The caravan's quarters above the tavern were thick with smoke and sweat. Lanterns guttered in their sconces, throwing long, wavering shadows across the beams. Boots scuffed against the warped floorboards, armor plates clinked as men shifted uneasily, and the low clamor of voices ground together like stones in a mill.
Outside, the market bell tolled noon, bright and steady. But inside, the air was close, heavy, charged, like the rafters themselves bowed beneath the weight of storm clouds pressing in.
Sofia stood at the center. Her helm lay on the table between her and the men, the scar down her cheek catching the lamplight. Her arms were folded, her face still as hammered iron as the storm of argument broke around her.
"We can't drag him further," one guard spat. His beard was streaked with gray, his voice raw with weariness and fear. "The cult marked him. Now the town does too. Every league we march, he paints a bigger target on our backs. Best we leave him. Let the council chain him. Let them take the risk."
Another slammed his fist on the table so hard the lantern flame jumped. "Leave him, and you may as well slit his throat here and now. You saw those cloaks, do you think town walls will hold against them? You think blue-sashed farmers in borrowed steel will stop what bent iron like twigs?"
"They're not our walls!" the gray-bearded guard barked back. "Not our people. We've got our own lives to guard, our own families to see again."
The words struck hard, and the room flared with voices, half-shouted, half-hissed, fear sharpening into anger. The boy they had pulled from the river days ago sat curled at the foot of the stairs, wide-eyed, his thin hands pressed over his ears against the storm of words.
Owen stood suddenly, parchment clutched in ink-smudged fingers. His voice cracked but rose high enough to cut the noise. "You're talking about him like he's a cursed stone to toss down a well. He's not. He's Leo. He saved my life. He saved yours last night. And if you think the Serpent will stop at him, you're blind fools. They'll take the shard, yes, but they'll butcher anyone who stood near it. That means all of us."
"Or they'll butcher us because we carry it," a woman snapped back. She was young, face pale and pinched, and fear made her tone brittle.
Silence fell jagged and raw after her words.
Leo sat in the corner, his back pressed to the wall, trying to fold himself into the shadows. Every word seemed a hammer blow on his chest. Each accusation, each fear, carved into him until his skin crawled. He wanted to shout that he hadn't asked for this, hadn't wanted the shard, that it had burned its way into him unbidden. But the shard stirred in his chest, voice thick with smug certainty:
See how they gnash their teeth. They weigh your worth in coin and fear. They will not follow you, they will betray you. Only fire will bind them.
His fists clenched until his nails dug crescents deep into his palms.
Then Sofia spoke.
Her voice was not loud, yet it silenced the room more thoroughly than any shout. "Enough."
The air stilled. Even the lantern flame seemed to pause its flicker.
She turned her scarred face slowly, meeting each guard's gaze in turn. "You think leaving him buys you safety? You're wrong. The cult will not stop. The shard draws them, but it draws them whether he is with us or not. Better he walks with us, where steel still stands, than chained in a cell waiting to be carved apart."
Her words struck like forged iron. Yet even so, doubt lingered in the eyes of her soldiers. Fear is a rot, it does not leave so quickly.
One of the men muttered, voice low, bitter, "You speak like his life weighs more than the rest of ours."
The scar on Sofia's cheek twitched faintly, but she did not answer. Her silence was heavier than denial.
Owen broke it instead, his voice harsh with urgency. "The council gave us until nightfall. We can't out argue them. Either we leave before then, or they take him."
The words hung suspended, sharp and final, like a blade dangling by a hair.
Leo forced himself to stand, every limb heavy as if chains already coiled around him. His throat was tight, but he made himself speak. "I won't let you bleed for me. If leaving me here keeps you alive, then-"
"No."
Sofia's reply cracked across him like a whip. She took a step forward, her eyes fierce, her presence filling the room. "You don't get to decide alone." She stopped just short of him, and her gaze burned with command. "You are part of this caravan now, whether you like it or not. And if the cult wants you, they will have to carve through all of us first."
Her vow struck through the room like steel drawn from its sheath.
But vows are not enough to mend fractures. Half her soldiers looked to her with loyalty, their backs straightening. The other half looked away, fear still etched deep in their eyes.
The air vibrated with the unsaid, with choices not yet made.
From outside came the faint echo of raised voices, shouts in the square, swelling into unrest. The town's murmur was becoming a storm.
The cult had not yet drawn blades. They did not need to.
Fear was already doing their work for them.