Dawn came gray and heavy. The village lay quiet the way a chest settles after a long sob. Smoke still hung low over the roofs. The ground near the bramble wall was torn and muddy where wolves had bled into the earth. Someone had swept the square in crooked lines, as if tidiness could push the night back where it belonged.
Rowan cinched the strap on his harpoon and checked the stopper on his water pouch. Brennar rolled his shoulder and winced, then pretended he hadn't. Tamsin glanced at the bandage she'd tied and gave him one sharp nod that said don't be stupid. Ari unstrung her bow and ran a clean cloth along it, slow and careful. Ashwyn stood with his palm resting on his staff, eyes half-closed, like he was listening for a sound the rest of them couldn't hear. Nyx wasn't in sight until Pan padded out from under a cart; she followed a beat later, as if she had been part of his shadow all along. Lyra went from door to door with simple words—eat, rest, breathe—like stitches after a wound.
They were nearly ready to go when two figures hurried across the square.
It was the girl and the boy who had stood the wall with Ari. Their hands were raw where the string had kissed skin all night, red lines like small smiles across their fingers. The girl held a bow too large for her; the boy had a quiver knocked together from a cooking pot and leather straps. They tried to stand tall. They looked young anyway.
"We want to come with you," the boy said before any of them could speak. His voice shook once and then steadied. "We can fight. You saw."
The girl lifted her chin. "We helped." She said it like a dare.
Brennar's mouth flattened. "You helped your people," he said. "Good. Keep doing that. The road eats folk who aren't ready."
The girl's jaw set. "Then we'll get ready on the road."
Rowan glanced at Ari. She studied the two for a long breath, then asked in that even, clear voice of hers, "What are your names?"
The boy blinked, surprised. "Joren."
"Kara," the girl said.
Ari nodded once. "Kara. Joren." She looked between them. "You were brave. Your arrows counted. They saved lives when fear might have taken them." The words were plain but heavy, like rocks set in a wall. Kara's eyes shone. Joren stood a little straighter. Then Ari added, the same steady tone, "Your place is here."
Kara's mouth opened. "But—"
"Here," Ari repeated, gentle as a hand on a skittish horse. "You know these streets. You know who will listen when you speak, and who will only listen if you show them. That matters. The raiders will return. This village needs eyes on the roofs and hands on the strings. You will be faster next time. Truer."
Joren swallowed. "We don't want to be in the way."
"You won't be," Ari said. "You'll be the line." She tipped her head at Kara's bow. "Shorten your draw an inch. You're over-pulling and dropping your elbow at the end. Joren—" she reached for his fingers and turned his hand palm-up "—wrap these with cloth before you shoot. Raw skin lies to your aim."
Tamsin dug in her satchel and pressed a roll of clean cloth into Joren's hand. "Change it when it's soaked. Salt your water." She saw Kara's red knuckles and tore two thinner strips, winding them without fuss. "You'll hold steadier with less pain."
Kara looked at her, surprised, then muttered, "Thank you."
Brennar snorted and, after a second's thought, slipped a small knife from his belt and flipped it in his palm, offering it to Joren hilt-first. "For rope and meat," he said. "Not for picking fights you can't win. Understand?"
Joren's eyes widened. "I—yes." He took the knife like it might bite.
Nyx leaned a shoulder on the well, amused. "Listen to the ox. For once he's right."
Brennar glared. Nyx smiled with all her teeth.
Rowan found himself speaking before he knew what he wanted to say. "We'll be back this way." He heard how uncertain it sounded and hated it. "Or someone will."
Ashwyn's staff clicked once on the stone. "Threads pull where they must," he murmured. "Yours are woven here for now." He didn't raise his voice, but the village seemed to lean toward the words.
Kara looked from Ashwyn to Ari to Rowan. The fierce set of her jaw softened, just a little. "Then show us how to train," she said to Ari, almost pleading. "Before you go."
Ari thought for the length of a breath. Then she pointed to the low roof of the smokehouse. "There. Ten paces. Three arrows each at the thatch seam. Breathe on the count, not before. Joren, you call the breath so you match." She glanced at the elder, who had drifted close, hat clutched in both hands. "Find every bow in this place. Find willow and goose feathers. I'll leave you a stringing jig and marks for lengths. It won't be pretty, but it will throw arrows."
The elder nodded hard, relief in his eyes like a man seeing rain.
A few more words, a few more nods, a few rough goodbyes. A woman pressed a cloth-wrapped loaf into Lyra's hands. A child offered Rowan a sprig of something green and bitter that smelled like the river; he tucked it into his belt like a charm. Then the group turned their faces to the road.
They did not look heroic leaving. They looked like people with packs and tired eyes and work to do.
They were almost past the last garden fence when Kara called after them, "Will you remember our names?"
Ari didn't turn, but her voice carried back. "Kara. Joren. I will."
Rowan looked over his shoulder. The two stood side by side, bows down, eyes bright and stubborn. He lifted a hand. Kara lifted hers back. Joren, too. Then the bend in the lane took them from sight.
---
They followed the river out beyond the fields, where the ground broke into alder and reed. The air tasted wet. A dragonfly skated low over brown water and vanished. Oriel wheeled high, a dark fleck against a thin blue where the clouds had begun to tear.
"Here," Ashwyn said at last.
The prisoner was exactly where they had left him: pinned upright to a fallen trunk by roots hard as iron. His voice was a rasp now, all the sharpness burned out of it by a night of useless shouting. When he saw them, he gathered what was left and spat words that were more hate than sound.
Brennar kicked the man's boot. "Still breathing," he said. "Shame."
Ashwyn touched his staff to the roots. They loosened just enough to pull the raider to his feet, then rewound around his arms like green rope. "You walk," Ashwyn said. "You fall, you drag."
The prisoner laughed, a dry, ugly thing. "You think you've won anything? More will come. They'll scour this land clean."
Nyx stepped close enough that the man had to lean his head back to meet her eyes. "Maybe," she said softly. "You'll tell us where they're coming from, and when." Pan stood beside her, silent as a shadow with eyes.
The man tried to look away from the beast and failed. "I'll tell you nothing."
"Later," Tamsin said, not unkind but not soft. "After soup and clean bandages. People bleed while you brag." She turned and started down the trail, as if the matter were settled.
Brennar's mouth twitched, halfway to a grin. "You always this bossy?" he asked her, falling into step.
"When people try to die in front of me," she said. "Yes."
Lyra hid a smile and offered the prisoner a skin of water. He sneered at it until Ashwyn lifted one brow; then he drank, gagged, and drank again.
They took the long slope up from the marsh and back to the road. Bramble ranged on their right flank, fading and reappearing as the light shifted in the leaves. Eldros showed once, a ghost between trunks, then was gone again like a memory. Oriel's shadow crossed them, small and soft. Pan kept to the left, melting into ditch and hedge and stump with a grace that made Rowan's eyes ache to follow.
Rowan walked a little behind the others and let the sounds of their steps fill his head. Boots on grit. Staff on stone. The drag of the prisoner's breath. Tamsin's quiet words when she saw someone favor an ankle or a shoulder. Brennar clearing his throat and then not speaking after all. It felt like the shape of a thing he hadn't had words for, settling around them.
"Where are we off to now?" Tamsin asked after a time. The question wasn't sharp this time. Only steady.
"Havenmoor," Ashwyn said, his voice calm but certain. "It sits where the old road crosses the river. There will be supplies. Rest. And word of what stirs beyond these fields."
Brennar grunted. "A tavern that pours ale, you mean."
Ari didn't smile, but her tone softened. "And arrows. We'll need more than two quivers between us."
Rowan nodded slowly. He had never heard of Havenmoor, but the name felt solid, like a mark on a map that promised safety—or at least a pause before whatever came next.
They walked on until the village was only a smudge of smoke behind them, the prisoner stumbling at their heels, the road stretching like a thread toward Havenmoor.