“Crabapple ‘shine,” he says. “Cleans the blood, fouls the mind.”
I take a swig. Immediately regret it. My throat erupts into flame. I cough so hard I see stars.
Kragna laughs—full this time. “Ah, now you’re part of the crew.”
I manage to glare at him over the rim. “You assholes have a crew?”
“More like a loose association of alcoholics and misanthropes,” he says. “But we make it work.”
I drink again, slower this time. The fire in my chest dulls to a simmer. My fingers stop shaking. My mind doesn’t, though. It spins and spins, trying to understand how I got here—how I’m still alive, surrounded by monsters, and not already stew.
“You didn’t have to feed me,” I say after a long minute.
“I didn’t,” he agrees.
“Then why?”
Kragna’s face shifts. The firelight dances in his eyes, glinting off something softer than I expect.
“You’re interesting,” he says simply.
I laugh. A bitter, broken sound. “Yeah, that’s one word for it.”
The cup’s warm in my hands. The stew pot bubbles nearby. Somewhere in the dark, a bird screeches—a long, keening sound that sets my teeth on edge. But inside this circle of firelight and madness, I feel…
Safe.
That’s the word. Notcomfortable. Nothappy. But safe. Like nothing worse can get to me tonight.
I don’t trust it. Don’t trusthim. Not yet.
But I don’t feel like I need to run, either.
Kragna gets up and walks toward the edge of the clearing. His silhouette is massive against the misty trees. He pauses, glances back.
“You’re not what I expected,” he says.
“Neither are you.”
And that, somehow, is the closest thing to peace I’ve had in years.
I wake to music.
Not the kind you play with instruments or loop in your head to keep the madness out, but a deep, chest-humming lullaby—low and strange, like stones sliding over each other in a distant canyon.
My eyes blink open to moonlight, all silver and soft through the mist drifting past the bridge. The fire’s gone to embers, pulsing like a dragon’s breath. Everything feels slow. Hushed.Like the world’s holding its breath for something sacred or awful.
And there’s that voice.
Kragna’s voice.
I don’t understand the words, not even a little. It's not common, and it sure as hell isn’t any dialect of Elvish I ever learned to hate. It rolls, though. Heavy and round. Guttural and golden. Like someone kneading grief and comfort together into sound.
I turn my head.
He’s not near the fire anymore. He’s under the bridge, half-shadowed, sitting cross-legged in the grass. A gourd of that foul moonshine at his side. His horns catch the moonlight, soft curls glowing like pale gold. He’s got his eyes closed. Singing like no one’s listening. Like maybe even he forgets anyone else is there.
I don’t move.
