Ren and Maren left at dawn, just as Maren had said they would.
I watched from the window. I watched all sorts of things from windows. Back on Earth, I probably would have been considered a creep. Well, the same logic applied here, so I guess my behaviour was just as inexcusable.
Ren rode his grey stallion down the hill road and east towards the forest. Maren followed ten minutes later on a bay mare. She didn’t look back at the house as she left.
Clara watched from the landing window too. I heard her footsteps in the hallway, followed by silence. The silence of someone watching another person leave without having anything to say about it. After a while, her footsteps moved away, a door closed, and the house fell quiet.
The first day without Ren was strange. I kept expecting to see him ride up the hill or hear that confident knock on the door. I’d spent every day since the festival aware of him, tracking him, planning around him. Now he was gone, and his absence created its own kind of pressure. He was out there in a forest I hadn’t written, getting stronger in ways I couldn’t predict.
And Maren was gone too.
Ren was a variable I’d created and thought I could predict. Maren was a variable I hadn’t created and couldn’t predict at all. She was in that forest now, travelling with him, and I had no idea what she was doing out there.
Still, the morning was quiet, the town was quiet, and for the first time since I’d woken up on a tavern floor, nobody was trying to kill me, threaten me, charm the woman I was bonded to, or interrogate me about things I couldn’t explain.
It was the closest thing to peace I’d experienced in this world.
Honestly, it was kind of sus. Peace in a story usually meant something was about to go wrong.
I spent the first two days healing. My ribs went from constantly complaining to occasionally forgetting they existed. My wrist stiffened up, then gradually loosened, and I tested it by picking up a book from the study and dropping it on my foot.
That confirmed my wrist was fine.
My foot, unfortunately, was not.
On the third morning, Clara told me I needed to stop sitting around the house.
"You’ve been in that room or the garden for three days," she said over breakfast. "You need to move. And you need to stop drinking that tea. It’s making you sad."
"The tea was already sad before I got to it."
"Then stop drinking it. Come on. I’m going to the market, and you’re coming with me."
I had no choice but to agree, so off we went.
Millhaven was cleaning up. Most of the festival remnants were gone, the broken stalls had been cleared, and the platform had been dismantled. The market square was back to being a market square, with vendors setting up their stalls, the smell of fresh bread and fish in the air, and the permanent background scent of something cooking.
Clara moved through it differently than she had before. Previously, she’d walked with an efficient, precise stride, like a woman with business to attend to. Now, people looked at her differently. She was the woman who’d almost been kidnapped, and the townspeople watched her with the soft concern of neighbours who’d heard bad news and wanted her to know they cared.
Clara handled their attention with composure, though the slight tightening of her jaw told me she was tolerating something she’d rather avoid.
We stopped at a smithy on the corner of the square. Clara walked in without knocking because apparently you didn’t knock at a smithy. You just waltzed right in.
The woman behind the forge looked to be in her forties. She was broad-shouldered and thick-armed, with grey-streaked hair tied back and an apron that had been burned through so many times it was more patch than fabric. She was hammering a piece of metal and didn’t look up when we entered.
"Gwen," Clara called.
The hammering stopped. The woman looked up and squinted at her.
"Clara. You’re walking. That’s good. You had the whole town worried."
"I’m fine, Gwen. I’m walking and buying things, which is the best sign of recovery anyone can offer."
Gwen snorted.
Then she looked at me.
"Who’s the broken one?"
"This is Joseph. He’s staying with us."
Gwen assessed me the way she assessed a piece of metal, as though she were deciding whether I was worth the trouble.
"You look like you’ve been hit by something heavy."
"I was."
She set down her hammer.
"Come back in three days. I’ll have something for you. Not armour. You probably can’t afford armour. But I can fix you up with something for that wrist. And something to carry, because a man shouldn’t be walking around with nothing on his hip."
"We can pay," Clara said.
"I know you can."
The following day, I went looking for food and found Tom Blackwood.
The Crooked Beam was a low building on the eastern side of town, with a sign hanging at an angle that suggested the carpenter had some strong opinions about what counted as level.
The man behind the bar was tall and broad, moving like someone who used to move differently. He poured ale with the efficiency of someone who’d done it ten thousand times, and he watched the room the way I watched rooms: scanning, cataloguing, counting exits.
A thin, white scar ran across his jaw, the kind that came from a blade rather than a fall.
I ordered food.
After a while, he brought it over. Stew, bread, and an ale I didn’t touch. I’d given up on alcohol after the tavern incident where I was supposed to die drunk, and I wasn’t in a hurry to repeat that experience.
The stew was good. I ate while he watched me, and eventually, he pulled out the chair across from me and sat down.
"You’re the one from the festival," he said. "The one who got beaten up."
"I guess I am."
"Name’s Tom. Tom Blackwood. I run this place."
He looked me over, taking in my battered body.
"You’ve got no training."
"None."
"No muscle, either."
"Don’t you think I notice that, pal?"
Tom stared at me for a moment.
Something shifted behind his eyes. Recognition, perhaps.
"I used to fight for a living. Mercenary for fifteen years, as a matter of fact. Eventually, I got tired of it and bought a bar." He leaned back in his chair. "I can teach you a few things. Won’t turn you into an excellent fighter, not in that body of yours. But I can teach you how to throw a punch that lands, how to take a hit without breaking, and how to stay on your feet when someone wants you on the ground."
I considered that.
"Come back tomorrow morning. Six o’clock. We’ll start with the basics, because that’s what you need right now."
I returned the next morning at six.
Tom made me fall down a lot.
He taught me how to fall, how to roll, and how to protect my ribs when I hit the ground. He showed me a basic guard, hands up and elbows in. It looked simple until I tried it and discovered that my arms had absolutely no interest in doing what my brain told them to.
My body was weak and slow, and it complained about everything. Tom, however, was patient in a way that wasn’t exactly kind but was dependable. He had the patience of a man who understood that every beginner had to learn the same lesson.
You’re bad at this.
That’s where we start.
By the end of the week, I could throw a punch that would bruise instead of break something, fall without landing directly on my ribs, and stay on my feet for about thirty seconds against a man who wasn’t even trying.
Thirty seconds wasn’t much, but it was enough to run away.
On the third day, I returned to Gwen Marsh’s smithy to collect what she’d promised. She handed me a leather-and-iron wrist guard fitted to my left wrist, along with a short, plain blade. Nothing fancy, just a practical tool.
Clara had paid for them.
I didn’t find out until I went to collect the items and Gwen casually informed me, "It’s settled. The Dales paid for it. The girl insisted."
I strapped on the wrist guard and fastened the blade to my belt. Then I walked out carrying steel for the first time since arriving in this world.
The weight of it on my hip changed the way I walked. Not much, but enough to remind me it was there.
That evening, I sat in the garden with the blade at my hip as the last of the afternoon light turned amber. Clara was upstairs with her papers, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
My brain kept replaying something she’d said before going upstairs.
I don’t like sharing.
She’d said it about Maren, but she’d meant it about me, too. The fact that she was jealous meant she cared, and the fact that she cared meant things were going according to plan.
At least, that’s what I told myself.
The System chimed.
[Skill Update]
New Skill Unlocked: Brawler’s Instinct (Rank F)
Description: Basic combat awareness. You can now identify when a fight is about to start, approximately two seconds before it does.
Two seconds.
Not much, but enough to duck.
[Luck Meter Update]
Current Luck: D
Previous: D?
Change: +1 rank
D-rank luck. Still terrible by any reasonable standard, but the arrow was pointing in the right direction. Right now, sitting in a garden with a blade, a new skill, and a week of breathing room, that was enough.
After dinner, Clara walked me to the hallway and wished me goodnight. Then she paused.
"Joseph."
"Yeah?"
"I’m not angry anymore."
She spoke quietly, without looking at me. Her gaze remained fixed on the stairs.
"I’m feeling something else. I don’t know what to call it yet, but I’m not angry."
She turned to leave, then stopped again.
"And Joseph?"
"Yeah?"
"If Maren comes back from that forest and starts bringing you apples again, I want you to tell her you’re not hungry."
"She was just sharing fruit."
"Do you value your life?"
Clara straightened.
"If you do, you’ll tell her."
She went upstairs.
I stood in the hallway, thinking about what she’d said. She’d chosen to stay. She’d chosen me over Ren, and now she was telling me, in her own way, that her choice meant something and that something needed defending.
Not from Ren.
From Maren.
From her damn apples.
I went to bed and slept through the night without my ribs waking me up.
That was the best night’s sleep I’d had in this world.