Chapter 56

  Zelgra walked back to the ore table where there were waiting customers. In a slightly subdued manner, like someone with important things on their minds, she started to process each of the customers in turn.

  Zelgra finished the last of her transactions with steady hands.

  Coin changed palms. A final measure of ore tipped into a waiting basket. She tied off the mouth of one sack, then another, her movements deliberate and unhurried. Nothing in her posture suggested haste. Nothing in her face betrayed the calculation moving behind her eyes.

  When the final customer drifted away, she bent and began gathering her things.

  The smaller tools went first, wrapped in cloth and slid into her travel pack. The ore ledger followed, tucked beneath a flap. Then her hand rested on a separate sack, one filled with a cut of premium ore. The stones inside were dense and clean, high-grade veins with very little waste. She weighed it in her palm, considering the heft. Finally, she took a handful of gold coins and quietly slid them into a pocket in her pack.

  Severance, she decided, and it didn’t even cover the trouble the business had caused her.

  For a brief moment, her gaze drifted over the ore table.

  The wood was scarred from years of use, darkened where fine iron dust had settled into its grain. She had stood behind that table through summer heat and winter frost, through lean seasons and prosperous ones. She knew the weight of every measure by feel alone. The market noise, the bargaining, the steady rhythm of trade, it had become a kind of armor. Predictable. Earned.

  She had built it carefully, one transaction at a time, until her name carried weight enough that customers sought her out.

  Walking away meant more than abandoning the market table and the ore business. It meant surrendering the certainty she had carved out with her own hands. It meant letting House Corvessa think they had unsettled her.

  Her jaw tightened.

  Market businesses could be rebuilt. Reputation could be reclaimed.

  Freedom, once lost, was harder to win back.

  She adjusted the straps of her pack and turned away before the sentiment could root too deeply.

  The sack disappeared into her larger pack without ceremony.

  Last, she reached beneath the table and drew out her war hammer. The haft was worn smooth where her grip had shaped it over the years. The head bore small nicks from use, each mark earned honestly. Every good Droll carried one. Not for display. It was cultural.

  Among the Droll, a war hammer was never chosen lightly. It was not a weapon pulled from a merchant’s rack or bartered for coin. It was forged or commissioned, only when a Droll had come fully into themselves, when the strength of arm was matched by the steel of will. Some carved their clan sigils deep into the metal. Others left the head unadorned, trusting that time and deeds would etch their own marks soon enough.

  Zelgra’s hammer bore nothing beyond the faint maker’s stamp tucked near the base of the head. The rest of its story had been written in bruises and iron. Every nick along the rim marked a lesson hard-learned. Every shallow scratch held a memory: quarry borders settled without bloodshed, caravan wheels pried free of bandit iron, one moonless night in the eastern hills when words had failed and the hammer had answered.

  Droll children learned the truth young: A hammer is never for pride. It is for duty. You carried it so others would not have to. You carried it so that when trouble rose, it found someone already standing in its path.

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  When carried, a familiar weight rested easy on her back, steady, reassuring, like an old friend who never spoke but always understood.

  Crouched behind the table, she strapped on her warhammer carrier, then locked the hammer into place and slung it across her back. She loosened her pack’s straps so she could wear the pack over the warhammer’s handle too. Zelgra arrived and left town like this so it wouldn’t draw attention; the only risk was that it was late morning—a time when she neither arrived nor left the ore table for the day. She hoped the bustling market would distract most eyes so she could casually slip away.

  She stood up and stepped away from the table without looking back. The ore table stood stocked like someone would be returning to continue the day’s business.

  The market noise continued as if nothing had changed.

  She moved through the crowd at a measured pace, eyes forward, shoulders squared. Only once did her gaze flick toward the main gate. A cluster of men stood near it, wearing armored, cloaks bearing the faint crest of Rivermark. They were not yet searching. They were watching.

  She did not alter her stride.

  As she passed the tea stand, Tarin looked up from his kettle.

  “Zelgra,” he called gently.

  She slowed just enough to step within reach.

  Tarin pressed a small cloth bundle into her hand. The scent of dried leaves rose faintly between them.

  “Take this,” he said. “Gift it to Riley. It is her favorite.”

  Zelgra met his eyes. For a moment neither of them spoke. He gave a small nod, subtle and final.

  She slipped the bundle into her pack and continued on.

  Garron stood beside his caravan near the far edge of the square at the loading dock, the back end of the covered cart parked at a stack of crates. He looked up as her shadow fell across the wagon and his face split into an easy smile.

  “Well now,” he said. “If it is not Rivermark’s finest merchant.”

  Zelgra returned the smile, warm and practiced. “You flatter me.”

  She walked past him casually, circling the back of the caravan as if inspecting the load, she stood behind the stacks of crates so the gate guards could no longer see her.

  She lifted her pack into the rear of the wagon and adjusted a crate to make space.

  Garron continued speaking, his tone light. “Heading north today? Forest roads are clear enough, though I hear the bend gets muddy after rain.”

  His words flowed easily, but the cadence shifted as he watched her movements. His brow creased slightly, confusion threading into his smile.

  Zelgra stepped closer, appearing to adjust a strap near the wheel. Her voice dropped, barely louder than breath.

  “I am in trouble,” she said. “Take me to Riley. Please.”

  Garron did not pause.

  “Well,” he replied at normal volume, chuckling softly, “it was good to see you. You should not work so hard, Zelgra. Life is more than ledgers and rocks.”

  He leaned closer as if sharing a friendly aside.

  “When the time is right,” he murmured, “get in the back.”

  Zelgra gave the slightest nod. She stepped behind the nearest stack of crates, crouching low in the wagon’s shadow, pack already loaded. Her eyes never left the approaching guard.

  Then he straightened.

  “No, my dear, I cannot stay for tea,” he called out, loud enough for anyone nearby to hear. “I must be leaving.”

  He gave her a casual nod and a quick wink before turning to climb onto the driver’s bench.

  Around them, the market continued its rhythm. Near the gate, one of the armored figures had begun moving deeper into town.

  Garron circled from the back of the covered caravan and walked back toward the front just as a gate guard stepped into his path.

  One of the Rivermark gate guard stopped a few paces from the horses. His eyes moved over Garron first, then past him to the wagon.

  “Leaving already?” the guard asked.

  “Final run,” Garron replied easily. “Home calls.”

  The guard did not smile. He began to circle the horses, boots thudding softly against the packed dirt, armor clinking with each measured step. His gaze lingered on the stacked crates on the ground, the covered cart and the rear flap loose and lightly flapping in the wind.

  Daisy, Garron’s horse, flicked her ears, sensing the tension. The leather straps creaked as she shifted under the harness. The second horse tossed its head and snorted, stamping once as dust puffed up around its hooves.

  “Hold,” the guard said, pausing near the front of the wagon.

  The guard did not move on.

  Instead, he turned slowly, eyes narrowing as he studied the side of the wagon. His gaze lingered on the canvas, then dropped to the wheels. One brow lifted.

  “Loaded heavy for a final run,” he observed.

  “Stonehaven pays well for good timber,” Garron replied lightly.

  The guard stepped closer to the back of the caravan. Too close.

  His fingers brushed the hanging edge of the canvas. The flap stirred in the faint breeze, tapping once against the wood. He watched it for a long second, listening, not to Garron, but to the wagon itself.

  From inside, there was only stillness.

  The guard’s hand rose.

  “Mind if I take a look?”

  Garron’s smile did not falter, but something tight and calculating flickered behind his eyes. He shifted casually, one boot scuffing in the dirt as though uncertain whether to protest or comply.

  “By all means,” he said, spreading his hands.

  The guard walked to the back of the wagon. His fingers closed on the canvas flap. He pulled.