A wise man once said: you eat your best al when you starve. Or maybe Elderstead’s honey-buttered briar loaves were in fact as splendid as Anabeth said they were.
The eight-hour cooldown on my Voice Reclamation still hadn’t ended, and Anabeth was still holding on the money from selling our dungeon loot earlier, so naturally she was the one negotiating for our tavern room. In fact, if there was any true relief left in this accursed world, it was having Anabeth handle my speaking duties. Her enthusiasm alone could shield from an otherwise unending mountain range of catastrophes I would’ve blindly marched into.
As for the downside . . .
I found myself staring at the tavern room key Anabeth was presenting to while she smiled up at with a kind of gentle, luminous innocence that should have been illegal.
“The innkeeper told us this was the only room left for the night,” she announced. “A king-sized suite, no less. Incredibly fortunate, isn’t it so?”
Fortunate. Yes. That was one word for it.
She continued, “Apparently there was supposed to be a caravan of eight rchants, three guards, and one retired bard checking out tonight. They were all packed, saddled, and ready to leave at dusk.”
So far, so normal.
“But!” she said, “just before they departed, one of the guards heard about a rumored outbreak of Aetherlung on the northern road. A respiratory fever caused by an invisible aetheric micro-organism called Spectral Drifters. They float around old stone settlents . . . like this one. These nasty little things are highly contagious and the cure is costly, so it either claims your life or your estate.” Then she suddenly wiggled her fingers at the figure behind . “Oh! Evening, Durand!”
Currently halfway up the side of the oversized pannier strapped to my back, clinging to the leather like a cheerful barnacle, Durand waved back its left hand.
“Anyway . . .So naturally,” she said, “the entire caravan refused to leave. They all ran back inside and begged the innkeeper to extend their stay until the ‘spectral risk index’ drops—which, according to the innkeeper, is not a real thing but the caravan insisted they could ‘feel it in the air.’” She nodded earnestly. “And because they’re still here, they kept all their rooms. Every single one of them. The only room left was a small king-bed corner suite that one guard got food poisoning in earlier, and thus was the very last to be released.” She pushed the key closer to . “Thankfully, I spoke to the innkeeper before anyone else realized the room had reopened. Truly, Sir Henry, fortune has never been kinder.”
The level of detail was concerning. Surely she couldn’t have made up an entire scenario like this in her head. As she spoke, my gaze drifted past her shoulder to the wooden plaque hanging over the tavern counter.
MANY ROOMS VACANT, it read in cheerful, freshly painted lettering.
I stared. Then I stared harder.
Anabeth followed my line of sight, stopped speaking, and made a very small, very squeaky noise.
“Oh. Ha. Well—that sign is, um—actually incorrect,” she said quickly. “It hasn’t been updated since . . . since before the Aetherlung incident! Yes. Exactly. The innkeeper simply hasn’t had the chance to, because she’s been too busy sanitizing the rafters. For spores. Invisible spores. You heard the Parasitic Resonance Detector creaked earlier. We know the spores are within a one-mile radius.”
She had, in the span of two breaths, committed what I believed scholars called a false equivalency: equating a creaky brass contraption detecting ‘aetheric organisms within a mile’ to proof that the tavern’s vacancy sign was a lie perpetrated by spores.
I opened my mouth to challenge this, then rembered I currently possessed all the speaking ability of a stunned fish. So instead I rely stood there, processing the sheer acrobatic madness of her logic. It wasn’t even wrong. It was . . . adjacent to wrong. Wrong from a creative angle. Wrong with artistry.
[Stamina: 38%]
[Proper resting recomnded]
At this point I wasn’t even bothered to check whether her logic was right or not. I needed a bed. A horizontal surface. Any horizontal surface. And really, what was the worst that could happen? I doubted the universe had the energy to smite any further today. Besides, Anabeth was a scholar. Scholars had codes and principles about intellectual restraint and the responsible handling of personal information.
Nothing would go wrong.
The suite itself wasn’t bad, either. In fact, it was probably the nicest rentable room in Elderstead, far nicer than the sort of place I’d expected we could even afford tonight. I didn’t know the exact total Anabeth handed over downstairs, but judging from the carved bedfra, the thick drapery, and the polished lantern sconces, it was definitely more coins than what remained in my purse. Which ant she’d used her own money without saying so.
And then there was the tub.
It had been at least two years since the last ti I’d seen a proper in-house tub. I paused in the doorway, staring at it as if soone had left a wyvern egg in the room by mistake.
Sir Roland once told that back in the Pre-Order era—the period where magic was primitive and different disciplines had not been established—taverns never had private bathing tubs. If you wanted a wash, you found a bucket, a river, or the rcy of a charitable stableboy. The logistics of hauling boiling water upstairs were too back-breaking and too ti-consuming for the average establishnt.
But these days, a half-decent water hedge mage could lift a barrel up a staircase in two gestures. Heating was even easier. All you needed was a cheap Embershard, one of those dull red crystals infused with a trickle of aether. The lowest grade barely held a charge longer than an hour, but it was enough to heat a tub of water from cold to steaming in minutes. Inns loved them. Travelers loved them. I would love them too.
Anabeth clasped her hands together. “Well then! I shall excuse myself for—ah—roughly half a bell. Personal business. Do make sure to finish whatever private business you need as well, Sir Henry. It’s best to handle such matters before one gets too tired.” She promptly swept off down the hall.
Thirty minutes was more than enough ti to bathe, dry, breathe, maybe even rember what my own limbs felt like without armor compressing them. I could get a full wash in well before Anabeth returned. Unless, of course, she decided to co back early. For a brief mont I imagined what she could possibly hope to extract from by catching mid-bath. Nothing, obviously. I had no secrets worth scheming over. And besides, Anabeth wasn’t exactly subtle. Even if she tried to sneak back, she’d end up pausing to chat with the innkeeper, and by the ti she actually started up the stairs, I’d hear her coming from a hundred steps away, bright-voiced and conspicuous.
I set the pannier down, easing it to the floor so Durand didn’t thump against the boards. The little construct stared at with its soulless eyes.
I don’t know if you understand human language, I tried to mutter, but do you fancy the idea of a hot bath?
“DO YOU DESIRE IMRSION IN SCALDING PURIFICATION?” I roared.
Durand wiggled in what I chose to interpret as enthusiasm.
Heating a bath had beco a kind of ritual art in post-Order taverns, and I followed the steps as reverently as any acolyte at a shrine. I filled the tub first, then fished the Embershard from its little tin box with a pair of long tongs. The crystal was unimpressive to look at: dull, brick-red, barely the size of my thumb, and worth less than a diocre breakfast. But the mont I dropped it into the water, it struck the bottom, then the water started bubbling.
Aetheric heat radiated through the water in rolling waves. The surface trembled as steam began to rise in ghostly ribbons, and within seconds, the entire tub fogged up like a kettle left unattended. A warm breath of air washed across my face. My muscles practically sighed.
Ti for the armor.
Removing my gear was a multi-stage ordeal, like disassembling a portable fortress with nothing but weary determination. First the pauldrons with their stubborn straps, then the plated sleeves that always pinched my skin if I wasn’t careful. The chestpiece followed, then the sabatons, then the greaves. Each piece landed on the wooden floor with a progressively lighter clatter, until I was down to the mail shirt and the weighty gorget biting at my neck.
I hesitated before the helm.
Even alone, even exhausted, even with Durand the only witness, habits held fast. But the steam rising off the water tempted a mont of rebellion out of .
Just a mont.
I lifted the helm, set it aside, and ducked my head over the tub for a quick, desperately overdue scrub. My hair felt less like hair and more like a bramble patch soone had plastered to a skull. The warm water loosened it enough for to rake my fingers through. It was blissful.
And then the helm went right back on.
I couldn’t risk Anabeth returning early. She’d only need half a glance at my actual face to realize I was just a mortal man beneath all the plating and posturing. Then the illusions would collapse, the respect would wither, and I’d be left explaining why my hair looked like sothing a wolf had slept in.
Finally, I eased myself into the steaming tub. The heat enveloped from toes to shoulders, and the wood creaked under the change in temperature.
Durand plopped itself beside the tub, watching with its glassy, blank-eyed stare. Then, with all the deliberate thoughtfulness of a child mimicking a parent, it raised both small stone arms and set them on the rim as well, tiny elbows out, posture matching mine perfectly.
I stared at it.
It stared at .
I wasn’t entirely sure it understood the concept of relaxation—or any concept, if I was being honest—but it looked . . . almost cute like this. Cute and harmless. Just a miniature golem enjoying a bath with a man it’d almost murdered.
Relaxation lasted about twelve seconds.
My mind—traitorous, compulsive thing that it was—decided that now was the perfect ti to contemplate the future. The very distant, very intimidating, very shapeless future.
Restoring the Knighthood.
A grand goal; beautiful in theory. Nonetheless, restoring an order wasn’t like nding a broken sword. An order only existed if people believed in it. And people only believed in sothing that . . . well . . . existed. Legally, and preferably with a headquarters and a banner and a sense of purpose.
I had none of those things.
I didn’t even keep my old Order’s crest, nor did I carry any papers of legitimacy. I had no lineage records, no sponsorship, no squire, not even a ceremonial ribbon. My entire ‘order’ could be stored in a broom closet with room left over for a mop.
I briefly considered returning to Mostenstein—to what scraps of history remained there. But that was hundreds of miles northward, well beyond what my coin purse could afford. And Anabeth . . . Anabeth would surely sooner bite off her own quill hand than travel that far just because I felt nostalgic for a holand buried under snow, taxes, and bad political decisions.
Still, even if Mostenstein was out of reach, there had to be a beginning sowhere.
Sir Roland had once said that a handful of old registries, training rosters, and oath-ledgers had been deposited in a minor administrative depot known as the Westris Provisional Archives of Knightly Affairs. If mory served (and Roland insisted that a knight’s mory must always serve), the place sat roughly forty miles north of Elderstead, along a disused trade spur that hadn’t seen a proper caravan since the reign of an embarrassingly short-sighted duke. Forty miles wasn’t nothing, but it wasn’t Mostenstein either. It was possible.
Of course, by now the depot could’ve been renad, repurposed, misfiled, or simply forgotten. Half the archivists alive today wouldn’t even recognize ‘knightly affairs’ as anything separate from the usual assortnt of hired guards and ceremonial escorts. Still . . . it was a place to start.
I spotted a sar of dirt on Durand’s head. Of course it had to be right there, in the most irritating place possible, perfectly positioned to bother if I pretended not to notice. I reached for one of the long wooden tongs the handlers use to move Embershards. They were the only tools long enough to keep a safe distance.
Because if I tried to wipe a stone golem’s face with my bare hand, Durand would absolutely try to headbutt for no good reason. And without armor, a single ‘playful’ nudge from enchanted granite was exactly how one transford a ribcage into decorative gravel.
But still, Durand had just enjoyed a proper hot soak in the emberbath. Letting a freshly bathed construct walk around with dirt on its crown would be . . . illogical. An affront to basic maintenance.
So I lifted the stick-tongs like a nervous zookeeper, and leaned in to gently scrub the dirt off Durand’s head before the little nace could homicidally nuzzle .
Durand went perfectly still as I leaned in. I didn’t even know it could sit there so still. It lowered its head a fraction, as if presenting the dirty spot for cleaning.
Durand let scrub its stone crown without protest. For a mont, everything was peaceful.
Then the hairs on the back of my neck rose.
I felt a presence.
Soone was watching.
I turned my head.
Anabeth stood frozen in the doorway with so folded pieces of parchnt she didn’t have with her before. Her mouth was halfway open and her pupils dilated.
I may as well have been caught serenading the golem.
“Oh,” she breathed.
What a sight to run into now.
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