The sky looked like dusk, even though it was barely noon. Thick grey clouds hung low and heavy over Grinholt, cloaking the streets in a moody shadow. The air smelled of wet stone and old smoke, and every corner of the crooked town seemed to lean inward, watching.

Reid walked the sloped streets, boots slick with mud, a weight at his side he hadn’t carried before—fifty gold coins clinking quietly in a pouch against his hip. Ten earned in the ring, where fists and instinct had spoken louder than rules. Forty more taken from the bodies of those foolish or greedy enough to try and strike a man like him from behind. Men who had assumed he was just muscle. Just desperate. Just another shadow passing through.

They were wrong.

The pouch swung with each step, heavy not just with gold, but with what it meant—freedom, danger, and choices he didn’t yet understand.

And somewhere inside him, something watched it all unfold, quiet and waiting.

He pushed open the door to Shelter. The warmth inside was welcome, but the woman behind the counter watched him with more curiosity than comfort.

“Bandages?” he asked, tugging at the tear in his shirt.

The old woman didn’t move right away. Her eyes swept over him, lingering on the dried blood crusted across his chest and arms. “Is any of that yours?”

Reid looked down at his shoulder—the one that had taken a dagger not long ago. There should’ve been a deep wound, torn flesh, pain. But now? Nothing. No scar. No bruise. The skin was whole. Clean. As if it had never been touched.

He blinked.

What the hell am I?

The thought came uninvited, quiet but persistent. He didn’t remember being able to heal like this. Was it something new? Was this normal here? Did others recover the same way?

He cleared his throat. “Maybe. There was one… but it healed on the way,” he added dryly. “Yours don’t?”

She squinted at him for a second, then gave a huff of a laugh. “I thought you’d have a better sense of humor, boy.”

“Me too,” Reid muttered, scrubbing a hand through his damp hair. “Guess it got stabbed out of me.”

That earned a real chuckle. She turned to fetch the towels, still shaking her head.

Reid took them with a small nod, but his thoughts lingered. His shoulder felt warm under the skin, like something still stirred beneath it. Quiet. Waiting.

And for the first time in a long while, Reid wasn’t sure if he was entirely human anymore.

Reid turned to leave, but her voice stopped him again.

“What’s your name?”

He paused.

“Reid Tzeryn,” he said without thinking, just like back in the Arena.

The old woman’s expression shifted at once. Her eyes narrowed—not with suspicion, but wonder. She leaned in a little, her voice softening like parchment brushed with time.

“Tzeryn?” she repeated, almost to herself. “I haven’t heard that name since I was a girl.”

She stared at Reid, but her gaze had drifted somewhere far beyond him.

“That name belonged to kings. They wore it like pride.” she murmured. “Before Anguth had walls and coin and ranks. Before the gold bled into every corner of this land. Back when power was taken, not bought. When men carried thrones on their backs and ruled by fire or mercy—no in-between.”

Her eyes gleamed with something unspoken, a shimmer of nostalgia. “My grandmother used to tell me stories. Tales of heroes and monsters, battles that split mountains, and a Tzeryn—always at the heart of it. They weren’t just rulers. They were something more. The kind that made the world choose a shape.”

She let out a slow breath, the sound almost wistful. “Now, there’s no history of that time. Only stories. And most stopped telling those, afraid they might remember too much.”

Reid said nothing.

The name echoed in his ears, heavier now. Not just a string of letters, but something old… something sacred.

Tzeryn.

He had spoken it without thinking, like pulling a sword from a sheath his hand had always known.

Hero or villain, he wondered quietly, watching her eyes flicker with fading memory. Which one was I?

He wasn’t sure which answer scared him more.

He walked away.