Chapter 2 — The Decision

The yard behind Mara's inn stayed dark after the square emptied. From back here, Cael could only see a strip of roofline and a few upper windows going dark one by one.

The singer's last chorus drifted over the wall—clean, heroic, wrong—and died somewhere in the alley. Somebody clapped. Somebody else booed.

He leaned on the broom and swept the last of the grit toward the drain—fish scales and shell fragments gritting under the bristles, soap scum on the wet stones, steam fogging the window above the sink. A bucket sat beside the step, the water cloudy with soap.

Inside, Mara's voice rose and fell, a chair scraped across the floor, someone laughed too loudly, and footsteps crossed the plank floor above the door gap.

Riven came around the corner carrying a blanket under one arm and a coil of rope over his shoulder, looking tired. His socks were still damp from the yard. He wanted food and sleep in that order. "She said you can use the loft ladder if you don't track dirt inside," he said.

"You went back up."

"I went back down." Riven shook out the blanket. "Same hill. Same pamphlet. I didn't say yes."

Cael set the broom against the wall. "You didn't say no."

"I said I'd sleep on it." Riven dropped the rope. "That isn't the same thing."

"Bran told her we swept. Left out my crack about mothers." He paused. "She said if we're planning something stupid, we pay for our own bread."

"We always pay for our own bread," Riven said.

"She meant extra," Cael said.

The kitchen door opened and Mara stepped out with her arms folded, flour on one sleeve and the look she wore when she'd already decided you were lying. Heat and steam rolled out with her. Cael straightened without thinking.

"If you're leaving," she said, "you settle the room."

"We paid."

"Then you're leaving." Not a question. She looked at Riven's rope, Cael's broom. "North road?"

Cael met her eyes. "A few days."

"A few days." Mara's mouth tightened. "The last pair who said that left their pack in my loft for six months and never sent coin." She nodded toward the chalk on the step where they'd been planning. "You write on my stones, you buy your own bread on the road. Extra."

Riven exhaled. "We will."

"And you sweep the yard before you go. Both of you. I don't care what Bran told me."

"We swept," Cael said.

"Then sweep it again." She paused at the door, flour still on her sleeve. "Your mother kept the loft the winter the fever took the harbor girls. I didn't scrub her name until spring." She didn't look back. "Don't make me wait that long if you're coming back." The door shut hard enough to rattle the hinge. Voices inside rose again—Mara counting, someone arguing about the tab—and the yard went back to harbor noise and the drain ticking.

Cael's mouth opened. Nothing came out. He picked up the broom, set it down again, then rinsed his hands in the bucket—the water stinging the split skin beside his thumb. "Then we'll pay extra."

Riven watched him for a moment. "You weren't joking," he said. "Up there. About Ashfen."

"No."

"The pamphlet says the ground around the Ashring is consecrated."

"The pamphlet says a lot of things."

Cael hung the rag back on its nail and looked toward the harbor, where the hills were invisible in the dark except where they cut into the stars, mast lanterns swaying below on the water while a drunk shouted somewhere in the streets and the wind carried smoke and salt.

Riven picked up the rope again. "Selk at the harbor board'll say we're idiots."

"Selk says a lot of things."

"The north road's bad this season," Cael said. "Loose gravel on the switchbacks. Two carts cracked wheels last week."

"Selk posted a notice at the lower dock," Riven said. "North hiring. Extra coin for men who'll walk past the fork marker."

Cael looked at him. "You read it?"

"I read everything on that board." Riven shifted the rope. "He'll tell Mara we're fools. He'll tell the guard we're fools. He'll still take our names if we don't come back."

Cael was quiet a beat. "That notice isn't hiring. It's winter paperwork. Selk wants names on the list before the first snow so when somebody doesn't come back he can say he warned them."

Riven stared. "You got that from two lines of chalk?"

"I got it from the same board you read." Cael picked up the broom again. "You saw the hiring. I saw the liability."

Riven understood exactly what Cael meant and was annoyed about it. "Then we come back," he said. "Or we don't, and he keeps the coin."

Riven laughed once.

"So the plan is to fix our lives by walking into a ditch," Riven said.

"The plan is to walk until we know." Cael set the broom against the wall. "If Ashfen's nothing, we turn around. If it's something, we decide what that means when we're standing in it."

"Standing in what?"

"Whatever's there." Cael looked at him. "I'm tired of talking about it."

Riven's expression shifted. "What does that mean?"

"It means I'm tired of climbing up there, saying the same things, then coming back down and doing nothing."

For a moment neither of them spoke, then Riven rubbed a hand across his face. "I missed the first part. Where do we sleep?"

Cael stared at him. "The hollow. Day one. I said—"

"I know what you said." Riven picked up the rope again. "Tell me anyway."

Cael nodded.

"There's a singer in the square again," Riven said. "Same bond story. Same fiddle. Still can't hit the third note."

"Selk says it's improved."

"Selk is deaf in one ear."

Cael paused. "If that's all there is?" Cael asked.

"What?" Riven said.

"Ashfen." Cael shrugged. "If it's just rock."

"Then we come back." Riven wound the rope tighter. "That's what I said."

From inside the kitchen, someone dropped a pan and swore. Neither of them reacted.

Riven picked up the rope and wound it tighter around his forearm. "You make it sound simple." Tar rubbed off on his skin.

"It isn't simple," Cael said.

For a moment neither of them spoke. The inn's back door tapped in the wind, the loose hinge opening it a fraction and letting it settle again, over and over. Riven watched it once, then looked away.

"You're not scared," Riven said.

"I'm scared," Cael said.

"You don't look it," Riven said.

Cael rubbed the sore knuckle he'd cracked against stone earlier. "If I start acting scared, Mara keeps us hauling barrels another six months. And you'll talk yourself out of coming."

"That's not an answer," Riven said.

"It's the one I've got." Cael stepped closer, cold air carrying the smell of soap from the wash bucket. "You asked what comes next. This is next."

Riven looked away. "We could just stay alive."

"We could." Cael glanced toward the dark hills beyond the harbor. "If any of it's true when we reach the Ashring, I don't want to waste the walk hauling barrels and wondering."

"Could you?"

Riven barked out a laugh. "Christ."

Cael heard the split in it—Riven hearing stay alive, him hearing don't waste it—and didn't try to translate.

"That's not fair," Riven said.

"No," Cael said. "It isn't."

Color crept into Riven's face, and for a while he stared at the stones beneath their feet. The kitchen window above them had gone dark. Mara moved inside—chair scrape, low argument—and the yard went quiet except for the drain ticking.

"I don't want to be the idiot who followed you because you sounded certain."

"Then don't follow me," Cael said.

Riven looked up. "What?"

"I'm not dragging you." Cael kept his voice level. "If you stay, you stay. If you come, you come because you decided to."

Riven worried at a loose thread on his sleeve. The hinge tapped again. Somewhere beyond the yard wall, a dog barked once and fell silent.

"You'd go anyway," Riven said. Not a question.

"Yes."

"With a bad knee. With no oatcakes. With Mara screaming at you from the step." Riven's thumb found the pamphlet in his pocket—the soft creases, the smudged ink. He didn't take it out. "You wouldn't wait for me to catch up."

Cael was quiet.

"That's why I'm still here," Riven said. "Not because Ashfen sounds true. Because you are."

Cael let the silence sit. Riven waited for something wise. Cael scratched his jaw. "Okay," he said finally.

Riven blinked. "Okay?"

"Yeah." Cael looked toward the harbor. "That's—okay."

Not the answer Riven had been braced for. He kept seeing the dock anyway. Dusk. Empty. Same planks.

Cael said nothing useful to that either.

Riven stared past him toward the harbor. "If we leave, Mara puts another name on the board."

"She will." Cael's voice stayed level. "And if we don't come back, she keeps the loft empty a long time before she scrubs it."

The question stuck in Riven's throat for a moment before he asked it. "And if we die out there like the song says? Ribs and all that miserable poetry?"

Cael looked north. The joke arrived a beat late. "Then Mara charges somebody for the bread."

Riven barked out a laugh despite himself. "Fair."

Cael picked up the broom again, mostly because his hands wanted something to do. "I'm not preaching at you," he said, and swept the last of the grit toward the drain. "I'm planning a week's walk."

That finally got Riven to stop arguing.

Riven picked up the rope and tested the coil. "We need oatcakes. And another skin if we're rationing."

"We've got oatcakes."

"For two days. Not five." Riven set the rope down. "Market opens at dawn. We buy before the bell or we eat mud."

Cael nodded. "Add it to the list."

"What list?"

"The one in your head." Riven almost smiled. "Write it on the stone before Mara scrubs it off."

A few minutes later they were sitting on the stone step with a piece of chalk between them, the inn wall at their backs and the yard empty ahead. Cael drew the road first, one line running north, then the well, then the switchbacks, then the stretches where water would be scarce and pride would get you killed. The chalk squealed once against the stone and white dust gathered in the cracks while he named distances as he worked, rounding everything up.

"Day one," Cael said, "north gate to the fork. Camp in the hollow if we're slow. Day two, shale climb, first seep before dusk." He marked an X. "If the seep's dry, we ration."

"We have two skins?"

"One full. One half." Cael tapped the chalk against his knee. "Mara'll fill the second if we pay before the bell."

"And food?"

"Three days bread. Oatcakes if we're stupid." He added a small square near the fork. "There's a marker with cloth. People leave word there sometimes—water low, trail washed. We check."

"Camp in the hollow," Riven said. "Named after your planning skills."

"It's a dip in the ground."

"Same thing." Riven watched the map grow. Simple on stone. A bastard on your feet.

"How long if we're slow?" Riven asked.

"Two days to the fork marker. Three if the seep's dry." Cael added a second X where the trail narrowed. "If we're stupid, four."

"We're stupid."

"Then four." Cael didn't look up. "Day three is where people turn around. We don't."

"Mara's oat bread or the baker's?" Riven asked.

"Baker's if we're paying."

"We're paying." Riven picked a pebble off the step and flicked it at the drain. "Unless Bran ate it already."

"Bran ate everything."

"True." Cael added another mark near the fork.

"Remember when Bran tried to kiss the smokehouse girl?" Riven asked.

"No."

"You do. He came back smelling like herring for a week."

"That was herring."

"That was rejection and herring."

Cael almost smiled.

"You decided that already."

"Yeah."

Riven was quiet a moment. "What if the marker cloth says turn back?"

"Then we read who wrote it." Cael capped the chalk. "Caravan liars. Pilgrim fear. We decide."

"Coat," Riven said.

"You'll borrow mine."

"I'm not wearing your coat."

"You will if your teeth start rattling." Cael drew the ridge line last, pale and high. "Ashfen summit. Ashring beyond. We don't camp on the rings."

"The pamphlet says—"

"The pamphlet says a lot of things." Cael capped the chalk with his thumb. "We look. We don't touch anything we can't name."

"And if we touch it anyway?"

"Then we deal with that when it's true." Cael looked up. "Same as the dock."

When the chalk snapped, Riven brushed the dust from his fingers, a little still clinging to his thumb. "I don't have a coat that'll survive that wind."

"You know the answer," Cael said.

Riven almost smiled. "You really think we're doing this."

Cael looked out toward the dark hills, where the harbor was only sound from here—mast lines creaking, a drunk shouting two streets over.

"Your socks are still wet," Riven said.

"I know."

"Mine too."

"Then we'll both stink before the fork."

"Already do."

For a while neither of them spoke, then Riven let out a long breath. "All right." The words sounded reluctant and real. "I'm not walking off for Ashfen."

Cael waited.

"I'm walking because you're going." Riven dragged a hand across his mouth. "And I'm not the kind of bastard who lets his friend find out alone."

Cael nodded once. "Fair." The chalk map was still on the yard stones—lines washed pale by dew, distances rounded up the way Cael always rounded up. Riven toed the fork mark. "If we're wrong about the seep?"

"Then we ration."

"If we're wrong about the hollow?"

"Then we sleep cold."

"If we're wrong about all of it?" Cael met his eyes. "Then we come back and Mara charges us for the story."

Riven pointed the broken piece of chalk at him. "But if you start treating me like luggage, I'm turning around."

"I won't."

Riven barked out a laugh. "You will." The smile faded. "Christ, you always move like you've already decided what comes next."

Cael's shoulders dropped. His spine complained. Good. At least something was honest.

"Then tell me when I do," he said. "You're the one who hears me when I'm full of shit."

Riven blinked, and for a moment he just stared at the ground. "Yeah," he muttered. "Somebody has to."

Inside, Mara's counting stopped, a door shut, and the inn settled into its nighttime creaks. The yard went quiet—only the harbor beyond the roofline, mast lines creaking on black water.

Cael checked the latch on the gate out of habit more than necessity, the metal cold against his palm. Across the yard, Riven still sat on the step with the blanket under one arm and the rope over his shoulder, looking toward the hills or where they ought to be—in the dark, only a black line against the clouds.

Cael crossed the yard once more with the broom. Mara was right—the grit had gathered again near the drain. He swept it anyway, slow strokes, hands busy while his mind ran the list: knife, skins, bread, oatcakes, blanket, coat argument, dawn bell.

Under the list, quieter: what if Ashfen was just another hill with a story on it.

"We leave before the morning bell," Cael said. "If you're coming."

"I said I was coming."

Cael nodded. "I heard you." He headed toward the kitchen door, warm air spilling out to meet him with the smell of grease, onions, and damp wool. "Then get some sleep," he said. "Tomorrow's long."

Riven didn't answer. The hinge tapped once more in the wind as Cael went inside, where Mara was already counting the bread money, coins clicking one after another onto the table.

She looked up without stopping. "Loft's open. Don't snore."

"I don't snore."

"Riven does." She slid two coins across the table. "For the second skin. Don't waste it."

Cael pocketed the coins. "We won't." He almost added that Riven snored only when he'd been drinking, which wasn't the point and wasn't entirely true anyway.

Mara's counting resumed. Cael took the loft ladder two rungs at a time, boots still damp from the yard. Above, Riven was already spreading the blanket, back to the rafters, shoulders tight. A single shutter stood open—harbor smell and rope creak coming up from the docks, floorboards cold under his socks.

"You still thinking about the dock?" Cael asked.

"Always."

"Me too." Cael lay down on his side, coat still on. "Sleep anyway."

Riven was quiet long enough that Cael thought he'd won. Then: "If we die out there, Mara scrubs both our names the same day," Riven said.

"Probably," Cael said.

"That's comforting."

"I wasn't trying to be," Cael said.

"Last time I snored in the loft, Bran threw a boot at me." Riven's voice went flat. "Missed. Hit the chamber pot."

Cael almost laughed. "That explains the smell."

"Don't tell Mara."

"She already knows." Cael shifted on the blanket. "You snore like a sawmill."

"I do not," Riven said.

"You do when you've been drinking," Cael said.

"I haven't been drinking."

"Then you're snoring for sport." Cael stared at the rafters. "Bran's boot was fair."

"Bran can eat shit," Riven muttered.

The rafters creaked. Somewhere below, Mara bolted the kitchen door. Cael stared at the dark until his eyes burned, then closed them. Tomorrow the north road. Tomorrow the first real step—the one that could prove he'd still been counting wrong in Greyhaven all along. He listened for Riven's breathing to slow. It didn't, not for a long time. Neither did his.