Morning in the mountains came quietly — gray mist hugging the slopes, frost clinging to the windows.
Mira chopped vegetables at the table, her knife steady, rhythmic. Brann nursed a mug of bitterroot tea by the fire, one leg lazily swung over the other. Caelan was outside, chopping wood again, quieter than usual after his sleepless night.
Mira broke the silence.
"So," she said, voice flat, "you gonna tell me who that boy really is?"
Brann didn't look up. "Told you. Name's Caelan."
"That's not what I asked," Mira said, setting down the knife. "He's not yours, is he? You didn't get drunk and sentimental one night and end up with a son you forgot to mention?"
Brann laughed. "Gods, no. The world don't need another me runnin' around."
"Then what is he?"
Brann took a slow sip, watching the embers flicker.
"I found him in a corpse pit," he said finally.
Mira raised an eyebrow.
"Thought he was dead. He was half-dead. Bled out bad, covered in muck. But when I was picking through the lot... he gasped. Started clawing at the air. Didn't know his name, didn't know anything. Looked like a kicked pup."
Mira studied him for a long moment. "And that made you take him in?"
Brann shrugged. "Could've left him. Should've, maybe. But something in the way he looked at me — like I was the first human thing he'd ever seen."
He leaned back.
"So I taught him how to get by. Like I do. How to pick a pocket without gettin' your hand cut off, how to read a drunk's mood, how to keep your mouth shut when it matters most."
"And now you're here," Mira said, arms folded. "Dragging him into the worst place you ever knew."
Brann's smile faded.
"He got caught next to a noble's corpse in a gutter. Didn't do it, but the guards grabbed him up like they were waiting for it. Got tossed into Castle Gaeldrun's pit cells."
Mira stiffened at that name. "The Gaeldrun dungeons? That's not where they put thieves. That's where they bury problems."
"Exactly," Brann said darkly. "And that's when I knew who was behind it."
"Darrick."
Brann nodded.
"Lord Darrick. Vulture in a fox's coat. Been sniffin' around the slums for years, trying to dig up dirt on his rivals. Uses us when he needs secrets, feeds us to the crows when he's done. I crossed him once — gave info to the wrong man. Someone Darrick wanted out of the way."
Mira's face darkened.
"You always did have a tongue too loose for your own good."
Brann smiled faintly.
"Thought I could slip away, lay low, wait it out. But Caelan got too close. They grabbed him to send a message. So I broke him out. Figured if I was gonna burn, might as well burn far from the cities."
Mira sighed.
"You're a damn fool, Brann."
"Always have been."
She glanced toward the window, where Caelan's figure moved among the trees.
"He's not like you," she said.
Brann nodded.
"I know."
The table was rough-hewn, scarred by years of use. Mira set down bowls of steaming root stew and stale bread, not bothering with manners. She tapped the table with a wooden spoon.
"Boy," she called out toward the open door. "Come eat before it gets cold."
Caelan stepped in, smelling of pine and sweat. His face still carried the strain of a sleepless night, and his eyes darted once toward the tree line before settling on the food.
He sat without a word, nodding respectfully to Mira. Brann leaned back with his boots propped on a stool, chewing on a twig like it was a pipe.
Halfway through the meal, Mira's eyes narrowed slightly as she watched Caelan spoon stew into his mouth with mechanical rhythm.
"You remember anything?" she asked.
Caelan paused, stew halfway to his mouth. He shook his head slowly.
"Nothing. Just… flashes. Sounds. That's all."
"Still not even a name?" she pressed.
"No," Caelan said. "Just Caelan. That's what Brann called me when I first woke up. I kept it."
Silence followed. The fire popped.
Then Caelan glanced at Brann and added quietly, "I owe him everything. He saved my life when no one else would've even looked at me. If it weren't for him—"
Brann's hand shot up abruptly. "Alright, alright," he muttered, scowling. "None of that."
Caelan blinked. "What?"
"No speeches. I don't do those," Brann grumbled. "Makes my skin itch. Besides, I didn't save you for a statue or a song."
Mira rolled her eyes. "Gods forbid someone says something kind without Brann pretending to gag."
Brann gave a lopsided grin, but before he could quip back—
Knock. Knock. Knock.
Three slow raps against the cabin door. Firm. Unhurried.
The three froze.
Brann set down his bowl with deliberate quiet. "You expecting someone?"
Mira's expression darkened. She stood and wiped her hands calmly.
"Don't worry," she said without looking at him. "I know who it is."
Brann rose, eyes narrowing. "Who, Mira?"
She didn't answer.
She walked to the door and opened it slowly, the hinges groaning.
On the threshold stood a man draped in a weather-stained cloak, boots caked in old mud. His face was lean, sharp, and lined with cold smiles. A long scar split his lower lip. One hand rested casually on the hilt of a curved hunting blade.
Brann's face turned to stone.
"You," he muttered. "Of course."
The man smiled thinly. "Brann. You're as ugly as I remember."
Caelan watched the exchange, confused.
Mira exhaled slowly. "Brann, meet Alric."
Brann's voice was cold. "We've met."
"Old acquaintance?" Caelan asked cautiously.
"Something like that," Brann replied without looking at him. "Last time I saw him, he was stuffing gold into his boots while the rest of us bled out in a sewer."
Alric stepped inside without waiting for an invitation, brushing snow off his cloak.
"I come bearing news," he said smoothly. "But don't worry, Brann — no one's bleeding. Yet."
Week ago - Elsewhere - Caeldrun keep, Count of Lord Darrick.
The court was thick with the perfume of lies.
Inside the opulent hall, silence hung like a guillotine. Golden sconces flickered along high stone walls as Lord Darrick stood over a table of polished obsidian, a glass of red wine untouched in his pale hand.
Before him, three men fidgeted — advisors cloaked in velvet and fear.
"The nobleman found in the gutter," Darrick said, voice as smooth as ice on stone. "How unfortunate."
"He was a key player in the guild market," one of the men said. "He owned half the grain routes between the southern ports. His death was… useful to your interests, my lord."
"Was," Darrick echoed, turning toward him. "Until our scapegoat vanished from his cell and made a mess of the whole arrangement."
The second advisor wrung his hands. "Had the boy been executed as planned, it would've ended neatly. His death would've cleared your path to the late lord's shares without scrutiny."
"But now..." Darrick paced slowly. "He's out there. A nameless gutter rat — one who now lives in rumor. And rumors," he paused, swirling the wine, "have the terrible habit of growing teeth."
He turned, eyes flaring with sudden heat. "The guilds hesitate. They suspect. And we cannot seize what they suspect we've orchestrated."
"So what shall we do?" the first man asked.
Darrick set the wine aside.
"We flood the streets. Place a bounty: two men. Vague descriptions. One in his twenties, ragged and wounded. The other, older, gutter rat. Claims to be dead. They're working together."
"No names?" the scribe asked, quill ready.
"No," Darrick snapped. "Does those gutter rats even have names? The less we say, the more they imagine. Treason against order. Interfering with a state matter. That should make the bloodhounds howl."
"And if they're found?" the fatter advisor asked.
Darrick smiled thinly. "Make it known: I don't need them brought back. Just… quieted."
Back in the mountains - Mina's cabin.
The fire had long since gone to embers.
Alric sat on the edge of the chair like a man lounging in someone else's home — comfortably unwelcome. His smile hadn't faded since he arrived.
"You're wanted men now," he said, tossing a folded parchment onto the table.
Brann didn't reach for it.
Caelan picked it up instead, unfolding the bounty notice with cautious fingers. His face tightened as he read the vague but hauntingly familiar descriptions. One line caught his eye: Treason against order.
"I didn't kill that noble," he muttered.
Brann grunted. "They don't care."
Mira stood near the hearth, arms crossed, watching them both with a storm in her gaze.
"They're using the boy to cover their own bloodied hands," she said. "And Brann's name dragged with him for helping."
Alric leaned forward.
"Which is why," he said smoothly, "you need a way out. Far out. I've got unfinished work overseas — and I need a ship and a few useful hands. You join me, you disappear from these mountains, from bounty boards, from Darrick's reach."
Brann snorted. "Sounds a lot like a trap."
"Not a trap," Alric said. "An opportunity. And a damn rare one."
Mira cut in. "What's across the sea that's worth risking a noose?"
Alric's smile thinned. "Old debts. Older treasures. And freedom, if you survive it."
He turned to Brann. "I helped you once. Let me help again. You'll be dead by snowmelt otherwise."
Brann stared at the fire.
Caelan glanced between them, uncertain — but the weight of the bounty paper in his hand reminded him: he had nowhere left to run.
The wind in the mountains grew sharp that morning — a crisp breath through the trees that felt like it carried whispers from distant places. The kind of wind that made men watch the horizon and wonder what waited beyond it.
Brann stood outside the cabin with a bundle of worn rope and a half-patched satchel slung over his shoulder. He was checking the straps on the old pack mule Mira grudgingly agreed to lend them, mumbling curses at the stubborn beast between clenched teeth.
Caelan emerged from the cabin with a smaller pack of his own, filled with what little Mira had allowed him to take: a wool cloak, a skin of dried meat, a tin cup, and the strange rat-bone necklace from Tammer, which now hung under his shirt like a hidden charm.
Mira stood in the doorway, arms crossed, watching them both.
"You sure this is smart?" she asked Brann, voice low. "Sailing off with Alric? That man leaves trouble in his wake like most people leave footprints."
Brann didn't look up. "It's not about smart. It's about survival. Darrick's hounds'll be sniffing up here by next week. Sooner, if the snow melts early."
Mira's expression tightened. "Still think you could've just stayed dead. Would've saved a lot of noise."
He chuckled dryly. "That plan fell apart when I started caring about people again."
Caelan stepped up beside him. "Is… is it really that dangerous, across the sea?"
Brann glanced at him, then at Mira, then back at the mule. "We've seen worse. But it's not about the danger. It's about disappearing. And no one vanishes better than those with nowhere else to go."
Inside the cabin, Alric was cheerfully rifling through supplies — tying up bundles of salt-dried herbs, lifting jars to the light to check for mold, whistling a tune that sounded a lot like a funeral march.
He called out as he emerged, "We'll want to reach Black Hollow Port by dusk tomorrow if we're going to catch the next ship. After that, the tides won't favor us for another fortnight. And we don't have a fortnight."
"Who's the captain?" Brann asked, skeptically.
"A woman named Velra," Alric said. "Smuggler. Cutthroat. Real sweetheart."
"Sounds charming."
"She is. Just don't ask what's in the lower deck crates and don't snore too loud."
Mira shook her head. "Gods help you fools."
Brann turned to her and, after a moment, placed a rough hand on her shoulder. "Thanks, Mira. For not throwing me back down the mountain."
"I thought about it," she muttered, but the corners of her mouth twitched.
Then she looked at Caelan. "Watch his back. Brann's good at watching everyone else's, but not always his own."
Caelan nodded solemnly. "I will."
She looked like she wanted to say more, but instead reached out, tucked a length of fur into his cloak, and stepped back.
Alric clapped his hands. "Well then. Off we go into the long dark!"
They began the descent down the winding path, the mountains stretching wide around them, the scent of pine and cold stone sharp in the air.
Far above, the wind howled again.
Behind them, Mira stood alone in the doorway of her home, staring out at the horizon with the unease of someone who'd seen old stories rise from shadows… and feared they were coming again.