I hate mornings.
The light is always too honest, the air too full of hope, and everything smells like bread and manure. Which is to say, I was in a village.
Again.
My feet were filthy. The sandals—cheap leather things I’d tied up to my knees in a moment of delusion about “blending in”—were caked in road dust and goat shit. My tunic clung like a second skin, damp with sweat from the hike. It was white once, silk allegedly, now the color of tired linen and barely managing to cover my nipples unless I stood very, very still. Naturally, I was moving.
I shuffled into the center of the square like some kind of bedraggled fertility statue lugging a sack that jingled with the ill-gotten armor of yet another tragically handsome idiot. Gods, that codpiece alone weighed a kilo. Embroidered. With griffons. Who embroiders mythical beasts onto their dick cage?
Men.
The village was exactly what you’d expect: thatched roofs, chickens doing things chickens aren’t supposed to do, and an old crone glaring at me like she could smell the fornication. (She probably could. I hadn’t bathed since before the altar incident.)
I stopped in what passed for a marketplace—two stands selling suspicious fruit and one burly man chopping fish like it owed him money. A dog barked. A child cried. Somewhere a lute player hit a wrong note and kept going like nothing happened.
Idyllic.
I dropped the sack with a loud clang, rolled my shoulders, and tried not to scream as every vertebra popped like bubble wrap. The crone was still watching me. I flashed her a smile. The kind that says yes, I fucked your grandson and stole his boots. Twice.
She clutched her shawl tighter.
I took in the scene. No gallows. No crucifixions. No angry mob with torches. Promising. Either the dragon hadn’t made his entrance yet, or these people were too chill to burn witches before lunch.
Good.
Now, what would a poor little lost girl in a scandalous tunic be doing here, all alone, with secrets in her eyes and a sack of clinking metal?
“Lost,” I muttered, practicing the line. “Alone. Afraid. Definitely not carrying the dismantled hopes and dreams of a would-be paladin in my bag.”
A goat wandered up to sniff my leg.
I kicked at it gently. “Back off, horny.”
Somewhere in the woods behind me, the Dragon was hiding—curled up in a cave or perched on a cliffside, likely composing a sonnet about the tragedy of knees. He hated these long stretches where I had to walk into town like some tragic romance heroine. Claimed it gave him separation anxiety. I called it drama addiction.
He’d show up eventually. Probably just after I’d charmed the elders or seduced a blacksmith or gotten halfway into a convincing faint on the temple steps. Timing was part of the act.
Until then, I was on.
I adjusted my cloak—rough wool, scratchy like a farmer’s conscience—and pulled it tighter around my mostly-bare thighs. I had exactly three silver pieces in my pouch, a half-melted lipstick in my cleavage, and no idea where the inn was.
Still, the stage was set.
New village. New con. New chance at treasure, chaos, and possibly a decent bath.
I smiled, stretched my arms overhead like a yawning cat, and turned slow, letting the morning sun hit my cheekbones just right. Somewhere, someone would be watching. They always watched.
The trick was simple.
Play the part.
So I batted my lashes, summoned a sigh full of mystery and trauma, and whispered just loud enough for the fishmonger to hear:
“I was the only one who survived.”
Oh yes.
Let the games begin.
The old crone was still squinting at me like I was a sneeze away from sprouting horns and offering to dance naked under the moon.
I smiled sweetly, stepped closer, and asked, “Excuse me, darling heart. Where might I find a pawn shop?”
Her lips puckered like a cat’s asshole. “We don’t have a brothel in this town.”
Ah. That tone.
“It’s not that kind of request,” I said, saccharine. “Though if I find myself short on options, I’ll keep your barn in mind.”
Her eyes narrowed. “No place here for your kind.”
I looked down at myself—sweaty, road-dusted, tunic translucent in the wrong light, which was every light—and sighed. “Yes, yes. My kind. With breasts, a brain, and questionable morals. Terrifying.”
She made a warding gesture like I’d farted devils into her soup and shuffled away.
I turned on my heel and spotted salvation in the form of a blackened anvil and a half-collapsed sign that read “MORGRUN’S METAL & MISC.” Below it, a smaller sign read “WE SHOE HORSES, NOT WHORES.”
Charming.
But there, beside the forge: a display of rust-flecked polearms, hunting knives, pitchforks, and enough belt buckles to make a centaur blush. A small armory, basically. The kind of place where you could buy both a ploughshare and a dagger sharp enough to make a point.
Perfect.
I heaved the sack back over my shoulder—it groaned like the ghost of poor decisions—and clinked my way into the gloom of the smithy.
He was just as expected: shirtless, soot-slicked, and suspicious. Burly in the way men get when they spend their lives hammering metal and not listening to women. One eyebrow raised as I approached the counter and dropped the sack with a clang that probably woke up someone’s dead uncle.
He said nothing.
So I opened the sack like a stage magician revealing a rabbit made of gold-plated regret. Out came the hero’s embossed bracers, a pair of greaves etched with overwrought scripture, a polished breastplate bearing the emblem of some noble house I couldn’t be bothered to Google, and that goddamn embroidered codpiece.
His eyebrow inched higher. “Where’d you get this?”
Time to lie.
“My lover,” I said, fluttering my lashes. “Couldn’t pay for my charms. So I took his armor as... compensation.”
He grunted. “That so?”
“Yes.” I leaned forward, letting the tunic slip just enough. “You’d be amazed what men will trade for a few hours of affection.”
He didn’t blink. Just crossed his arms and stared at me like I was an unusually pretty rat crawling out of a treasure chest.
Damn.
This one had the moral rigidity of a baked potato, but the eyes of a man who knew a stolen cuirass when he saw one.
“I’m not lookin’ to get hanged for buying looted goods,” he said slowly. “Not again.”
I plastered on my best pout. “Do I look like a bandit?”
He looked me up and down. “You look like trouble.”
“And you look like someone who hasn’t seen a breastplate this nice since his balls dropped.”
A pause. Then a chuckle. Grudging. Still suspicious.
“Ten silver.”
I stared at him. “For the whole set? This is custom work. You could melt it down and make an entire chapel’s worth of candleholders.”
He shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe some knight comes lookin’. Armor like this don’t just fall off a cart.”
It did, actually—right after I knocked its owner unconscious with a rock and undressed him mid-moan.
But I didn’t say that.
I sighed. “Fine. Ten.”
He pushed the coins across the counter. Dull silver. Slightly sticky.
“Where can a girl find a hot bath and a soft bed around here?” I asked, scooping up the coins like they didn’t insult my entire profession.
“Try the Goat’s Elbow,” he muttered. “North end. Rooms smell like soup, but the bathhouse next door takes silver.”
“Do they scrub you or just stare awkwardly while you do it yourself?”
“Depends what you pay for.”
“Everything does.”
I turned, cloak flaring just enough to give him a glimpse of thigh. Always leave them wondering.
As I stepped out into the morning glare again, purse heavier, dignity lighter, I whispered to myself:
“One bath, one bed, one bottle of wine... and maybe a girl with fewer opinions.”
Then I headed north.
The bathhouse better have soap.
Or someone was getting stabbed with a codpiece.
Before I could collapse into a tub and soak off the sins of several villages—including one knight, three lies, and a full-body sweat—I remembered the real reason I couldn’t just let my traveling companion die in a ditch:
He owed me money.
And also he might have gout.
So I veered off the muddy path and toward the squat little building that dared to call itself an apothecary. The sign outside read “Physicks & Remedies” in a script so shaky it looked like the quill had arthritis. A jar of herbs dangled from a string like some kind of rural ward, and a sickly-looking bird was nesting in the eaves. Probably cursed. Probably named Agnes.
The inside was somehow worse.
Damp. Dark. Every surface covered in jars, dusty cloth bundles, and the slow melancholy death of hygiene. The place smelled like burnt lavender and wet cheese. A skeleton coughed behind the counter—no, wait, a man. Just very old and very determined to prove it with every wheezing breath.
As I stepped in, the door groaned, the floor groaned, and from across the street, she groaned.
The old crone. Again.
She muttered something about “painted harlots bringing plague and thunder,” and spat into the dirt with the kind of flair that only a lifelong hater could master.
I ignored her, as all radiant beings ignore barnyard noise, and approached the counter.
The old man blinked at me like he couldn’t tell if I was real or just a hallucination brought on by expired poppy syrup.
“I need gout ointment,” I said.
He blinked slower. “You?”
“Yes, me,” I said, tone sweet with a hint of tragedy. “Well, not for me, obviously. My joints are as limber as a temple dancer in heat.”
His gaze slid over my bare legs, the hem of my scandalously short tunic, the modesty-free drape of my cloak.
I smiled wider. “It’s for my master.”
“Master,” he echoed flatly.
I placed a hand over my heart. “Yes. I serve an aging lord of once-great renown, now a penitent soul on the road of repentance. We travel alone, he and I. He with his heavy regrets. Me with his heavier luggage.”
Still nothing.
I leaned in conspiratorially, letting my voice drop into a whisper of whispered whispers.
“He was a powerful man, once. Terrible, proud. But now? Just a tired monk with aching bones and a wheeze that breaks my heart.”
The old man stared.
“He walks barefoot,” I added, for drama. “Through thorns. For the sins he cannot name.”
He squinted.
I sighed, layering sorrow over my voice like honey over rotten bread. “I am all that’s left of his estate. His last loyal servant. I rub salve into his weary joints by candlelight. I fetch his broth. I whisper forgiveness into his fever dreams.”
Still silence.
I pressed the act harder.
“Sometimes,” I said, eyes shimmering, “he forgets who he is. But never me. He calls me ‘little bird.’ I don’t know why. I’ve never asked.”
The apothecary coughed again, this time with the ghost of a chuckle buried somewhere beneath the phlegm. He turned, rummaged under the counter, and produced a small clay pot sealed with wax and the faint odor of crushed pine and regret.
“For his… gout.”
“Bless you,” I whispered, pressing a silver into his palm and curling his fingers around it like I was handing over a sacred relic.
He didn’t let go.
“Don’t lie to me, girl,” he rasped.
I smiled. “I never do.”
Then I slipped the jar into my cloak, blew him a kiss he absolutely didn’t want, and strutted out into the light.
The crone was still there.
She muttered something that sounded like “filth.”
I waved cheerfully. “Your uterus called. It wants to know if you're ever going to use it again.”
And off I went.
One jar of suspiciously local ointment for a not-so-local dragon. One bath still pending. One bed calling my name.
And, gods willing, no more crones.
The inn looked like it had seen better centuries.
A sagging wooden sign read The Goat’s Elbow, and frankly, I wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be quaint or a threat. The shutters hung crooked, the door creaked like a virgin on prom night, and the smell wafting out was a heady mix of old ale, old socks, and very old decisions.
Perfect.
I stepped inside, cloak trailing behind me, tunic clinging just enough to hint but not enough to cover. The common room was empty—unless you counted the two bar wenches leaning against a barrel and sharing a dirty joke, which apparently ended with a chicken and a bishop.
Behind the counter stood the innkeeper. Thick arms, thicker neck, no visible neck-beard separation. His eyes swept over me with the kind of appraisal usually reserved for livestock and slightly dented cookware.
“You lookin’ for work?” he asked, voice gravelly, tone unreadable.
I gave him a flat look. “Lodging.”
He grunted. “Ah. A runaway, then.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
He gestured vaguely at my outfit. “Where’s your master? Husband? Owner?”
The wenches giggled.
I forced a smile. “Dead. Eaten by a bear. Or syphilis. Hard to say—it was dark, and he wasn’t screaming very clearly by the end.”
That shut them up.
I stepped forward, pulled two silver coins from the pouch, and slapped them onto the sticky bar with a theatrical clink. “This good for a bed and a bath for a day or two? And maybe a mug that won’t give me tetanus?”
He eyed the coins like he expected them to bite.
Eventually, he nodded. “Room upstairs. End of the hall. No key. Don’t need one.”
“Lovely.”
“Bathhouse is next door. If you want hot water, tell Bruna. Costs extra.”
I nodded, scooping the coins back and flicking them into his calloused palm one by one.
“Anything else?” he asked.
I leaned in just a bit, lowering my voice. “Yeah. If a scaly old monk shows up looking like he’s about to lecture the whole town about virtue and pain management—send him up.”
The innkeeper blinked. “A what?”
“You’ll know him,” I said. “He smells like incense, scorched feathers, and disappointment.”
And with that, I turned, swayed past the gawking barmaids, and made my way up the stairs.
The room better had a mattress.
I hadn’t slept on anything softer than a disgraced paladin in three days.
It was dusk when I stirred, cocooned in a blanket that scratched like a moral lecture but felt like luxury anyway.
Rough wool, stale straw, and a pillow that smelled vaguely of wet dog and someone else’s dreams—but gods, it was indoors. I hadn’t been woken by owls fighting raccoons, hadn’t shivered next to a half-dead campfire, and most importantly, nothing was crawling on me.
Bliss.
I yawned, long and feline, stretching every limb like I was being worshipped in a temple, not lying in a bed stuffed with hay and the occasional mystery lump. My tunic had twisted halfway around my torso; I adjusted it lazily and let one leg slip free into the cooling air.
On the floor beside me—my sandals, kicked off without ceremony. One strap was tangled like it had tried to escape. Near them, a wooden bowl scraped clean, a smear of broth clinging to the rim like a broken promise. Salty, oily, probably boiled yesterday—but it had been hot, and it hadn’t come with strings attached. A rarity.
The bath had been good—hot water, actual soap, and a burly woman named Bruna who didn’t ask questions, just scrubbed me like she was polishing silverware. I’d left her a generous tip. Well, a tip. One coin. But I winked when I handed it over, so it counted double.
The nap had been better.
I stretched again, arms over my head, back arched, toes curling into the mattress like they didn’t want to leave.
Still had some silver left. Still had the jar of ointment. The Dragon hadn’t come looking for me—yet—which meant he was either sleeping, sulking, or composing limericks about pain.
I rolled onto my side and stared at the fading light sliding through the cracks in the shutter. Options flickered through my head.
I could go downstairs.
Get an ale.
See who was around.
Maybe make some trouble. Maybe make a friend.
Maybe both.
I sat up slowly, tousled hair falling around my shoulders like a silk curtain that had been through a brawl.
Yes.
Ale sounded perfect.
I wandered back down into the common room, hair finger-combed into something approaching deliberate chaos, cloak slung casually over one shoulder, tunic behaving just barely enough to keep me legal—barely.
The inn had transformed.
Where earlier there’d been dust and boredom, now it thrummed with noise, smoke, and the sweet perfume of unwashed ambition. A cracked fiddle sawed its way through something that might have once been music. The crowd was a stew of mercenaries, merchants, whores pretending to be farmers, and farmers pretending to be whores. The kind of place where someone might buy a goat, sell a cousin, or stab a man over a game of dice. Possibly all three at once.
My kind of place.
I strolled up to the bar, hips loose, smile lazy.
“Something to drink,” I said.
The innkeeper grunted without even looking. “No mead. No berry wine. Just ale.”
“Perfect,” I said. “I’m in a foamy kind of mood.”
He slapped a tankard down, sloshing brown froth across his knuckles. I took it and turned, eyes scanning the crowd.
Someone to my left whistled low. “You lookin’ for work, sweetheart?”
I sipped my ale, let the foam touch my lip like a lover’s kiss. “No,” I said. “I’m looking for fun.”
The table erupted into chuckles and leers. One toothless man clutched his chest like I’d stabbed him with charm. Another raised his mug in salute.
I grinned and leaned against the bar, letting the din wash over me, body humming with the warmth of broth and sleep and ale and the very faint scent of pine ointment from the jar still tucked in my pack upstairs.
And then the door creaked open.
I glanced up.
And every muscle in my body turned to ice.
There he was.
The hero.
That hero.
Tunic only. No armor. No sword. Just the haunted look of a man who’d woken up naked on a rock with a headache and a suspicious draft.
He scanned the room like a bloodhound on heat. “Dark-haired wench,” he barked. “Pale skin. Big blue eyes. Has anyone seen her?”
My stomach dropped through the floor.
I ducked behind a stack of barrels so fast I nearly dropped my ale. My heart slammed against my ribs like it was trying to climb out of my body and run ahead.
Gods.
He remembered.
Of course he remembered. He’d woken up bare-assed and broke on a mountain with bite marks and burn scars and no pants. That sort of thing tends to stick.
“She’s a witch,” he was saying now. Voice tight, barely holding it together. “She robbed me. Her and the—the beast! It was a trap! I should’ve—”
I didn’t wait for the rest.
I slipped out the back like a ghost in sandals, clutching my tankard and my cloak, barely remembering to breathe. The alley was damp, narrow, and smelled like piss and turnips, but it was freedom. Sweet, humiliating freedom.
I didn’t stop moving until the inn was behind me, its drunken roar fading into the dusk.
Damn it.
I liked that ale.