The town of Ravelin smelled of smoke, sweat, and baked bread.
I hadn't realized how quiet my village had been until I stepped through the crooked gates and found myself pressed on all sides by life. Children ran through the muddy streets with sticks, chasing each other between wagons piled high with cabbages and apples. Merchants cried out prices, their voices blending into the bleating of goats and the clatter of wheels. A woman leaned out of an upper window, shouting at someone below, while a minstrel strummed a lute on the corner, the tune nearly drowned by the chaos around him.
I stopped dead in the road, staring.
"Keep walking," Kaelen muttered at my shoulder, nudging me forward before I could block traffic. "Act like you've been here before."
"I haven't," I said, still staring at a stall where strips of dried fish swung like banners.
Her mouth twitched — the closest I had yet seen her come to a smile. "So I gathered."
We pushed through the throng. My heart raced with every bump and shove. The noise was overwhelming. But beneath it, something in me thrilled. This was freedom. I was one among hundreds, just another face in the crowd. No one here knew about the stone. No one counted the years I had left. For once, I wasn't "the marked boy."
I was just Darian.
Still, Kaelen's hand hovered near her sword. "Don't lose your wits. Crowds make for easy prey."
"From who? Bandits?"
She shook her head. "Not just them. Anyone who's desperate."
The first problem we faced was coin.
Kaelen led me to an inn tucked between two crooked buildings, its sign carved with the shape of a fox. The smell of stew drifted out, making my stomach clench. I hadn't eaten more than scraps in two days.
Inside, the common room was warm and loud. Travelers hunched over bowls of broth and tankards of ale. A fire roared in the hearth. For the first time since I'd left home, I felt something like safety.
But when Kaelen asked the innkeeper for a room, the man's eyes slid over us, lingering on my patched cloak and worn boots. "Coin first."
Kaelen dropped a few copper pieces onto the counter. He grunted, unimpressed. "That'll cover your meal. Not a room."
She scowled. "Prices like these, you're robbing us."
"Then sleep outside," the man said, already turning away.
Heat crept into my cheeks. I'd never had coin. Everything at home had been barter, or gifts out of pity. "Maybe we can—"
A voice cut through. "I'll cover their room."
We turned. A man in a merchant's cloak sat at the table nearest us, a half-empty cup of wine at his elbow. His smile was easy, though his eyes gleamed sharp as glass. "You look like travelers worth talking to. Consider it a trade for conversation."
Kaelen's jaw tightened. She didn't like it. I could see that instantly. But with no other choice, she gave a curt nod.
The innkeeper grumbled but accepted the man's coin, sliding a key across the counter.
We ate first. The stew was thick with potatoes and carrots, the bread coarse but warm. I devoured it so fast Kaelen had to nudge me to slow down.
The merchant watched, amused. "Hungry lad, aren't you?"
I wiped my mouth, embarrassed. "Travel doesn't leave much time for feasts."
"Travelers like you," he said, leaning forward, "often come chasing stories. Relics. Myths." His gaze flicked from me to Kaelen. "Tell me — is it the Inkstone you seek?"
The spoon froze in my hand.
Kaelen's eyes narrowed. "Careful with your tongue."
But the merchant only chuckled. "Oh, I've no loyalty to the Stonekeepers, if that's your worry. Their shadow stretches long, but coin flows freer when one keeps ears open. And I hear things."
He lowered his voice, though the fire's crackle and the hum of voices nearly drowned him out. "Rumor says the Inkstone lies not in the Ashen Peaks, as the fools believe, but beyond — in the ruins of Cindral, where the old scholars kept their forbidden works. Dangerous place. Few who go return. But the ones who do… speak of stone and ink that writes upon the very bones of the world."
My chest tightened. Cindral. Merek had spoken of it, vaguely. To hear another voice name it made the legend feel more real.
"Why tell us this?" Kaelen asked, suspicion dripping from her tone.
The merchant spread his hands. "Because knowledge is coin, and I invest where I see promise. You look like promise. And because," he added, his smile thin, "I dislike the Stonekeepers' grip on the world. Any hand that loosens it, I'd gladly see filled with power."
We left the table soon after, climbing the narrow stairs to our room. Kaelen shut the door hard, muttering under her breath.
"Don't trust him," she said.
"I didn't," I said. But my thoughts burned with the name he'd spoken. Cindral. It was a direction. A path. For the first time, I wasn't just wandering blind.
Kaelen must have seen the fire in my eyes. She sighed, running a hand through her hair. "You really believe this relic exists."
"Yes." My voice was steady. Too steady.
"And if it doesn't?"
I hesitated. The answer should have been despair. But instead I thought of Arinya's voice, the way her defiance had lit something inside me. I thought of the bandit's sword raised above me, the shade's whisper promising I could not escape. I thought of my blood pounding, of my knife striking, of the desperate, clawing will that had dragged me through.
"Then I'll find another way," I said.
Kaelen studied me for a long time. Then she nodded. "Good. Because one way or another, the Stonekeepers will come for us."
That night, the market's noise still echoed faintly through the window. I lay awake on the hard cot, staring at the ceiling beams. Kaelen slept lightly, one hand resting on the hilt of her sword even in dreams.
But I couldn't sleep. The merchant's words gnawed at me.
The Inkstone. Cindral. A chance.
I rose quietly, slipping to the window. Outside, the street was dark, only a few lanterns swaying in the night wind. For a moment, peace.
Then — movement.
A figure cloaked in black stood at the corner, motionless, face hidden. Watching the inn.
My stomach turned to ice.
Stonekeepers.
I stumbled back from the window, heart racing. The shadows had followed.
Kaelen stirred instantly, her blade half-drawn. "What is it?"
"They're here," I whispered.
Her eyes hardened. She rose, already buckling her cloak. "Then it begins."
And so ended our first night in Ravelin: not in safety, not in peace, but in the shadow of the fate that still hunted me.
But for the first time, I wasn't alone when it came.