“Maeric needs a healer, Rin.” Erith adjusted his hold on Maeric, his numb arm prickling with pins and needles under the dead weight. Rain battered the trees, streaming off his hood.

Rin stared out at the field of rain, his expression blank.

“Rin—”

“I’ve been thinking,” Rin interrupted, his voice low, almost detached. “Maybe the clerics are right. Maybe gods really do walk down the Althrenians and stroll among us.”

Erith blinked, caught off guard. He tightened his grip on Maeric. “His leg is swelling. His breathing’s too fast.” His voice trembled. “We need to help him.”

Rin didn’t move, his gaze fixed ahead. “And if they do walk among us, why would they care about someone like Maeric? Why would they look this scared?”

Erith’s patience waned, his cold, panicked glare cutting through the rain. “Maybe you should care for your friend, Rin. If he doesn’t get help soon, he might not make it.”

He met Erith’s stare, his tone sharper now. “We’ll ride to Verael. There’s a place there we can stay. I can find a healer.”

“Not back to camp?”

“I don’t know if there’s a camp to go back to.” Rin’s voice dropped, quieter but heavier. “You said it yourself, ‘Someone emptied the barrier cart.’ That wasn’t chance. That many Murasi? That was sabotage. Our camp wasn’t too far from that. Verael is closer, and I can hide you both there.”

“Hide us?” Erith asked, his tone wary.

Rin let out a short, humorless laugh. “I trust Maeric. He’s a fool with his heart, but I trust him. He didn’t tell his father about you, so I’m trusting that he agreed to keep...whatever you are... hidden. Verael’s closer, and the Ropewalks are easy enough to slip into on a rainy day.”

Erith’s brow furrowed. “The Ropewalks? Maeric doesn’t need a brothel, he needs a—”

“Listen.” Rin leaned forward in his saddle, his tone hardening. “The closest thing I had to a father is dead. The closest thing I have to a brother is dying. I stopped here because if we screw up the next moves, it all falls apart. Whatever happened back there? That’s enough to spark a war without you involved. With you?” He shook his head.

“If anyone saw even a glimpse of what you did, you’re the most wanted man in Aldarath. Maeric wanted you kept secret, so I’ll keep you secret. I trust him, which means, for now, I have to trust you. It’d help if you’d do the same.”

Erith hesitated, then asked, “Can I at least know how you know someone in the Ropewalks who can keep us safe?”

Rin almost smiled, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “My mother runs a business there.”

He dismounted, his boots sloshed against the mud, and he adjusted his cloak to obscure the Surelian sigil on his vest. “Let’s switch. If you can handle riding alone, I’ll take Maeric.”

The trees began to thin as they pressed forward and the rain continued to hammer down, muffling the sound of hooves against the soaked ground. In the distance, fields of cut-down trees met stretches of farmland.

Nearby, a tall wooden obelisk rose prominently against the murky skies. Its weathered surface was etched with “Verael Barrier Limit” into each side, a silent signal of the dangers within the wilds they had ridden from.

The farmland fell away behind them, and the rain-soaked dirt paths hardened into cobblestone roads lined with scattered houses. Eventually, the buildings grew so tightly packed that no gaps remained, their walls forming a continuous border.

They approached a gate with a towering structure on each side, connected above by a wooden gatehouse overseeing the road.

Atop the gatehouse, an ornate mechanism jutted outward—one of the city’s Kaida regulators, designed to channel and disperse Kaida from the container housed in the building below.

“I’ve never come in through the Harvest Gate.” Erith’s voice was strained as he tried to pull his thoughts away from Maeric’s condition.

“I haven't seen much of Verael outside the Crossroads. I walked up to the Nirvalin Ward last season to watch the ships move through the channel.”

“That channel’s older than Verael,” Rin replied, his tone matter-of-fact. “The Old Ones must have dug it. There was a city here long before ours, but most of it was gone by the time Verael took shape.” He nodded toward a narrowing passageway. “We’ll be going this way for a bit.”

“You seem to know the city well for a stray from Aldasi,” Erith remarked, guiding his horse down the narrow side street alongside Rin and Maeric.

Rin smirked. “You know as well as anyone, it’s tough to stay a stray for long on the streets of Aldasi. I grew up here before moving there.”

“That’s a long way to go just to live on the streets.”

“Maybe the streets had more opportunities for me,” Rin quipped, a sly edge in his tone. “And what about you? Seems a waste to march down the Althrenians just to wind up a street urchin in Aldasi. Tell me, when you descended from the heavens, was it Velora or Irithi you climbed down from?”

Erith let out a faint laugh, though his voice stayed flat. “You can rest easy—or be disappointed. I’m not a god, Rin, and the closest I’ve ever been to those mountains is seeing them from our sifting route.”

A flicker of amusement crossed Rin’s face. “Though an urchin boy quietly lurking the streets of our royal city feels like the proper disguise, don’t you think?” He adjusted Maeric’s position in the saddle and looked toward the road ahead. “We’re not far now.”

Rin turned back to Erith, his eyes lingered before his tone shifted toward curiosity. “Why do you care about him? I know there’s more to you than what I’ve seen, but surely you’ve only known Maeric since…”

His voice trailed off as realization dawned. “... Since the Narrows.”

A heavy silence passed between them, broken only by the rain and rhythm of hooves against the cobblestone street.

Erith’s mind drifted to Elian’s careful expression as he examined Erith’s wounds from the Narrows—those warm, brilliantly beaming, steady eyes—filled with an unwavering desire to help.

Erith finally broke the stillness. “I don’t know him that well. But it doesn’t feel like that matters. I don’t get it any better than you do—what’s really going on, but he doesn’t deserve this. I could have done more. I don’t know how many people can say that. But I can… and I didn’t. I don’t want to lose someone… again.”

Rin looked ahead as they veered down a smaller alleyway.

“So, you are a mere mortal after all. Sometimes that’s all we can be.”

✦☽✧❖⨁☼✺☼⨁❖✧☽✦