Her eyes tracked the horizon, and there, barely visible through the rising mist, a spire breached the ridgeline. Its silhouette bled into the cliffs behind it, the same color as the rock, the same weatherworn texture. Nothing glinted. Nothing shone. But it was there, tall, silent, and watching.
“I wonder…” Laughter barked from behind her, followed by a wet cough. “Just what else that mouth of yours can do besides sling insults,Aimee.”
“In your dreams, pal,” she answered without missing a beat, ignoring the treacherous fluttering in her stomach.
He didn’t answer, and soon the path widened as they crested the rise. The wind shifted, and below, the mountain opened into an uneven hollow in the rock, ringed with jagged cliffs.
“Who says you haven’t already been there?” he said at last, barely audible.
“Huh?”
She stopped, staring now. Structures clung to the inner walls of the crevasse, carved into the stone in staggered layers, their curved roofs covered in lichen and tangled with vines. Rope bridges stretched between crags, swaying over deep ravines. The buildings looked less built than grown, as if the mountain had shaped them itself and simply let them stay.
She stared.
Wind cut through her damp hair with the scent of crushed ferns and cold stone, and for a single heartbeat, the world felt still, like something was watching.
Something old.
“Have we found it?” Kazuma’s voice broke the quiet, lower than usual, and faster, the syllables clipped like he hadn’t meant to speak them out loud.
She shielded her eyes with one hand, scanning the broken trail ahead. Faint movement caught her attention—shadows weaving between trees, too upright and steady to be animals.
“I’d say so.” She squinted. “And it looks like they’ve found us, too.”
She stepped to the side and swung the stretcher around until it faced forward. Then, without ceremony, she let it drop.
It hit hard, wood slapping the dirt with a dullthwap. Kazuma jolted, a quiet hiss jerking out of him as his shoulders stiffened.
Ignoring the man, Aimee reached for the bamboo tube she’d taken from him earlier, yanked out the stopper, and lifted it to her lips.
“Was that…entirelynecessary?” Beside her, Kazuma strained, trying to lift his head enough to see.
She took another drink, letting the silence hang as she rolled the cool liquid across her tongue. Then she adjusted her stance and lowered herself onto the ground beside him. One hand brushed through the mist-damp grass for balance as she sank to her seat, crushing a mountain bloom beneath her heel while crossing one leg over the other. Only then did she glance his way.
“Why are you sitting?” Kazuma’s brow knit, the lines between his eyes deepening as he twisted his neck toward her. “We need to get to the village.”
Aimee closed her eyes, letting the sun warm her cheekbones.
“Whoever they are.” She screwed the cap back onto the shoot. “They clearly like their privacy.”
She reached behind her and drew both short swords from the veiled sheaths on her upper back, then set them carefully on the grass beside her. “We can’t look like a threat if we want them to invite us in and give you a healer.”
Kazuma snorted. “Have youseenyourself?” His shoulders pushed against constraints as he tried, and failed, to reposition himself. “Or me? We don’t exactly scream ‘friendly travelers.’”
“There is nowe.” She bent over and loosened the ties across his arms and waist, just enough to relieve the tension.
“Much better.” Kazuma exhaled through his nose, sagging into the frame.
“Besides,” she added, wiping grass from her hands, “you’re tied down, poisoned, and bleeding out.”
“Fair.” His tongue flicked out—longer than it had any right to be, thick and sinuous as it licked the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
“And you?” His head turned just enough to eye the blades beside her. “Planning to impale yourself with one of those pretty gold swords before they arrive? Truly commit to the image of a harmless traveler?”
“No.” Aimee leaned back into the grass, arms braced behind her as she looked up at the clouds. “But unlike some people, I can be respectful.” A slow-moving drift overhead snagged her attention. “They’ll extend an invitation.”
They always did. When she was in the right place, they came.
