The dawn broke pale and damp, light spilling across the dunes in washed-out gold. The sea stretched iron-grey at their flank, gulls crying overhead, wings sharp against the rising sun. Smoke from their fire curled thin and white, tugged apart by the wind, the last of the salted fish nothing but memory in their bellies.
Rufus stumbled out of his blankets with his hair sticking up in stubborn tufts, rubbing at his eyes. He dragged his boots through the sand, face sour, muttering under his breath.
"Don't wanna go."
Adam looked down at him, adjusting his pack straps.
"What's that, pup?"
"We're leaving the sea," Rufus said, voice thin with sleep and sulk.
He kicked at the sand, shoulders slumping.
"I like it here. It's loud, but… it's big. Not like the woods."
His lip trembled, though he tried to scowl to hide it.
Adam crouched in front of him, resting a steady hand on his shoulder.
"Who told you we're leaving the sea?"
Rufus blinked up, confused.
Adam grinned, wide and easy.
"We're following it, pup. South, along the coast. You'll hear gulls squawking in your ears for days yet."
The boy's eyes widened, his whole face lighting up as the sulk vanished.
"Really?"
"Really," Adam said, tousling his hair. "Now wipe that frown off your face before Aldous mistakes you for his mirror."
That earned a bark of laughter from Victor, and even Emma cracked a smile. Rufus beamed, bouncing on his toes now, mood transformed.
"I thought we were leaving it behind," he said, already darting ahead a few paces before tripping over his own boots.
"Not yet, pup," Adam called after him. "The sea's walking with us."
---
"Up," Aldous grumbled to the world, stamping out the embers with his boot. His beard was already damp with mist, his shoulders squared like stone. "We've lingered long enough. Pack light. Roads don't wait for the lazy."
"Good morning to you too," Adam muttered, half under his breath, tying Rufus' boots.
Aldous's head swiveled, eyes narrowing.
"What was that, boy?"
Adam pasted on a grin, broad and false.
"Said it's a fine morning, Captain Cheerful. Best we hurry before you turn to sunshine and blind us all."
Emma snorted, biting into a strip of bread she'd saved, braid damp from the mist.
"Blind us? You'd miss the chance to admire your own reflection in the sea."
Victor nearly choked on the mouthful of water he'd been drinking. He coughed into his sleeve, laughing low.
"Careful, Emma, if his head swells any bigger, we'll need a mule to carry it."
"Enough chatter," Aldous growled, though his eyes glinted faint with the patience of a man long used to this. "Boots moving. The tide's not the only thing rising behind us."
Édric adjusted the sword across his back, his expression as steady as stone. But when Rufus bolted ahead, then swerved back to Emma, then darted toward Adam, tripping over his own too-big boots, Édric's arm shot out without a thought. He caught the boy by the collar mid-tumble and held him dangling for a second, feet scrabbling.
"Walk straight, lad," he said, voice rough but not unkind. "Or Adam'll be forced to carry you once you've wasted all your energy running."
Adam barked a laugh.
"Not happening. Pup runs out of steam, he's riding on Aldous's shoulders."
Aldous swung his glare around like a cudgel.
"Over my dead body."
Rufus laughed so hard he snorted, clutching his pouch to his chest. When Édric set him down again, he darted off to Victor instead, clutching his sleeve.
"I'll walk straight now, I promise. Just… don't let Aldous eat me."
Victor ruffled his hair, smirking.
"No promises. He likes his meat stringy."
That earned a glare from Aldous, a grin from Adam, and a laugh from Emma that made Victor's chest warm.
They moved in a loose line across the dunes, the sea always in sight, the wind tugging at cloaks. Rufus flitted between them like a restless sparrow, drawn to Adam's easy grin, to Victor's steady presence, to Emma's soft teasing. Édric, impossibly, joined in the banter more than usual, the corners of his mouth twitching when Rufus puffed out his chest or when Adam puffed up to mimic him.
"Careful," Édric said once. "You'll topple if your head grows any bigger."
Victor choked on a laugh, clapping Rufus on the back. Adam gawked in mock betrayal.
"Et tu, Édric? I thought you were on my side."
"I'm on the side of sense," Édric replied, dry as salt.
Emma leaned closer to Victor, eyes sparkling.
"You hear that? Sense. That's why he puts up with you."
Victor grinned, squeezing her hand as they walked.
"No, he puts up with me because he likes the company. He just won't admit it."
"Keep telling yourself that," Édric muttered, though his eyes softened when they flicked briefly to Victor.
By mid-morning the cliffs were visible ahead, dark shoulders rising from the sea. The faint toll of bells carried on the wind, mingling with the cries of gulls. Rufus squinted, tugging at Adam's sleeve.
"Is that it?" he asked.
"That's it, pup," Adam said, crouching to eye-level, his smile gentler now. "A convent. Big stone walls, vows, prayers. You'll like it."
Rufus wrinkled his nose.
"Doesn't look fun."
Adam grinned, brushing his hair back.
"Fun's where you make it. You'll see."
Victor looked back at them, lips quirking as the path curved upward.
"Don't worry, Rufus. The real challenge is Adam—he won't be able to charm anyone in there. No tavern girls, no fisher wives. Just nuns."
Rufus, trudging with his pouch clutched in both hands, perked up at once. His grin flashed.
"Bet he'll try anyway!"
Emma smirked, her braid bouncing against her back.
"Imagine him bowing and flashing that grin at a sister."
Adam pressed a hand to his chest with theatrical injury, nearly stumbling over a loose stone.
"I'll have you all know, I'd never insult a sister like that. Tavern girls, fisher wives, sure—I'll use words, a smile, maybe a wink if the wine's good. But nuns? That's different."
Rufus cocked his head, eyes narrowed in mock suspicion.
"Why?"
"Because," Adam said, straightening, his grin still wide but his tone firmer beneath, "some doors aren't meant to be knocked on. You don't drag vows into your games. I may not kneel at shrines or mutter prayers at dawn, but even I know when something's meant to be respected. And besides—" he tipped Rufus's chin with one finger, smiling crooked—"you never know who's listening."
That earned a small gasp of laughter from Emma, her hand covering her mouth.
"So you do have limits."
Édric actually chuckled—a low rumble, brief but real.
"Finally. The boy admits it."
Adam shot him a look, but the grin stayed fast on his face.
"Admit what? That I've got sense? That I'm charming and selective?"
Édric's expression didn't shift.
"I said you had limits. Don't put words in my mouth."
Victor shook his head, smiling despite himself.
"Selective, he says, as though choosing which girl to smile at is wisdom."
"Wisdom and charity," Adam countered breezily. "Half the time it's a kindness. Can't let them think every man on the road is grim as Aldous here."
Aldous snorted like a mule, not even turning his head.
"Grim keeps you alive. Smiling gets you knifed."
Adam only winked at Rufus, who giggled, eyes bright again after his grumpy start.
"See? Everyone's got their part to play. I keep spirits up, Édric keeps sense, Victor broods, Emma glares, Aldous growls. Balance."
Emma bumped Victor's shoulder, laughing under her breath.
"He does have it all worked out, doesn't he?"
Victor, walking close enough that his arm brushed hers, could only grin. The rare ease rippled through the troupe like a wave. The sea whispered against the cliffs, the convent rose stark ahead, and though shadows followed, hope walked with them too.
---
The bells had only just finished tolling Terce when the gates creaked open. Their echoes still clung to the stone as Sister Livia adjusted the basket on her hip and turned toward the sound. The convent rarely received visitors—merchants once a week, peasants seeking alms, the occasional noble who wished the appearance of piety without its cost.
But this—this was different.
She saw them first as shapes: a loose knot of men, a woman among them, and one small boy who clung close. Outsiders. Their presence made the air shift.
Her gaze went to the woman before anything else. Young, pretty, copper-haired, clad not in skirts but in trousers and boots, a bow slung across her back. Bold as brass. The sisters beside Livia stiffened. Women who dressed like men always drew whispers in villages—here, within holy walls, the sight was sharper still. Yet her chin was high, her step light with the easy confidence of someone used to stares.
Beside her walked a young man with a patch over one eye. He carried himself with a soldier's alertness though his shoulders were narrow still, not yet hardened into age. His hand hovered near his hilt as though instinct guided him. One glance told her he had known fear, but another showed how fiercely he had chosen to stand against it. He did not notice the sisters watching. His eyes—eye—never stopped moving, sweeping the courtyard as if cataloguing every shadow.
Her gaze then went to the tallest: a grizzled man in worn leather and patched mail, a sword strapped across his back. His hair was touched with fair chestnut, cut short, his beard bristling like iron. He walked with the steady tread of someone who had lived under discipline all his life. His eyes, grey and cold as the sea, flicked over everything—arches, shadows, faces—with a soldier's suspicion. He belonged to no village. No family. A man of the road, of war.
Then she noticed the child.
The boy couldn't be more than ten, barefoot on the stones, fair hair sticking up every which way as if no hand had smoothed it that morning. Thin, too thin, though not starved. He clutched at something hanging from a cord around his neck and looked about with wide, watchful eyes.
Her mouth softened despite herself. What child belonged in a band like this? She looked again—and only then saw how his hand was fisted, white-knuckled, into the back of a man's tunic.
Ah. Of course. His father.
Her eyes followed the boy's grip upward, expecting another stern face, another soldier carved from the same weathered stone. Instead—
Her breath caught.
It was him.
Taller now, broader through the shoulders, though not heavy. His hair darker than she remembered, tousled by the wind. A scar split across his face, healed clean, disappearing in a 2-days beard, giving his smile a crooked gravity when he laughed softly down at the boy. He ruffled the child's hair with an ease that spoke of practice, of habit, and the boy pressed closer against his side, certain of safety.
Adam.
The name rushed through her like the toll of the bells had a moment ago, striking something deep she thought long buried. Adam—the reckless boy who had once stolen moments with her in the orchard, who had whispered dreams until the day they were caught. The boy cast out while she was cloistered, convinced they would never meet again.
And here he was, no longer a boy but a man marked by years, walking into the convent with a child glued to his side.
Livia's fingers tightened on her basket until the wicker creaked.
The sisters around her muttered already—about the red-haired woman in trousers, about the armed men—and she forced her gaze away. But the sound of his laugh lingered, and the sight of that child's hand still knotted in his tunic burned in her mind.