The noise of the port pressed in on me like a storm tide. I'd been through markets before, but this? Veyra wasn't a market. It was a living, breathing organism, and I was a single bewildered cell swept along its bloodstream.
"Eyes forward," Lyra muttered. Her hand lingered near her dagger as she scanned the alleys. "This city is a nest of thieves."
"Relax," I said, grinning. "I've got this."
At that exact moment, a street kid nearly lifted my waist bag. I yelped, slapped his hand away, and clutched the bag like it was a newborn.
Lyra gave me a flat look. "Yes. I can see how much you 'got this.'"
We shoved our way out of the main current of the crowd and found a quieter street lined with inns. My coin purse still held enough from the wolf pelts, Spiritwood shards, and bandit loot to afford us a roof. And after nights of tents, half-burnt rabbit meat, and rock bombs going off too close to my face, the idea of a bed nearly made me tear up.
The innkeeper, a broad man with a nose like a hawk's beak, squinted at us when we entered. "Two beds?"
"Two," Lyra said firmly before I could joke about one. Her voice was soft steel, and the man just nodded.
We dumped our gear upstairs, and for a blissful moment I just flopped onto the mattress, hugging it like a lost lover. "Soft… not made of dirt… doesn't smell like burned wolf fur… oh gods, Lyra, I could live here forever."
"You'd go mad without blowing something up every other day," she said, but her lips curved faintly as she sat across the room, adjusting her armor.
Dinner was stew, bread, and beer. Simple, but after weeks of travel food, it tasted divine. I tried not to moan out loud as I dipped bread into the broth, but the expression on Lyra's face suggested I failed.
"Do all humans worship food like this?" she asked dryly.
"Only when it's not half-charred and seasoned with ash," I shot back. Then I leaned closer, lowering my voice. "Think we'll be safe here for a while?"
Lyra's gaze flicked around the crowded tavern. Sailors bellowed at one table, dice clattered at another, and a minstrel played a lute in the corner. For a moment, it really did feel like just another night.
"Safe?" She shook her head. "No. But safer than the road. Stay alert."
I nodded, though my head was already filling with half a dozen new inventions inspired by the city sights. Adjustable sails with copper rigging. Quartz-etched lenses for signal lamps. A mana-charged cookpot that wouldn't explode when I used it.
For now, though? I raised my mug, clinked it against hers, and said, "To roofs. To meals. And to not dying in a haunted forest."
Lyra actually clinked back, and for a flicker of a heartbeat, the weight of the world eased.
Tomorrow, the city would swallow us whole. But tonight, we had a roof and a meal.
And that was enough.