For once, the road betrayed no tricks, no mishaps, no cosmic disasters waiting behind bushes.
No bandits leapt from the roadside. No storms rolled over the hills. Snowdrop plodded along the dirt path without complaint, tent-coin bag jangling with every step, and the three companions walked beside her in a kind of stunned silence.
"...This feels wrong," Sari muttered at one point.
"Wrong?" Arlo asked, shifting the straps of his overstuffed satchel.
"Yeah. Like we should've been attacked by at least three more raccoons or struck by divine lightning again. Too... smooth."
Tessa smoothed back a strand of hair from her face. "Perhaps for once fate is merciful."
Arlo snorted. "Or maybe fate's just waiting to humiliate us when we least expect it."
Still, nothing happened. By the time the sun began sinking low, the familiar spire of the church peeked over the rooftops of town. For the first time in what felt like years, they were home.
The church stood quiet as always, its doors stiff with disuse. Tessa pushed them open with a groan of wood and rust, and the three of them slipped inside, the white mare now named Snowdrop trailing behind with her ridiculous burden.
The place smelled faintly of dust and candle wax. Empty pews lined the hall, the altar draped in a cloth that had seen better decades.
"This," Sari said, lowering her voice in mock reverence, "is the perfect place to stash our mountain of shiny things."
Arlo raised a brow. "Kinda blasphemous, isn't it?"
"It's not blasphemy," Tessa said primly, guiding Snowdrop to the back where old storerooms waited. "It is temporary divine safekeeping."
With a grunt, they unstrapped the bulging tent-coin bag. The moment they unfurled it, coins cascaded like a waterfall across the stone floor, spilling into uneven mounds that glittered in the dim candlelight. Goblets and battered gear clinked after them, rolling to a stop by the altar's steps.
Sari crouched immediately, shoving her hands into the pile with a gleeful little sigh. "Beautiful. Shiny, clinky, debt-erasing beauty."
"Careful," Arlo warned, already filling his pockets again with loose coins. "We'll never dig ourselves out if you bury us alive in this stuff."
Tessa, despite her attempts at composure, knelt as well, her hand trembling over the mound of gold before she finally gave in and scooped up a pouch. "We shall... divide it equally. That much is fair."
Sari snatched her third before anyone could blink, hugging it to her chest like a newborn.
Arlo blinked at his own share, feeling its weight drag down his shoulders. He grinned faintly. "So this is what not being broke feels like."
For a long moment, they simply sat there among their glittering spoils, drinking in the sight.
Eventually, Sari stood, cinching her cloak around her shoulders.
"Well. I've got... business to take care of."
Arlo gave her a flat look. "Business?"
Sari scowled. "Yes. Very important business. The kind that involves terrifying men with ledgers and broken knuckles."
Tessa sighed. "Debt collectors."
"Exactly. If I don't pay them now, they'll start repossessing my teeth." Sari shifted her satchel, coins jingling with every move. She paused at the door, glancing back with a rare softness. "Don't do anything stupid without me, okay?"
"Define stupid," Arlo said.
"Anything you'd normally do."
He opened his mouth, then shut it again. Couldn't argue.
"I'll be back soon!, There's someone I'd like you guys to meet," Sari said cheerfully with a huge grin on her face.
With that, Sari was gone, footsteps fading into the night. "I'll
The church was quiet again. Just Arlo, Tessa, and piles of treasure that somehow didn't make them feel safer.
"Well," Arlo said, "guess it's just us now."
"Yes," Tessa replied, brushing the dust from her cloak. Her hand tightened around the pouch containing the Duke's ring. "And we have an errand yet unfinished."
Arlo glanced back at the heaps of gold. "We really could just... disappear, you know."
Tessa shot him a look that brooked no nonsense.
"Right. Duke it is," Arlo sighed.
Together, they stepped out into the fading light. The road toward the Duke's estate stretched before them, long and uncertain.