Endola woke to the smell of cold ash.

  The fire had burned itself out sometime before dawn, leaving behind only a pale ring of embers and blackened stones. A thin curl of smoke still clung to the ground, stubborn and faint, drifting lazily as the morning wind passed through the grass.

  He lay still for a moment, eyes half open, listening.

  The plains were never truly quiet. Wind moved through the tall grass in long, uneven waves, brushing stalk against stalk until the sound became something like distant water. Somewhere farther off, an insect chirped, then stopped. The air was cool, carrying the damp scent of earth and dew.

  Endola exhaled slowly.

  Another night without incident.

  He pushed himself upright, joints stiff from sleeping on bare ground. His cloak lay folded beside him, edges damp, and his pack rested where he had set it against a low stone the night before. The sword was within arm’s reach, as it always was.

  He brushed ash from his fingers and stood, stretching once, careful not to pull too hard. There was a dull ache in his shoulder—a reminder of yesterday’s travel—but nothing sharp. Nothing that mattered.

  Cities were still half a day away. That suited him fine.

  He crouched to scatter the firepit with his boot, making sure no embers lingered, then slung his pack over one shoulder and turned east.

  That was when he heard the shouting.

  At first, it was distant enough to be mistaken for the wind—raised voices carried oddly across open land. But then came the unmistakable clash of metal against wood, followed by a sharp cry that cut off too abruptly to be harmless.

  Endola paused.

  He closed his eyes and listened again.

  This time, the sounds were clearer. Multiple voices. Laughter, rough and careless. Someone swearing loudly. Another cry—higher, panicked.

  Not hunters.

  Not guards drilling.

  He adjusted his grip on the strap of his pack and moved.

  The grass was tall enough to hide him if he stayed low, bending beneath his weight as he advanced. He crested a shallow rise and slowed, letting his eyes take in the scene below.

  A caravan.

  One wagon lay tipped on its side, one wheel shattered, its canvas covering torn open and flapping uselessly in the wind. Crates had been dragged into the open and split apart, spilling cloth, dried goods, and metal fittings across the dirt.

  Two bodies lay near the road.

  Guards, by their armor.

  They were too still.

  Seven men moved around the wreckage.

  They didn’t hurry. They joked and argued as they worked, tossing goods into sacks and kicking aside what they didn’t want. One man shoved a merchant to the ground when he tried to crawl toward the wagon, sending him sprawling face-first into the dirt.

  Endola counted automatically.

  Seven men. Two dead guards. One wagon overturned.

  He watched their spacing, the way they moved around the wreckage without looking at one another. Not trained soldiers. Bandits rarely were. But numbers had their own kind of confidence.

  One mistake and the fight would end before it started.

  Endola’s eyes drifted toward the wagon again.

  The child beneath it had stopped moving.

  Good. Still hiding.

  His gaze flicked back to the guards. Their weapons lay just beyond their reach, fingers slack, armor dented in places that suggested no clean fight had taken place. Dark stains soaked into the soil beneath them.

  They were dead.

  He felt a familiar tightening in his chest—not anger, not shock, but the quiet calculation that came when something had already gone wrong.

  He let his awareness stretch outward.

  Not far. Just enough.

  Mana brushed against his senses like a faint pressure in the air, invisible but present. He caught the rough shapes of the men, their positions relative to one another, the open space beneath the wagon.

  Something small moved there.

  A child.

  Endola straightened.

  “You can leave,” he said.

  The words weren’t loud, but they carried.

  Seven heads turned at once.

  For a moment, no one spoke.

  Then one of them laughed.

  “Who’s this supposed to be?” a thick-armed man said, squinting as he stepped forward. “You lost, traveler?”

  Endola stood in the open now, sword loose at his side, posture relaxed but grounded. “You’ve taken what you wanted,” he said. “Go.”

  Another man snorted. “That’s not how this works.”

  “Road’s already spoken for,” someone added.

  The leader—the man with the bow—raised a hand, silencing the others. His eyes stayed on Endola, sharp and assessing.

  “This isn’t your business,” he said calmly.

  Endola didn’t answer.

  The leader’s gaze flicked briefly to the sword at his hip. “You an adventurer?”

  “Yes.”

  A faint smile tugged at the man’s mouth. “Then you should know better than to interfere.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” the thick-armed man muttered, kicking a crate. “No mark in sight anyway.”

  Endola shifted his weight.

  He didn’t want a fight. He rarely did. Violence drew attention, and attention had a way of clinging longer than it should.

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  But the child beneath the wagon hadn’t stopped shaking.

  One of the bandits laughed again, sharp and careless, and kicked a loose crate aside.

  Endola exhaled.

  Then he moved.

  Smoke burst outward in a sudden gray bloom, thick and biting, swallowing the space between him and the wagon. Shouts followed instantly—surprised, angry, disoriented—as men stumbled back, coughing, boots scraping blindly through dirt and spilled goods.

  “—What the hell—?!”

  Endola stepped into the smoke.

  Heat followed him—not flame, not yet, but pressure. The air distorted faintly around the blade as mana threaded along the steel, turning its edge red-hot beneath the haze.

  A shape lunged toward him.

  Steel met steel.

  The bandit tried to block, instinct over training. His sword touched Endola’s—

  —and softened.

  The metal sagged mid-swing, bending inward with a screech that set teeth on edge. The blade slipped from the man’s grip, landing in the dirt with a dull, warped thud.

  “What—my sword—?!”

  Endola didn’t slow.

  He turned with the momentum, letting the failed block carry the bandit past him. Another figure rushed in from the side, swinging hard and low.

  Endola angled his blade, catching the strike near the hilt.

  The second weapon deformed instantly, the edge blunting, then curling as heat ate through it. The bandit yelped and staggered back, clutching his hands.

  Panic rippled through the smoke.

  “That’s not normal!”

  “Did you see that?!”

  “Enchanted—he’s got an enchanted weapon!”

  Someone threw a dagger. Endola twisted aside and felt it skim past his cloak. He stepped in close, struck the thrower’s wrist with the flat of his blade, then swept his leg out from under him. The man hit the ground hard and didn’t get back up.

  The smoke thinned.

  Endola could see them now—wide eyes, broken formation, fear replacing confidence too quickly to be hidden.

  An arrow cut through the clearing air.

  He felt it pass, close enough to stir his hair.

  The leader was already retreating, bow half-drawn, feet moving before his mind caught up.

  Endola surged forward.

  Two strides. One breath.

  The bowstring never finished tightening.

  Endola struck the man across the temple with controlled force, turning his wrist at the last moment to avoid crushing the skull. The leader crumpled instantly, bow slipping from his fingers.

  Silence fell hard.

  Groans followed. The soft ticking sound of cooling metal. Smoke drifted apart in uneven strands, revealing twisted blades scattered across the ground like discarded tools.

  Endola stood among them, chest tight, heat bleeding slowly out of the sword and into his arm.

  The heat always left something behind.

  Internal mana wasn’t meant to linger in steel. It moved through flesh first, and flesh paid the price. The ache in his arm spread slowly from wrist to shoulder, dull but heavy, like a bruise forming beneath the skin.

  If he pushed harder than that, the pain would come later.

  And it would come all at once.

  He scanned the field once more.

  No one standing.

  Relieved, he sheathed his sword.

  Chest tight, the dull ache of mana burn already settling into his arm. He scanned the field once more, then knelt by the wagon.

  “Hey,” he said quietly.

  A small face stared back at him from the shadows beneath the wagon.

  Wide eyes. Dirt streaked across her cheeks.

  She didn’t move.

  Endola lowered the blade slightly but did not step closer.

  “It’s over,” he said.

  The girl flinched at the sound of his voice.

  Her eyes flicked past him—to the bandits lying in the grass, to the two guards farther down the road.

  “You… you’re not one of them?” she asked.

  “No.”

  She hesitated.

  “Are you here to save us?”

  Endola didn’t answer immediately.

  The word save felt larger than the moment deserved.

  “They won’t hurt you,” he said instead.

  That seemed to matter more.

  The girl shifted forward slightly, still half-hidden beneath the wagon frame.

  “You didn’t kill them,” she said quietly, nodding toward the unconscious bandits.

  Endola shook his head once.

  “They’ll wake later.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “Shouldn’t we run then?”

  “We will.”

  That seemed to convince her.

  Slowly, carefully, she crawled out from beneath the wagon.

  She stayed several steps away from him.

  “I’m Ana,” she said after a moment, voice still shaking.

  Endola wiped the edge of his blade against the grass before sliding it back into the sheath.

  “Endola.”

  Ana studied him.

  He noticed the way her gaze moved—from the sword at his hip, to the fallen bandits, to the road behind him.

  As if she were trying to understand what had just happened.

  “What about them?” she asked suddenly.

  She pointed toward the guards.

  Endola followed her gaze.

  Two men lay near the broken wagon. One still gripped the shaft of a snapped spear.

  “They’re dead,” he said.

  Ana swallowed.

  For a moment she looked like she might cry.

  Instead she pressed her lips together and nodded once, the way children did when they decided not to break in front of strangers.

  Endola turned away first.

  He began tying the bandits’ wrists with a length of rope from the wagon.

  Ana watched him for a moment.

  Then she stepped closer.

  “Why are you tying them?”

  “So they stay here.”

  “For the city guards?”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded again.

  That seemed like the sort of answer that made sense in her world.

  After a moment she said quietly, “Can I help?”

  Endola glanced at her.

  She was already holding a loose coil of rope.

  He gestured toward the nearest bandit.

  “Hands.”

  She passed him the rope.

  They worked like that for a while—Endola binding wrists and ankles while Ana held rope or dragged broken boards aside.

  When the bandits were secured, Ana looked again toward the guards.

  “We can’t just leave them,” she said.

  Endola had already begun searching the bodies.

  He paused, then nodded.

  “We won’t.”

  They buried the guards quickly.

  The soil near the road was shallow and stubborn, forcing them to scrape away dirt with broken boards and flat stones. Endola worked steadily while Ana cleared loose earth beside him.

  Neither spoke much.

  When the graves were finished, Endola placed stones on top so the wind wouldn’t scatter the dirt.

  Ana stood for a moment with her hands clasped behind her back.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly.

  Endola didn’t reply.

  He had already moved back to the bandit leader.

  The man’s coat was heavier than the others’.

  Endola searched the pockets.

  That’s where he found the map.

  Folded. Worn.

  Routes marked across the plains in careful ink.

  Symbols stamped at the junctions.

  And in the corner of the parchment—

  a familiar crest.

  A serpent coiled around grain.

  House Drevan.

  Endola folded the map again and slid it into his pack.

  Ana noticed.

  “Is it bad?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  That seemed enough for her.

  Ana lingered beside the road for a moment before they started walking.

  “You’re really an adventurer?” she asked quietly.

  Endola adjusted the strap of his pack.

  “Yes.”

  She looked back toward the tied bandits.

  “I thought adventurers killed monsters.”

  Endola followed her gaze.

  “They usually do.”

  Ana frowned slightly.

  “But those men weren’t monsters.”

  “No.”

  She seemed to think about that for a while before nodding to herself.

  “Good,” she said.

  Endola didn’t ask why.