked something vital.
He felt a faint sting. An odd, distant pressure. That was all.
He wrapped his fingers around the shaft.
Naera, mid-incantation, saw the motion out of the corner of her eye and nearly lost her spell.
Trin pulled.
The arrow slid free with a wet sound, dragging a short smear of blood with it. Naera's breath caught—but even as she watched, the wound beneath began to knit.
The skin closed as if the injury were being rewound, the edges drawing together, the torn flesh sealing without scar. The blood stopped almost immediately, leaving only a dark stain on the torn cloth.
The pain never spiked beyond a dull ache.
Trin glanced at the blood on his fingers, then at the bandits still scrambling in the underbrush. No one else had seen. Garran was in the thick of it, shield slamming, blade swinging in controlled arcs. Lysa moved like a shadow, loosing at close range, using her bow like a staff when someone got too near. The bandits were already breaking—this had never been meant as a fight against trained fighters, only a robbery against easy prey.
Only Naera was looking at him.
Her eyes were wide, amber irises ringed with a thin halo of crackling light as her mage-sight kicked into sharper focus. For a moment, she was no longer watching the skirmish—she was watching *him*.
Trin met her gaze.
He did not smile. He did not flinch. He simply held up the blood-slick arrow for a heartbeat, as if to acknowledge what had happened, then dropped it to the dirt.
Naera swallowed, forcing herself back into motion. She flicked her staff in a sharp arc, sending a lance of shimmering force to slam into a bandit who'd tried to flank Garran. He went down with a grunt.
The fight didn't last long.
Outnumbered in skill if not in bodies, the bandits faltered quickly once their initial volley failed. Two lay groaning on the ground, weapons knocked away. One had fled outright, crashing noisily through the trees. The leader knelt clutching his pierced hand, eyes flicking between Garran's sword and the arrow lying by Trin's boot.
"Please," he stammered. "We just—we needed coin—"
"This is the wrong way to ask for it," Garran said coldly. "You're lucky we have orders that don't include cleaning this road of every fool with a bow."
Lysa rolled her shoulders, expression tight. "Take their weapons," she said. "And the better of their boots. If they want to keep preying on travelers, they can do it barefoot."
Naera moved among the fallen, checking briefly for serious injuries. She bound a sprain here, muttered a numbing charm there. It was more mercy than the bandits deserved, but less than she would have given honest farmers.
Trin stayed back, hand pressed lightly over the torn spot in his armor. The skin beneath was smooth and whole. Only the ache, fading now, suggested the arrow had ever been there.
As they stripped the bandits of their gear and sent them limping into the trees with a stern warning and far fewer weapons, Naera drifted back toward him.
"You're hurt," she said softly, for the benefit of any listening ears.
"I was," he corrected.
She hesitated, eyes flicking briefly to the arrow on the ground, then to the unmarred skin under his fingers.
"Later," she murmured under her breath. "When we're alone."
He inclined his head, the gesture almost imperceptible.
Garran rejoined them, wiping his blade on a bandit's discarded cloak. "Everyone intact?" he asked.
"Mostly bruised egos," Lysa said. "And one arrow we'll have to replace."
Garran frowned. "It hit anyone?"
"Glanced off the crafter," Lysa said, already half-turning. "Didn't look too deep."
Garran's gaze flicked briefly to Trin. "You good?"
"I'll mend the cloth when we reach town," Trin said evenly. "No lasting harm."
Garran grunted, accepting that, and turned back to the road. "Then let's move. The sooner we're inside walls, the better."
They walked the last stretch with renewed wariness, though no further threats appeared.
By the time the trees finally thinned to reveal open ground, the sun had tilted toward afternoon. Fields spread out ahead of them in gentle waves—patches of grain, vegetable plots, the occasional orchard. Smoke curled from chimneys within sight of the town walls, and the muted murmur of distant voices carried on the wind.
The town itself—Arlindale's eastern outpost, modest but sturdy—rose at the end of the road. Its walls were not high stone like a capital's, but thick timber palisades reinforced with earthworks and watchtowers. Banners bearing Vaelion's crest—the crowned stag—hung limp in the still air.
Garran's posture shifted subtly as they approached the gate, shoulders squaring. Lysa's steps grew more relaxed; she twirled an arrow between her fingers as if she'd never been tense at all. Naera adjusted her cloak, smoothing down the inked lines along her jaw.
Trin took it in quietly—the guards in chain shirts at the gate, their eyes sharp but not cruel; the way people glanced at the Freewardens' insignia and relaxed a fraction.
"You two go straight to the garrison," Naera said to Garran and Lysa. "The captain will want the report while it's fresh. I'll see Trin settled."
"You're not wriggling out of telling him about the dragon," Garran warned.
"I wouldn't dream of it," she replied. "I just prefer not to do it when I still smell like road dust and wildmutt."
Garran snorted. At the gate, he exchanged a brief nod with the sergeant on duty, a woman with a scar across her nose.
"Freewardens returning from eastern sweep," he said. "Confirmed dragon sign north by the old stone way. Details to follow."
The sergeant's expression tightened. "You always bring such cheerful news, Garran."
"It's a gift," he said. He reached to his belt, unfastened a small leather pouch, and turned to Trin.
"You earned this," he said, pressing it into Trin's hand.
Trin looked at the pouch, feeling the subtle clink of coins within. "For the straps," Garran continued. "And the gear repairs. And not falling apart under pressure. That last part is more valuable than the leather, frankly."
"I did not join you with the expectation of payment," Trin said.
"That's how you know you deserve it," Lysa said, grinning. "Take it. If you start turning down coin, the town will think we're cursed."
Naera's smile was softer. "Consider it your first official wage in Vaelion," she said. "You're not a stray we dragged in anymore. You're a contractor."
"A contractor," Trin repeated, tasting the word.
"It means you're allowed to complain about taxes now," Lysa said.
Garran jerked his head toward the inner streets. "Naera will show you to the inn," he said. "We'll find you later, if the captain doesn't rope us into overnight watch."
Trin inclined his head slightly. "I'll have a needle ready if he does."
"Good man," Garran said.
They parted at the gate, Garran and Lysa heading toward the garrison house near the wall, Naera and Trin turning toward the town's modest main street.
Buildings crowded close together here, mostly timber and stone, with small shops on the ground floors and living quarters above. The smell of baking bread, tanned leather, and something frying in oil drifted on the air. People moved about their business—traders, children, a pair of soldiers off-duty.
Naera led him to a squat building with a painted sign swinging gently above the door: a stylized mug and a crescent moon. The **Copper Crescent Inn**.
"Not the finest in Vaelion," Naera said, "but the beds don't crawl and the stew probably won't kill you. High praise in some circles."
Trin glanced up at the sign, then at her. "You're not staying here?"
"Freewardens have bunks near the garrison," she said. "Packed, noisy, full of snoring. You're spared that joy, at least for tonight."
He hesitated. "You don't need to vouch for me," he said. "I can find a place."
"I know," she replied. "But it's easier if I do."
They stepped inside together.
The inn's common room was dim but warm, the air thick with the scent of stew, spilled ale, and smoke. A few patrons sat at scattered tables—traders, a pair of off-duty guards, a woman in a stained apron counting coins behind the bar.
Naera approached the bar, exchanged a few words with the innkeep, and slid a couple of coins across. She gestured toward Trin as she spoke, the innkeep's eyes flicking to him briefly, then softening in recognition of the Freewarden insignia on Naera's cloak.
"Room for a few nights," Naera said when she returned to him. "Paid in advance. You can use the rest of what Garran gave you for food, supplies, whatever else you need."
Trin closed his fingers around the pouch at his belt. "You didn't have to do that," he said.
"I know," she said. "But you're less likely to wander off into the woods and get thrown at another tree if you have a bed."
"Accurate," he admitted.
She hesitated, her gaze dipping briefly to the spot on his chest where the arrow had struck.
"When you've settled," she said quietly, "I'd like to talk. Somewhere not full of ears."
He met her eyes. "I expected as much."
"I won't say anything to the others," she added. "Not until I understand what I saw. And what it means."
"Thank you," he said.
Naera gave a small nod, then stepped back. "Rest," she said. "Eat. Try to remember what it's like to stop moving without waiting for something to stab you."
"I will try," he said.
She turned toward the door. At the threshold, she paused and glanced back.
"And Trin?" she said.
"Yes?"
"When you pulled that arrow out," she said softly, "you didn't even wince."
He thought for a moment. "I've had worse," he said.
She gave him a long, searching look, then nodded once and left.
Trin stood in the quiet of the inn's common room for a heartbeat longer, feeling the weight of the pouch at his belt, the phantom ache where the arrow had been, and the gaze of a mage who had seen too much and said nothing—for now.
Then, slowly, he moved toward the stairs, toward the small rented room where, for the first time in this new world, he would sleep under a roof of his own paying.