The road stretched out ahead, wet and heavy under Reid’s boots. Rain clung to the trees like skin to bone, dripping steadily from their branches. The storm had quieted, but its shadow still loomed above him.

Then came the lights.

Not the fire of heaven, but man-made—oil lamps suspended in crooked iron cages, their glow flickering like nervous whispers. They stood along the road like sentries of civilization, flickering beacons drawing him toward the rot that always came with towns.

He followed, silent.

A cart passed. The mule pulling it had more life in its eyes than the driver. Another traveler met his gaze and nodded.

Reid returned it. Reflex. Echo. Something old inside him stirred at the gesture, then fell silent again.

Cobblestone replaced the earth beneath his feet. The town unfolded ahead, not like a welcome—but like a mouth parting to speak a lie.

Grinholt.

The name was carved in old wood near the gate, flaked with rot and rain. Reid moved past it without pause. The place stank of livestock, boiled barley, and old things trying hard to stay alive.

He passed crooked buildings and hunched rooftops. A blacksmith wiped his brow, hammer still hot. A baker opened his shutters. A cloth-seller cursed the wet.

Then came the inns—lined up like painted whores, gaudy in their colors and shameless in their excess. Red shutters, gold-trimmed awnings, the scent of roast meat and wine spilling out like perfume. Each door was flanked by oil lanterns and banners of deep velvet, symbols of beasts and swords fluttering in practiced pride. Strange numbers were carved into polished wood, gilded: I, II, III… so on.

People spilled from them, laughing, drunk, loud with the security of belonging. Their cloaks bore crests, their armbands flashed silver and bronze in the lamplight. Music poured from open windows—harps and fiddles and the clatter of tankards. The sound of comfort.

Reid stood in the middle of it like a shadow miscast. Rain-soaked, mud-streaked, broad and silent. He carried the stillness of graves, and the people passed him like a cold draft in a warm room—noticed, but not named. No one greeted him. No one smiled. He belonged to a different part of the story. It irked him.

He stopped at one. A wide structure with a blood-dripping stag on its sign. VI, the carving read.

He moved toward the door.

“Looking for a room?”

Reid turned, slow.

A sentry stood behind him, spear in hand. Young, and smug at first—chin high, chest puffed with borrowed authority. But as Reid turned and the full weight of his gaze fell on him, the sentry’s expression faltered.

“Yes,” Reid said, voice flat.

“That’s a Marchos inn. You can’t go in.”

The sentry's eyes had already flicked over Reid’s frame when he approached—the way a man might glance at a thundercloud and pray it passed him by. Reid stood nearly a foot taller, broad-shouldered and silent, his presence the kind that made the air thinner.

Reid’s eyes narrowed. "Why not?"

The man looked stunned, as if he’d been asked to explain why the sun rose—yet his gaze darted up to meet Reid’s, then skittered away like a rodent before a hawk.

“You’ve no rank mark... Sir. That means Sadis. Marchos and higher only. It’s… law."

Reid stepped forward. One deliberate step. The man flinched, grip tightening on the spear.

“If I cut down the ones who tried to stop me, would your rank still matter? Or is there a spell woven into the mortar that bars me from entry?”

Reid asked it not in rage, but with a little curiosity and a weary annoyance—as if the thought of searching for another inn was more tiresome than the bloodshed itself. He wasn’t eager for violence, but indifferent to it, and that was worse.

The sentry paled. His mouth opened. Closed. "The... King protects the ranks. So does the Army. You wouldn’t want—"

Reid tilted his head. “Do I look like a man who cares what kings want?”

Silence stretched. The sentry trembled.

“How did you know I was Sadis?”

“Your belt,” the sentry said, voice small. “No clasp. No metal. No sigil. Your sleeves—empty. Look.”

A woman passed by, wearing an armband with a silver crescent. Pride dripped off her like perfume.

“Everyone here wears their place,” the guard whispered.

Reid stared at him as if measuring the man’s weight in flesh. Then turned.

He walked on.

More inns, more laughter behind warm windows. The scent of meat and wine. He imagined pressing his blade to their throats, silencing it all for once. Listening to their songs turn to screams. Then he sighed. Kept walking.

Farther down, the buildings shrunk. Their signs hung crooked, paint peeling like scabs. One simply read: Shelter.

He stepped inside.

The woman behind the counter didn’t glance up.

"One night," he said.

"Two copper. Cot and water."

He laid the coins down. She slid a rusted key across the counter with fingers that didn’t care.

The room was little more than a box. The cot sagged in the middle. The bowl of water looked older than the building. But it was dry. It was quiet.

Reid stripped. The grave dirt came off like oil. The water darkened with it. He scrubbed his hands, his face, his neck—slow, like he was peeling someone else away.

The dagger rested on the basin. Familiar. Trustworthy. The only thing in this world that hadn’t lied.

He looked up.

The mirror showed a stranger. Scar under the jaw. Eyes that had seen fire but never reflected it. Cheekbones sharp enough to cut.

This face had no kindness. No softness. No lies.

It was the face of a Vadi.

The word throbbed in his skull. He didn’t know its shape, only its taste. But he knew it was truth.

He wasn’t Sadis. He wasn’t Marchos. He wasn’t theirs.

He was something older. Something buried. Something dug up with clenched fists.

Tomorrow, he would head for Dales.

Something waited for him there. A meaning. A memory. Maybe vengeance.

Tonight, he would sleep.

And if the gods dared to speak in his dreams, they’d best speak carefully.