Trin left the staff where it leaned against the wall.
He paused a moment with his hand on the door, eye flicking back to the smooth length of wood, the subtle path‑marks along its grain. It would be easy to bring it now, to press it into Naera's hands and try to explain what even he barely understood.
Too easy.
"Not yet," he murmured.
He stepped out, closed the door behind him, and went to work.
***
The barracks felt different when he entered as a craftsman rather than a guest.
The yard was already alive with motion: recruits running drills in the packed dirt, practice weapons clacking, Garran calling corrections from the sidelines. The smell of sweat and oil and early-morning dust hung in the air.
Trin made his way to the side building that had become his unofficial corner—a space half storage, half workshop, with a broad table pushed against one wall and a few shelves cleared for tools and gear.
A pile of work waited for him.
Straps frayed almost through. A leather breastplate with a split seam. A scabbard threatening to come apart along its edge. A knife whose handle had cracked down the middle. Nothing catastrophic. Nothing glamorous. Just the ongoing entropy of a company that spent most of its time near trouble.
He rolled out his tools with a practiced motion.
The awl, the knife, the clamps. Thread, leather scraps, a small pot of oil. These were simple things, but his hands relaxed around them in a way they never had around weapons.
He began.
He was careful.
He could, with even the limited power he'd regained, have hardened the leather beyond normal wear, subtly altered the grain, coaxed the fibers into a strength no ordinary tanner could manage. He could have smoothed metal in ways that would have made blades keep an edge twice as long.
But every improvement beyond "plausible" would raise questions. He did not want to become the miracle worker of Arlindale. He wanted to be the man whose repairs held and whose work didn't fail under strain. That was enough.
So he held back.
He tracked himself deliberately, matching the pace and precision of a skilled mortal craftsman rather than the near-effortless perfection his instincts reached for. When his stitches started to form a pattern too clean, too mathematically exact, he forced his fingers to vary slightly—still neat, still strong, but human.
Each piece he finished ended up equal to or slightly better than before. Not transformed. Just…reassuring.
He reinforced a strap with a double stitch that would distribute strain better along the length. He re-shaped a cracked knife handle into something that fit more naturally into the hand, hiding the repair line under a simple wrap. He patched a breastplate seam from the inside, tying off the thread with a knot that would resist fraying longer than the original.
From time to time, one of the Freewardens dropped in.
"Got a split on my shoulder guard," a woman said, setting the piece down with a respectful nod.
"Leave it there," Trin replied. "You'll have it back before evening."
Later, a young recruit hovered nervously with a broken belt loop in his hands. "Can you—?"
"Yes," Trin said simply. "Put it with the rest."
Word spread in that quiet way things do in tight-knit places. There was no announcement, no proclamation. Just the accumulating fact that if something was shoddy or failing, it found its way to the corner where Trin worked, and it came back trustworthy.
Days slipped into a rhythm.
In the mornings, he walked from the inn to the barracks, sometimes sharing the road with Naera if their departures happened to coincide. She was quieter than before, more thoughtful, eyes lingering on small interactions in the yard as if seeing lines between people that hadn't been visible to her before.
During the day, he mended and reinforced, occasionally stepping out to watch drills or to stretch his legs around the yard. Garran would toss him a comment now and then.
"Straps holding?" he'd ask after a particularly rough sparring session.
"They will," Trin would answer.
Lysa came by with bowstrings and once with a leather armguard that had taken the brunt of a mis-aimed blow. "If you keep stitching," she told him, "I might need to find new excuses for missing shots."
"Please don't," he said. "Your current excuses are very creative."
She laughed and left him with her gear.
In the evenings, he returned to the inn, ate whatever was set before him, and sat for a while with his back against the wall, letting his thoughts unfurl and then quiet again. Sometimes he meditated, feeling for that slow-growing flame of power. Sometimes he simply listened to the inn's hum and reminded himself that not every moment required a cosmic decision.
Nothing of note happened.
And that was, in its own way, remarkable.
The world did not crack. No dragons walked into town in human finery. No voids opened in temple floors. The worst that happened was a recruit spraining an ankle in a botched roll and the cook burning a batch of bread.
Trin let the routine settle around him like a cloak. He knew it was temporary. Such quiet never lasted in his experience. But for those few days, he allowed himself to live in it fully.
On the fourth morning, the pattern shifted.
He was halfway through re-stitching the edge of a battered scabbard when Garran's shadow blocked the light at the workshop door.
"Got a moment?" Garran asked.
Trin glanced up. Garran wasn't alone. Captain Mereth stood beside him, arms folded, expression as unreadable as ever.
"I seem to," Trin said, setting the scabbard aside.
Mereth stepped in, the authority of her presence immediately shrinking the room. "You've settled into your niche quickly," she said, eyeing the neat rows of repaired gear. "No complaints so far. That's rare."
"I try to keep my failures small," Trin replied.
Mereth's mouth twitched. "Good instinct," she said. "Unfortunately, I'm here to invite you into something larger."
She nodded toward the yard. "The initial dragon report has traveled up the chain. The crown and the Arcanum want more than a few lines in a courier's packet. They want detailed testimony. Questions answered. Maps drawn."
Trin nodded slowly. "That sounds expected."
"They want it in Lorenfell," Mereth continued. "In person. With people who actually saw the lair and felt the air change." She looked between Garran and Trin. "Which means I'm sending a small delegation to the capital."
Garran shifted his weight. "Myself," he said. "Naera. Lysa. And, if you're willing—" he nodded at Trin "—you."
Trin raised an eyebrow. "You need someone to draw better maps than your recruits?"
"That, and someone who can answer uncomfortable questions about strange presences without panicking," Mereth said. "Garran tells me you're unnervingly calm when the world tilts. The Arcanum will either like that or hate it. Either way, they'll find you useful."
"And," Garran added, "you patch things. If something fails on the road, I'd rather have you with us than sitting here reading about it."
Trin considered.
Lorenfell. The capital. More eyes. More structures of power. More potential for his presence to ripple in ways he couldn't easily control. But also…more information. More threads. More chances to understand this world Althera had grown, beyond one border town and a dragon's lair.
"Who requested this specifically?" he asked.
Mereth shrugged. "Officially? The king's council. Unofficially? The Arcanum of Loren. They get jumpy when someone mentions old powers in new places."
Of course, Trin thought. The same institution that had shaped Naera would not sit quietly at rumors of dragons and strange men who did not bleed properly.
"You're not obligated," Mereth said. "You're a contractor, not sworn. If you decline, we'll manage. But." Her gaze sharpened. "If you go, you get coin, protection under our banner on the road, and a voice in what tale gets told in the capital. It may be wise to have that."
He weighed it.
Leaving meant opportunity and risk. Staying meant…hiding. Waiting. Hoping that not moving would somehow keep danger at bay. He'd tried that once in a larger cosmos. It had not gone well.
"I'll go," he said.
Garran's shoulders eased a fraction. "Good," he said. "We leave at first light two days from now. Travel light. It's a decent ride, and the roads aren't always kind."
Mereth nodded once. "Settle your affairs here," she said. "Whatever you're working on now, finish what you can or store it. We'll square accounts with you before you leave."
She turned and strode out, already calling for another sergeant before she'd fully cleared the doorway.
Garran lingered.
"You sure?" he asked Trin. "Capital's loud. Crowded. Full of people who like to pick at things until they make them bleed."
"I've met worse," Trin said. "But I appreciate the warning."
Garran grunted. "We'll be back," he said. "Probably. With more paperwork and fewer illusions about dragons."
"That sounds like most journeys worth taking," Trin replied.
Garran snorted and left him to his work.
Trin looked around the workshop, at the familiar clutter of leather, metal, wood, and thread. He finished the seam he'd started, tying off the thread neatly, then set the scabbard on the "done" pile.
By evening, he'd cleared or sorted everything that needed immediate attention. He let himself walk through the yard one more time, watching recruits stumble and improve, listening to the ordinary shouts and clatter. He didn't say goodbye. There was no need. He would, with luck, return.
Back at the inn, he climbed the stairs to his room.
The staff still waited where he'd left it.
He glanced at it, then at his pack on the floor.
He owned very little now. A few changes of clothes. His tools. The armor he'd remade. A small pouch of coin from his work. The staff for Naera.
He packed with the efficiency of someone who had moved between worlds with far more and far less. Clothing rolled tight. Tools wrapped in cloth. Coin tucked where it would be safe but accessible.
The staff he picked up last.
It felt balanced in his hand, the carved grooves fitting his fingers easily. He imagined Naera's grip instead, the way her new perception might resonate through the wood.
"Soon," he said under his breath. "On the road, perhaps. When there is no priest to drop baskets."
He propped it gently by the door, ready to take with him in the morning.
Then he went downstairs to settle his account.
The innkeep counted the coins with quick, practiced movements, then nodded. "You heading out?" she asked.
"For a while," Trin said. "To the capital."
"Don't let them turn you into something you're not," she said. "Places like that love to name people and then treat the name instead of the person."
"I'll keep that in mind," he replied.
She waved him off with a flick of her rag. "Safe roads, then. And if you come back, the stew will still be average."
"I find that oddly reassuring," Trin said.
Back in his room, he checked the pack one more time, then set it within easy reach of the bed. The staff rested beside it like a quiet promise.
He extinguished the lamp, lay down, and let the room's familiar shadows wrap around him one last time.
Tomorrow, the road to Lorenfell would open. For tonight, there was only the simple weight of his few belongings and the steady knowledge that, for now, he had chosen to walk toward the heart of this world rather than away from it.
Sleep came without dreams.