Chương 23: Door

Weeks passed. The city moved on. Tessa didn't. She withdrew like a thread pulled from the seam of her own life, tucked herself into the quiet corners of the house she'd once shared, and let the outside fade to noise. The curtains stayed drawn. The front door, double-locked. Her boots, still near the threshold, gathered dust she didn't bother to sweep. She left only when she had to. Early morning trips for food. Short visits to the stables to check on Larry. Never longer than necessary. Never the same path twice.

She rotated her cloak and hood, sometimes even the way she tied her hair. She didn't wave to neighbors. If they noticed, they didn't say. Inside, she lived in small loops. Boiled broth with dried herbs. Bread she tore with her fingers rather than knives. Water from the pump left to settle in a clay jug overnight. The couch became her bed more often than not. The pillow flattened where her head never quite relaxed.

She'd wake up with her arm already reaching—automatically—for the pouch at her side, the cubes tucked close against her ribs, or the little patch knife hidden under her pillow. Most mornings, she didn't remember falling asleep. Her days felt slow and packed too tight at once. She listened more than she read. Counted footsteps on the street, listening for ones that paused. When a cart rolled too slowly past her window, she'd stop breathing.

When voices lingered near the door, she'd ghost to the wall and press her ear against the stone. She told herself she was being cautious and safe. That she was smart to wait. To stay quiet. But each time she walked the long curve to the city stables, that reasoning frayed a little thinner. Larry's stall sat near the far wall, where the morning sun only reached a sliver of the bedding.

He still greeted her, chirped softly when he heard her step, nuzzled her shoulder with his wide, downy head, but the edge had dulled. His usual excitement had slipped into something quieter. More subdued. He moved slower now. Took longer to rise. Sometimes he didn't bother. Just turned his head lazily and watched the stable's half-shuttered windows like he was waiting for them to open wider. She tried to keep her voice light when she visited.

Brought him scraps from her meals, rubbed the curve of his beak, checked his talons and feathers for signs of overgrowth. She whispered apologies into the crook of his neck that she didn't let herself say aloud. She'd stayed out too long. Let him run too far. And now she'd caged him again. It wasn't fair. Not to either of them. More than once, she'd thought about smuggling him home. About rotating him between lesser-known stables, hidden ones with low foot traffic and fewer questions.

But she never followed through. Larry was comfortable here. The stablehands knew him. The space was familiar and predictable. And change—now—might be worse than stillness. Still, the guilt nested deeper every time she turned to leave. He never made a sound when she walked away. Just watched. When she walked the streets, she kept her head down. Avoided old haunts. Took alleys where the faces were fewer and the glances shorter. But even there, paranoia found her. A stranger lingered behind her too long once.

Just long enough that her fingers brushed the hilt of her knife before she ducked into a feed shop and didn't come out for half an hour. Another time, a woman across the street met her gaze and didn't look away fast enough. Tessa turned down a side road after that and didn't go back the same way. Even nothing started to feel like something. The market had just started. Morning haze clung to the awnings, curling around crates of pale-rooted vegetables and limp herbs. She kept her hood low and her steps light.

Just get the essentials. Then head home. She made for the far stall—the one run by the older woman who didn't make small talk. She was reaching for a bundle of hollowroot—bitter, but it kept—when a voice slid in behind her.

"Well. Look who's surfaced once again." Her pulse didn't spike. It didn't need to. She was already buzzing with static under her skin. Dren stood just left of the stall. Meela beside him, too polished for the early hour. She looked freshly scrubbed and unreasonably pleased with herself. Her braid gleamed with silver clips, smile just this side of smug. Dren looked less certain—his politeness strained.

"You disappeared for a while after we last saw you," Meela said, voice airy with barbed edges.

"Still patching boots?" Tessa said nothing. She looked at them, and it was like looking through smoke. She shifted her basket. The guild badge on the strap caught the light. Dren's gaze snagged on it, polite smile disappearing. Then narrowed.

"Wait—Level 29?" Meela's voice cracked, incredulous.

"I do courier work for the Guild now," Tessa said. The smile Dren had worn didn't return. His eyes stayed on the badge, then flicked up to her face. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"You used to say you'd never touch Guild work," he added, trying to keep his tone light. It landed heavy.

"Said it was for people with more muscle than sense." Tessa didn't answer. Her hand adjusted the weight of the basket. He shifted his footing.

"I just… I figured you'd stay in the city. Maybe open that repair shop you always talked about. You were good at that." His voice tightened.

"Didn't think you'd go running deliveries around the Empire." There it was—that little thread of disbelief, of something sour under the surface. Not quite anger. Not quite concern. Something closer to insult. Tessa blinked slowly, but didn't speak.

"Who helped you?," he asked, too quickly.

"I mean, from fourteen to twenty-nine is not nothing. Someone must've trained you up." He wasn't looking at the badge anymore. He was looking at her. Like he was trying to fit this version of her into a frame he thought he knew—one that no longer fit. She kept her gaze on the stall. The old woman was still waiting, patient as always. He took a half-step forward.

"Did someone push you into it?" He searched her face.

"I mean, it's not like you just woke up one day and decided to run deliveries around the Empire. That's not you." His voice had gone softer again, coaxing. And oh so familiar.

"You used to panic crossing the bridges. You cried when you got that infection from lacing someone's saddle wrong." He laughed once, awkwardly.

"You said adventuring was for people too stupid to keep their limbs. Remember?" Tessa blinked. Her fingers tightened slightly around the edge of the basket.

"So what changed?" he asked.

"Who changed you?" She stayed quiet. Let the silence stretch. He exhaled, frustrated now.

"I just—look, it doesn't make sense. You don't even have a proper class. You are always patching things together, scraping by. I don't get how someone like you ends up there unless someone else—" He cut himself off. But it was already too late. Tessa's gaze flicked to his. There it was. In the space between his words. That someone like you. Like her rising—on her own—broke something he had built in his head. She saw it clearly now. He hadn't thought she needed help. He thought she needed him.

The version of her he'd kept in his pocket. Small and grateful. Someone he could save. If only she'd let him. She tilted her head slightly. Just enough to feel the weight of her braid shift against her shoulder.

"No one pushed me," she said. Dren blinked like he hadn't heard her right. Or maybe like he had. He stepped back half a pace, lips parting, then closing again. The flush of frustration had faded, replaced by something messier—shame, maybe. Or fear of how this would look to someone else.

"I didn't mean it like that," he said, voice lower.

"Tess, I just—" He ran a hand through his hair, then forced a smile that reached nothing real.

"I'm sorry. That came out wrong. I was just surprised, that's all. I didn't think you'd… change so much." She didn't reply.

"You have to admit," he added, quieter now, "it's a little sudden." Before she could respond, Meela finally stepped in, arms folded.

"What Dren's trying to say is—this isn't a bad thing. It's just unexpected. You've always been more practical than reckless. That's all we meant." Tessa looked at her. Meela smiled, easy and polished. Like someone who thought she was smoothing a wrinkle, not covering a crack.

"And it's good," Meela added quickly.

"Really. You're doing well for yourself. It's just… we care, you know?" Tessa almost laughed. They cared? Now? Not when she was patching her own boots on a weekly basis. Not when she missed meals to buy thread. Not when she didn't join the Maker's Guild. None of them asked or searched her out.

"I'm not the one who's confused," she said softly. Then she turned to the vendor.

"Price?" The old woman gave it without blinking. Behind her, Dren didn't speak again. Meela's silence stretched, uncertain now. Coins passed hands. The bundle of food settled into her arm. Tessa didn't look back. She walked. At the corner, she paused long enough to exhale. Then kept going. The walk home passed in pieces. She barely remembered the turns she took or the people she passed. Her thoughts buzzed too loud to hold on to anything solid, but her body moved through the city like it always had.

At home, she locked the door behind her with trembling fingers. The click of the bolt sliding into place gave no comfort. She stood for a long moment in the front room, listening for footsteps that weren't there. Then moved mechanically—setting the vegetables down, pouring water into the shriveled plant by the window, chewing through a half-stale roll without noticing the taste. As the sky dimmed, she left the lamps unlit, watching the room slowly drown in shadow.

She only lit the smallest one when it became impossible to see, placing it against the far wall where it wouldn't cast light on the curtains. She didn't bother with the bed. The sofa had become her place in the past week—narrow, familiar, with her back against the wall and the weight of the blanket like armor across her chest. Her knife stayed tucked beneath the cushion. The cubes remained hidden on her body. She checked them both before lying down. She lay still for hours. Sleep never came fully.

Her body drifted at the edge of it, her mind refusing to follow. Every time her breath deepened, some part of her would jolt back to wakefulness, convinced she had heard something outside. A cart. A voice. A step too close to the door. And then—real sound. A creak. Not from the street. Inside. Her eyes snapped open. She tried to sit up. To roll. To move— —but a hand seized her, clamping over her mouth before she could make a sound. Another arm locked around her chest, pinning her arms to her sides in one motion.

A body pressed against her from behind. She couldn't move—not even to turn her head. Her legs pushed against the blanket tangled around them, but the hold didn't loosen. Her breath caught fast in her throat, panic clawing up before she could think past it. Then a voice spoke low against her ear.

"Quiet." Her pulse stuttered, but this time it wasn't from fear. She knew that voice. Rellen. He didn't move away. Didn't explain. Instead, he shifted their position, tilting her gently onto her side, keeping her back to him as he adjusted behind her. It wasn't aggressive—just careful. She couldn't see his face, only feel his breath and the tension in his limbs, the way he stayed pressed close. He was listening. Still and focused, similar to when they were in the cave. Like they weren't safe yet. She stayed frozen.

Her thoughts scrambled. Her knife was under the cushion, too far to reach. The cubes pressed at her side in a string purse. Nothing she could use. Nothing she could do. She focused on breathing slowly, controlling the panic, trying not to make a sound against the hand still covering her mouth. Her skin buzzed beneath his grip, not from fear anymore but something sharper. She didn't understand what was happening, why he was here, why he'd come like this—but she understood one thing.

Rellen wasn't the only one inside the house.