Rowen only recognized Marn and Talia among the group. The other two—a sharp-eyed mage with a trimmed beard and a broad-shouldered man in a knight's uniform—were strangers to him. Their presence caught him off guard. For a moment he thought about stepping forward to introduce himself, but Marn's startled expression stopped him.
"Rowen? You… What are you doing here?" Marn blurted out, clearly not expecting to find the boy inside this shabby little shop.
Marn froze as soon as his eyes landed on the boy behind the counter. Rowen.
He remembered him well, one of his sharper students, back before the boy suddenly left school. Marn had urged him then to pursue the scholar's path, to use his mind in service of humanity's survival, perhaps even to help advance the technology that kept the fragile world moving. But Rowen had refused, walking away from the classroom without looking back.
