The fire burned lower than the last one.
Not weaker—just quieter. The kind of flame that had settled into itself, content to exist without announcing it.
We'd put distance between ourselves and the road before stopping. Enough that the night felt earned. Packs were loosened. Weapons laid within reach, not clutched. Imoen hummed softly to herself while poking at the embers with a stick, the tune wandering without committing to anything familiar.
"I can… sort through what we took," I offered.
The words came out a little quicker than I meant them to. Like I was afraid someone else would claim the task first.
Jaheira regarded me for a moment, weighing the offer. Then she nodded once. "Very well."
It wasn't praise—but it wasn't dismissal either.
I knelt near the packs and loosened the ties, laying the contents out on a strip of cloth. There wasn't much. A handful of coins—thinly stamped, poorly cared for. A potion of healing, mercifully intact. That was most of it.
Simple. Contained.
I hadn't done this before. That much I knew.
Still, once everything was laid out, the knot in my chest loosened slightly. Having something to do helped.
Imoen drifted closer, crouching beside me as I worked. "You did good back there," she said quietly.
I paused. "I mostly tried not to get in the way."
She snorted. "That counts for more than you think." Then, softer, with a sideways smile: "Besides, last I heard, the most dangerous thing you'd ever killed before today was a rat the size of a loaf of bread."
"Two rats," I said, without thinking. "And they started it."
The words came easily. Too easily.
She grinned. "See? Veteran already."
Her presence helped. Steadying. Like she'd decided, without asking, that I belonged here.
I reached for the last bundle—and my fingers brushed parchment.
It wasn't tucked away carefully. Just rolled and bound with a strip of cord, the paper stiff with age but intact. No markings on the outside. No sigil. Nothing to announce itself.
I turned it over slowly, frowning.
"This is… odd," I said.
Jaheira glanced up from where she was adjusting the straps on her pack. "Odd how?"
"I don't know," I admitted. "I just—" I hesitated. "It doesn't feel like something they'd bother keeping."
Imoen leaned in, squinting. "Since when do hobgoblins keep paper?" she asked. "I mean—real paper."
That helped. A little.
I loosened the cord.
The parchment unfurled with a dry whisper. Symbols spilled across it in tight, deliberate strokes—nothing decorative or intuitive. This wasn't meant to be admired. It was meant to be used.
I recognized nothing clearly.
Which somehow made it worse.
The fire popped.
Across from me, Xzar had gone still.
Not leaned forward. Not craned his neck. Just… stilled. As if something in him had pricked its head up and was listening very carefully.
"Ah," he breathed.
It wasn't loud. It wasn't theatrical.
It was reverent.
He rose and crossed the space between us without asking, movements careful, deliberate. When he stopped, he did not reach for the scroll.
Instead, he smiled at it.
Not at me. At the parchment.
"May I?" he asked, and for once the question sounded genuine.
I hesitated, then tilted the scroll so he could see.
Xzar's eyes traced the glyphs, pupils dilating as recognition took hold. His breath hitched—not with hunger, but with something close to relief.
"They didn't know," he murmured. "Of course they didn't. To them, it was just marks. But they kept it. Because it mattered to someone once."
He looked up at me then, eyes bright. "Do you know whose hand shaped this?"
I shook my head. "No."
His grin widened, teeth flashing in the firelight.
"Larloch."
The name fell into the space between us like a stone dropped into deep water.
Imoen blinked. "That sounds… ominous."
"Oh, very," Xzar agreed cheerfully. "But not for the reasons most people think."
Jaheira straightened. "You speak that name too lightly."
Xzar tilted his head, considering her. "Do I? Or do you hear it too heavily?"
He turned back to the scroll, voice lowering—not conspiratorial, but intimate, as if confiding in an old friend.
"Larloch was a scholar first. He looked at death and found it inefficient. When his body failed him, he did not beg the gods for mercy." Xzar's fingers twitched, stopping just short of the parchment. "He solved the problem himself."
Khalid shifted uneasily. "He became… what he became," he said carefully.
"Yes," Xzar said, pleased. "And remained."
Jaheira's eyes hardened. "By draining others. By reducing lives to fuel."
Xzar finally glanced up at her. "No," he said softly. "By refusing to end."
Silence stretched.
The fire crackled again, louder this time.
I cleared my throat. "The spell," I said. "What does it do?"
Xzar's gaze flicked back to the scroll, reverence returning. "A small thing. Elegant. It borrows only a thread—a whisper of vitality—and ties it briefly to the caster." He smiled faintly. "A reminder that power is transferable."
"That's not how it reads," Jaheira said. "Magic that feeds on life leaves marks."
"All magic leaves marks," Xzar replied. "This one is simply honest about it."
Khalid stepped closer to Jaheira, voice low but firm. "There are paths best not walked, even if they promise understanding."
Xzar regarded him thoughtfully. "Ah. But understanding comes whether you invite it or not."
I rolled the scroll back up slowly, the glyphs disappearing one by one.
"That's enough," I said. "For now."
Xzar did not protest. Did not plead.
He watched the cord bind the parchment again with something like patience.
"As you wish," he said mildly. "Knowledge waits. It always does."
I tucked the scroll away, deeper this time.
The fire burned on.
Imoen leaned closer, her voice barely louder than the crackle of the flames. "He gives me the creeps," she whispered.
She rested her head briefly against my shoulder, then went still.
I didn't answer.
Across the fire, Xzar resumed his seat, hands folded neatly in his lap, eyes reflecting the firelight—not restless, not wild.
Just attentive.
Waiting.