After breakfast, we spent the rest of the morning chatting. Every once in a while, someone would toss some coins to Salma, and she ended up doing pretty well. Around lunchtime, it started to rain, and Salma decided to head to a nearby temple for shelter. I escorted her there and was rewarded with five copper coins.

“Thank you, child, for bringing me here.” Salma said, pressing the coins into my hand. “I hope you earn enough to get that leg treated at the Rat-Healer’s.”

I thought of the bracelet tucked safely away inside my shirt. “I should have enough, and if not, I might be able to convince him to help me in exchange for some ale.”

“That should work,” Salma agreed. “Gods watch over you, Jak.”

Speaking of gods, I’d need their help shortly: I planned to visit Yabar. Then, depending on the weather, either head home for the day, or see if the Rat-Healer was sober.

I rounded the corner and ended up colliding with someone. With my ankle as weak as it was, and caught off balance, I would have fallen down if the man hadn’t reached out to steady me.

“Whoa there!” He waited until I had my balance back before releasing me. “Are you alright?” the man asked, smiling. In his mid-twenties, he stood a head taller than me and had brown eyes and tanned skin, proclaiming him as someone of Eastern descent. A Kashnian, perhaps? He’d pulled up the hood on his black cloak in order to keep the rain off, but from what I could see of his clothing, it was neat and clean. A good-sized coin purse hung from his belt, along with a sword and a dagger. The only jewelry he wore was a single gold hoop earring in his right ear.

I examined him in the blink of an eye—as any good thief would do—tallying up everything of value the man had, when I remembered I’d rudely run into him. “Sorry, sir, I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“Obviously,” the man’s companion sneered. “Alaric, you better check your purse. If my eyes aren’t deceiving me, this young man is a rogue. A very dirty, unkempt one at that.” Dressed similarly to Alaric, this man was younger, somewhere in his early twenties, an inch or two shorter than Alaric, and had blue eyes. Based off of their clothes, and this one’s attitude, these men were wealthy merchants or maybe even minor nobles.

I glared at the younger man. “If I was going to steal his purse, I wouldn’t have stuck around to apologize!” I snapped.

“Well, Seth, the boy has a point,” Alaric said, chuckling. “As for my coin purse, you can see it’s been left untouched. How about you give the boy the benefit of the doubt?”

Seth frowned, but didn’t say anything.

“As for you, my friend, are you alright?” Alaric concernedly asked me. “You seem to be favoring your right leg, did you injure it?”

“I hurt it yesterday,” I mumbled. Why was this man spending so much time talking to me? Clearly, we weren’t from the same social class, so why was he being nice? Most people would have either ignored me or shoved me away from them, they wouldn’t be having a conversation with me.

“I’m a healer, would you like me to take a look at it?”

Startled, I stared at him. What? Was he serious?