The town announced itself by smell before sight.
Smoke from low chimneys drifted across the road, mingling with the sharp scent of tanned leather and damp grain. Wooden palisades ringed the settlement, old but maintained, their spikes uneven from years of patchwork repairs. No banners flew above the gate.
That alone told him enough.
He slowed his pace as he approached.
Merchants queued outside the entrance, carts creaking under the weight of sacks and crates. Guards checked goods lazily, more concerned with tolls than threats. Their armor was mismatched - leather reinforced with scavenged plates, blades nicked from use rather than ceremony.
Militia.
Not knights.
Good.
He passed through the gate without incident.
Inside, the town was compact, built inward rather than upward. Narrow streets wound between timber buildings, roofs sagging under age. People moved with purpose but without urgency. No shrines stood at the crossroads. No sun-symbols marked doorways.
Faith, if present at all, was quiet here.
He felt it immediately.
Not safety.
Absence.
The sun still shone overhead, but its pressure was dulled, muted by indifference rather than defiance. Judgment required attention. This place offered little of it.
He walked until he reached the central square - smaller than the one he had left behind, and far less clean. A well stood at its center, surrounded by barrels and crates. Children played nearby, watched halfheartedly by tired parents.
No gallows.
No platform.
No sermons.
He chose a bench in the shade of a leaning building and sat.
Time passed.
He listened.
A merchant arguing over grain prices. A guardsman complaining about pay. A woman cursing the road tax imposed by a distant lord who had never visited.
Power here was not enforced by belief.
It was enforced by necessity.
That made it flexible.
A group of men crossed the square, their boots leaving tracks in the dirt. At their center walked a broad-shouldered figure with a limp, one arm bound in cloth darkened by old blood. The others deferred to him subtly - slowing when he slowed, quieting when he spoke.
Authority, earned rather than declared.
The boy watched him closely.
The man stopped at the well, bracing himself against its stone edge as he drank. His movements were economical, practiced. Pain did not slow him; it had merely been accounted for.
A survivor.
The boy felt the familiar stir.
Not hunger.
Interest.
He rose and followed at a distance as the man left the square and disappeared down a side street. The path led toward a cluster of warehouses near the edge of town, where wagons were loaded and unloaded under the watch of a handful of guards.
The man spoke briefly with them, gestures sharp but controlled. They listened.
When the work was done, he dismissed them and continued alone toward a narrow alley behind the buildings.
The boy stepped into the shadow before the man could turn.
"You're hurt," he said.
The man froze.
Slowly, he turned.
Up close, his face was lined and weathered, eyes sharp despite exhaustion. His free hand drifted toward the knife at his belt but did not draw it.
"Everyone is," the man replied. "Who are you?"
The boy studied him.
Close enough to smell iron beneath sweat.
Old blood.
"You run the roads," the boy said. "Not officially. But when caravans vanish, people come to you. When guards fail, you step in."
The man's eyes narrowed. "Careful."
"You don't pray," the boy continued. "And you don't wait for permission."
Silence stretched between them.
Finally, the man exhaled. "If this is about coin, speak plainly."
The boy shook his head.
"This place listens," he said. "That's rare."
The man stared at him for a long moment, then barked a short laugh. "You talk strangely for a child."
"I'm not here to stay," the boy said. "But I may return."
The man studied him again, more carefully this time.
"And if I don't want you to?"
The boy met his gaze without blinking.
"Then you won't remember this conversation," he said calmly.
The man felt it then.
Not fear.
Pressure.
Just enough to understand the difference between them.
"…What do you want?" he asked quietly.
The boy considered him one last time.
Not yet.
"Nothing," he said. "For now."
He stepped back, already fading into the movement of the street.
Behind him, the man remained where he stood, one hand pressed unconsciously to his chest, heart racing for reasons he could not name.
From the shade of a distant awning, the boy watched the town continue on, unaware.
Yes. This will suffice.