They had never written it down.
The list existed only because it had to. A thing spoken once, half-joking, half-serious, and then remembered because none of them were foolish enough to pretend it wasn't necessary.
What if more than one of us dies?
Rysa had wondered aloud one night, as if she were asking about the weather.
The inn had been loud. Warm. The kind of place where conversations bled into one another and no one paid much attention to a group tucked into the far corner.
"I want mine returned first," Rysa had declared.
She planted her heel squarely on the table for emphasis, tankard sloshing dangerously close to the edge. Mud still clung to her boot. Whether from the road or from a bar fight earlier that evening was unclear.
Ilen reacted instantly.
"That's not fair," he shot back, leaning forward in his chair. "I've been here longer. I should go first."
Before Kifk could even open his mouth, Havel cut in.
"Rysa," he said, voice light, almost amused, "get those stinking feet off the table."
It sounded like a joke. It always did when Havel corrected her in public.
Rysa grinned, but she didn't push it. She lowered her leg without argument, the heel thumping softly against the floor. Whatever lecture she was going to get later would be private. That was the unspoken rule.
Bram hadn't said anything yet.
He shovelled another spoonful of mashed potatoes into his mouth, chewing slowly, eyes moving between them as the argument reignited. When he finally spoke, it was between bites, voice calm and unhurried.
"I think it's not a bad idea," he said.
No one interrupted him. Bram didn't speak often, but when he did, people tended to listen.
"If there's a list," he continued, swallowing, "it should exist for a reason. Emergencies. Confusion. Situations where nobody's thinking straight."
Rysa snorted. Ilen was already forming another protest.
Bram lifted his spoon slightly, forestalling them without looking up.
"Havel and I should be last," he said simply. "You lot can argue about the rest."
He nodded, quick and decisive, the way he did when a matter was already settled in his mind.
"Agreed."
He turned toward Rysa and Ilen just as they launched back into their argument, voices overlapping, each convinced the other was missing the point entirely. Kifk watched them for a moment, uncertain whether he was supposed to step in or simply let it burn itself out.
No one had mentioned him yet.
No one mentioned Maelin either.
She sat quietly beside him, hands folded in her lap, her attention drifting between the two of them with a soft, almost amused expression. As the argument continued, she leaned slightly toward Kifk.
"Makes you wonder," she murmured. "They're fighting over who gets special treatment… when they're already dead."
The words caught him off guard.
Kifk laughed before he could stop himself.
She was right. Absurdly right. And the fact that none of them seemed to notice made it even funnier.
Rysa snapped her head around. "What are you laughing at?" she demanded.
Kifk opened his mouth—but she waved him off before he could answer. "Never mind. We figured it out."
Maelin blinked. Kifk frowned. "Figured what out?"
Ilen straightened in his chair, grinning like he'd just solved a grand puzzle. "Whoever throws a rock the farthest—wins."
Kifk stared at him.
For one brief second, his face went completely serious.
Then he burst out laughing again.
Rysa was already on her feet, draining the last of her ale before slamming the tankard down and heading for the door. Ilen followed close behind, smug and energetic. Everyone else trailed after them—everyone except Bram, who remained seated long enough to finish his meal.
Outside, the air was cold and sharp. Kifk and Maelin stood off to the side, watching as Havel disappeared into the dark and returned with two stones of roughly equal size.
"If you're going to do something stupid," he said dryly, weighing them in his hands, "do it fairly."
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Kifk asked Rysa. "You're drunk."
"I'm confident," she snapped.
She lost.
She spent the next few weeks insisting her rock had been heavier, or the ground uneven, or Ilen had cheated somehow. Havel shut her down every time.
But that was the night they agreed.
Ilen first.
Then Rysa.
Then Maelin.
Then Kifk.
Then Havel.
Then Bram.
The sun began to rise.
Kifk had been walking all night, guided by the moon's pale reflection on stone and water. His body ached for rest, but his mind refused it. Every step forward felt less like travel and more like momentum—if he stopped, something inside him might finally collapse.
Ilen had joined the group long before he did.
Sixteen years ago, Bram had told him, on one of the rare nights when drink loosened his tongue. Bram had been young then—barely into his twenties—but already exhausted. Not by work, but by people. By the corruption merchants called trade, by the quiet cruelty that hid behind contracts and coin.
He told the story twice a year at most. Always the same way. Usually under pressure from Rysa, who insisted he was "getting sentimental again."
He had quit his job as a caravan guard and left without looking back.
He never spoke of the life he'd abandoned.
On the road south, Bram crossed the Valem River. He used to joke about it later—said it felt biblical, like something out of the old stories of the Great Mother. In the reeds along the bank, half-hidden among drifting branches, he found a basket.
Inside was a baby.
The child was sick. Fevered. Weak. Left there deliberately. Bram had said the parents were probably afraid—afraid of contagion, of burden, of what sickness demanded from the living.
He couldn't leave him.
Bram wasn't a religious man. Abandoned by mana, people called it—those born unable to wield magic. Most of them turned away from the gods entirely. Bram had been one of them.
But he carried the child with him anyway.
He fed him. Wrapped him. Walked slower. Traded comfort for hope. And still, the baby worsened.
One night, as winter tightened its grip, Bram tried to reach another village—one with a church, with priests who might know something he didn't. The blizzard came before he arrived.
Snow erased the road.
The cold bit deep.
Alone between villages, holding a dying child, Bram did the only thing left to him.
He prayed.
He told them later that he fell to his knees in the snow and called out to Elythera, goddess of health. Not with faith. Not with belief.
With desperation.
A beam of light came down.
That was all he remembered.
When he woke, the storm was gone. The baby slept quietly in his arms. The fever had broken. The sickness had vanished as if it had never been there.
That was the night Bram named him.
Ilen.
One touched by Elythera.