The walk back to the ruins was slow, my ribs still protesting every uneven step. Seres matched my pace without comment, her basket now heavy with roots and leaves I didn't recognize. When we returned, the children were already awake—Nico and Kai wrestling by the fire pit, Mia grinding dried herbs with a stone, Ethan sharpening his knife with methodical strokes. Luna was nowhere to be seen, though a half-whittled bird figure left on the bench told me she hadn't gone far.
Seres set her basket down and gestured for me to follow again, this time toward the sound of rushing water. The river was wider than I'd expected, its clear water cutting through the forest like a silver blade. Smooth stones lined the bank, worn down by centuries of current. The air here was different—fresh and alive, carrying the scent of wet rock and something faintly sweet I couldn't name.
Mia was already there, kneeling at the water's edge with a woven net. She looked up as we approached, her dark eyes brightening when she saw Seres' basket. "Firra?" she asked, already reaching for the leaves.
Seres nodded and handed her a bundle before turning to me. She pointed to the river, then to the empty water skins at her belt. A simple instruction: Fill these.
I knelt beside Mia, the cool water swirling around my fingers as I submerged the first skin. The current was stronger than it looked, tugging at my sleeves. Across the bank, Ethan stood waist-deep, his hands poised motionless in the water. With a sudden lunge, he snatched a glimmering fish from the current and tossed it onto the shore where Nico waited, whooping.
Kai, ever restless, was further downstream, poking at something in a shallow eddy. "Look!" he shouted, holding up a twisted piece of metal—old, rusted, maybe part of a sword hilt. The river was full of such remnants, I realized. Bits of wars long past, washed smooth and harmless.
Seres left us to it, moving upstream where the water ran quieter. I watched as she waded in, her pale hair coming undone from its braid as she bent to inspect the plants growing along the bank. Her hands moved with surety, plucking certain leaves while leaving others. Some went into a small pouch at her waist, others into a separate fold of her tunic. The careful sorting spoke of different uses—some for healing, some for trade, and some, perhaps, for less gentle purposes.
By midday, we returned to the ruins with full water skins and three fat fish wrapped in broad leaves. The children scattered to their tasks—Ethan to clean the catch, Mia to replenish the herb stores, Nico and Kai to argue over who would gather firewood. Luna reappeared silently, her hands stained with berry juice, and set to mending a torn tunic without a word.
Seres sorted her morning's harvest with quiet efficiency. The firra and other healing herbs were hung to dry near the fire. A handful of slender, yellow roots were set aside in a clay pot. But the most interesting were the small, dark leaves she packed carefully into a sealed pouch. These she tucked into her belt with a finality that suggested they weren't meant for common use.
The Adventurers' Guild
It wasn't until evening that I understood where some of those herbs were going.
Seres prepared a separate bundle—neatly tied with twine and layered with protective cloth. She checked it twice before nodding to Ethan, who fetched a worn leather satchel from a hidden nook in the ruins.
"Town," Mia explained when she saw my questioning look. She mimed walking, then held out an imaginary coin. "Trade."
I hesitated, then touched Seres' wrist before she could leave. "Miran," I said, pointing to myself, then to her. Go with. "I need to go," I said slowly, fumbling for words she might understand. I tapped my chest, then pointed outward, sweeping a hand as if searching. "Maybe… someone knows me. Maybe I'll remember."
She frowned, her pale eyes flicking over my still-healing ribs. But when I gestured to my head—remember—something shifted in her expression. After a moment, she nodded.
The air clung damp and cool as we set out, the ruins shrinking behind us with each step. Seres led the way, her stride purposeful, the satchel of herbs secured tightly across her back. Ethan walked just behind her, his ever-present knife now joined by a short spear—more for show than need, given how his free hand kept drifting toward it whenever branches rustled too loudly. The rest of the children had stayed behind, save for Mia, who trotted beside me with a basket of woven river reeds balanced on her hip.
The forest path was well-worn but unremarkable, the dirt packed hard by years of use. Moss grew thick on fallen logs, and here and there, sunlight pierced the canopy in golden shafts, illuminating patches of bluebell flowers. It was peaceful, just the steady rhythm of our footsteps and the occasional call of some birds.
Mia pointed out landmarks as we walked—a lightning-scarred oak where Luna gathered mushrooms, a bend in the path where Kai had once fallen into a nest of angry hornets. Seres listened without turning, but I caught the slight tilt of her head whenever Mia mentioned something particularly foolish the boys had done.
The town revealed itself gradually—first the smell of woodsmoke, then the distant clang of a blacksmith's hammer, and finally the tall timber gates rising ahead. Guards in patched leather armor stood watch, their bored expressions sharpening as we approached.
One—a broad man with a scar splitting his eyebrow—stepped forward. "Late this week, Seres," he grunted, though his tone held more familiarity than accusation.
Seres said nothing, just handed over a small pouch that clinked with coins. The guard weighed it in his palm before nodding, but his gaze lingered on me, taking in my gold hair, my unfamiliar face. A muscle twitched in his jaw. "New stray?"
Ethan shifted subtly closer to me, his fingers tightening on his spear.
Seres made a low noise in her throat, barely a word, but the guard sighed and waved us through. "Keep him out of trouble."
The City of Velsharra
Inside, Velsharra unfolded like a living thing—noisy, pungent, vibrant. The streets were packed with bodies, the air thick with the scent of seared meat, fresh bread, and the underlying tang of too many people in too small a space. Stalls lined the main thoroughfare, their awnings a patchwork of faded colors.
A fruit seller bellowed prices, her voice hoarse from repetition. Next to her, a grizzled old man hawked "genuine dragon scales" that were clearly just painted river rocks. Adventurers—recognizable by their mismatched armor and the weapons strapped to every limb—haggled over supplies, their laughter too loud, their coin pouches too full or too empty.
Mia darted off almost immediately, drawn to a stall selling ribbons and beads. Seres let her go with a glance at Ethan, who followed at a distance, his eyes scanning the crowd.
I stayed close to Seres, overwhelmed. The chaos was nothing like the ruins' quiet rhythm. Here, every shout, every clatter of carts, every stray elbow jostling past set my nerves alight. A woman bumped into me, her cloak reeking of ale, and I flinched hard enough that Seres' hand shot out to steady me. Her grip was firm, helping me keep my balance.
The moment we stepped into the market proper, the air changed. Conversations stuttered as we passed. A woman haggling over linen fell silent mid-sentence, her eyes locking onto me. Adventurers near a spice stall stopped bargaining to watch us walk by, their gazes sharp with appraisal.
Mia tugged my sleeve. "They say you look like lord's son," she whispered in broken fragments of my language, mixing words she'd learned from me with gestures. Her fingers mimed a crown above her head, then pointed at my hair. "Gold... noble."
I frowned. The words were simple enough to piece together, but the implication rankled.
One of the adventurers—a broad-shouldered woman with a scar through her eyebrow—leaned toward her companion. "Whose get is that?" she muttered.
Mia's nose wrinkled as she concentrated, then translated haltingly: "She ask... who your father is."
Ethan snorted. "Tell them you're the lost prince of..." He trailed off, realizing I wouldn't understand, and made an exaggerated shrug.
The wiry man beside the woman snorted. "Too polished for this shitheap."
Mia's eyes widened. "Bad word," she said primly, though her lips twitched. "He say you... not belong here."
I clenched my jaw. The stares prickled against my skin like burrs. A vendor selling cured meats paused mid-shout as we passed, his eyes widening before he schooled his expression. Children pointed openly, one gasping loud enough to earn a scolding.
Mia leaned in. "They never see hair like yours," she explained quietly. "Only in stories. Noble stories."
Ethan smirked and plucked at his own dark strands. "Common is better. Doesn't show dirt."
Seres remained silent ahead of us, but her shoulders had lost their usual tension. When a particularly bold merchant bowed mockingly in my direction, she didn't correct him—just kept walking, though the set of her mouth looked suspiciously like suppressed amusement.
Mia translated the bow with a giggle. "He thinks... you important!"
I groaned. This was absurd. I wasn't some storybook prince—just a lost stranger who happened to have inconvenient coloring.
Ethan took pity and shoved me toward a stall selling roasted nuts. "Eat. Less talking."
As I fumbled with coins under the stallkeeper's nervous scrutiny, Mia whispered: "He charge you extra now. Thinks you rich."
Of course he did.
Seres finally intervened, plucking the nuts from my hands and tossing the correct payment down with a pointed look. The message was clear—stop gawking, he's no one special.
But as we moved on, the whispers followed. And Seres, for whatever reason, seemed content to let them.
The copper coin Seres had pressed into my palm earlier felt absurdly light as I stared at it—a small, misshapen disc with crude markings worn nearly smooth. When the nut vendor quoted his price in rapid-fire words I couldn't parse, I'd simply held out my hand, letting him pluck the coins he needed. His fingers hesitated over my palm, darting back and forth between two similarly sized coppers before selecting one with a deeper groove along the edge.
Mia materialized at my elbow as the vendor passed me a paper cone of roasted nuts. "That one," she said, tapping the remaining copper in my palm, "is lir—one penny. The one he took was kesh—two pennies. Same metal, different marks." She rummaged in her own pouch and produced a thicker bronze coin with a triangular hole punched through the center. "Van—five pennies. Seres says you watch first, trade later."
Ethan snorted from behind us. "Or you'll get robbed blind," he added, miming someone picking my pocket with exaggerated stealth.
The market's currency was a labyrinth. Copper pennies (lir) with tiny notches for counting. Bronze shards (van) that felt dangerously similar in weight. The occasional iron bit that changed hands with solemn gravity, always wrapped in cloth rather than clinking loosely in pouches. I'd seen a flash of silver once—a merchant biting down on a coin a cloaked adventurer offered, the metallic snick making heads turn—but Seres steered us away before I could get a proper look.
A Symphony of Nonsense
Every conversation around us might as well have been the chirping of birds. When the spice merchant greeted us with a string of cheerful syllables, I froze like a startled deer. Mia nudged me. "He says 'good winds bring you.' Just nod."
I nodded. The merchant beamed and launched into what was clearly a sales pitch, gesturing at jars of vibrant powders—crimson, gold, one that shimmered unnervingly between colors. Seres shook her head and uttered a single word that made him deflate. As we walked away, Mia whispered, "'Too rich' means 'we're poor.'"
At a fruit stall, my confusion deepened. The produce looked alien—knobbly purple tubers that pulsed faintly when touched, clusters of blue berries that emitted a high-pitched hum when separated, something that resembled a pineapple if pineapples were carnivorous and blinked. The vendor, noting my horrified fascination, held up a knife and mimed cutting one open to reveal glowing pink flesh. Ethan grabbed my wrist before I could reach for it. "Dros," he warned. Fire. Or in this context, probably spicy or toxic.
The Theater of Trade
Haggling here was performance art. A leatherworker flung his arms skyward when Seres offered half his asking price for a repaired belt, clutching his chest as if mortally wounded. Two stalls down, an apothecary and a hunter engaged in a battle of escalating dramatics—the hunter slamming a mangled wolf pelt on the counter, the apothecary countering by producing a vial of something that made the pelt's fur stand on end. Crowds gathered to watch. No one seemed alarmed.
"Why?" I asked Mia, gesturing at the spectacle.
She grinned. "If you scream, you lose."