Soup and a Vow

Rishi stood beneath Maeril’s canopy. It made its own small room in the crush of Wyrm’s Crossing—cloth stretched tight, steam rising from a pot that never seemed to stop breathing. Inches away, the bridge seemed to shift of its own accord: pedestrians and carts crossing in every direction, animals bleating, horses neighing, their smells mingling with those of the crowd.

Rishi stayed on his feet to eat, tucked close to the counter so the line could move. He took measured sips, letting heat and salt settle around the ache in his ribs. The broth made being hurt easier to carry.

He watched Maeril over the rim.

Green skin, weather-dulled, like leaf-shadow on stone. Horns swept back from her temples. Dark hair braided for work. Practical layers, carved charms, and a tail that never quite stopped: counterbalancing a reach, punctuating a turn, tightening when someone edged too close.

He did not linger on her appearance. He watched her timing.

Pot to bowl. Herbs between two fingers. Coin taken without looking down. A name given before a complaint could sharpen. A joke placed exactly where a temper might have risen.

Her eyes moved constantly: the line, the pot, the hawk, the crowd, him.

Children came and went at the edge of the canopy. Maeril noticed without calling attention to them. She set a heel of bread at the counter’s corner and slipped a biscuit beneath a folded cloth. She placed these small mercies in the flow of her work so the children could take them without being seen.

The children were not the only ones she made room for.

People gathered at Maeril’s stall until the bridge felt, briefly, like a place where someone could stand without being lost. Maeril did not feed them because she had plenty. Small gifts kept her among them—held by names, held by need, none of it tallied.

His bowl was nearly empty, his grip steadier despite the pain. Already mapping the simplest way back to Lantern Hall, he let his gaze drift toward the stream of bridge traffic.

Maeril caught him before he could step away.

“I live out on the edge,” she said, as if she were placing a fact on the counter between them. “Doorless hut.”

“No door?” The question left him before he decided to ask it.

“No door.” She shrugged. “Still sleep. It’s protected. I’ve got eyes at night. The hawk, and wards besides.”

Next to them, the hawk shifted closer on the ridgepole. Feathers rasped against wet cloth. It settled its weight with deliberate assurance.

Rishi’s eyes flicked to the familiar, then returned to her. “You watched the alley.”

“I watched.”

“The fight?”

“Not a fight,” Maeril corrected. “A man risking flesh and bone to keep a boy breathing.”

Rishi looked down at the cloudy remains of broth. Maeril turned back to the counter before the moment could harden, took a coin from a waiting hand, and slid another bowl into place.

“Anyway.” She wiped her hands on a cloth. “I’m Maeril. Some call me the Green Witch of Wyrm’s Crossing.” She smirked. “Just bridge talk.”

“Green witch,” he repeated, letting the title sit there.

“You don’t look impressed.”

“I watch hands,” he said. “Titles are often misleading.”

Her smile cut sideways. “Then watch carefully.”

Rishi considered this with the same grave attention he had given the soup.

Then his eyes moved over the stall again: the hawk settled on the ridgepole, the satchel of herbs tucked within reach, the books kept at the counter’s edge beneath a folded cloth.

“Not only talk,” he said.

“No,” Maeril said. “Not only.”

The bridge closed around them again by degrees.

Boots. Wheels. Steam. The hawk shifting above. The late day thinning between awnings.

Rishi finished the broth and set the bowl down carefully.

“I should go,” he said.

“Tea, sometime?” Maeril didn’t push. She simply left the invitation hanging. “Not now. Just—sometime.”

He hesitated. Not refusal. Not agreement.

“Maybe,” he said—careful.

Maeril’s eyes held his. “I didn’t get your name.”

He nodded, aware that he had taken the bowl and her attention without offering the simplest thing back.

“Ṛṣiśūra,” he said, careful with the sounds. “But most call me Rishi.”

Her mouth twitched—a small wince, like the sound caught on her tongue. “Rishi-shura,” she tried. Then she added candidly: “I haven’t heard that pronunciation before. Where is it from?”

“Mount Celestia,” he answered, plain. “It’s my monastic name.”

He hesitated, then added, “Rishi means Sage. And Shura…” He paused, as if the word’s meaning were too important to speak lightly. “Warrior.”

Maeril inclined her head, brows lifting—disbelief edged with amusement. “A name from the Seven Heavens.” Her mouth threatened a smile. “For someone who watches hands, that is a very large name.”

A quiet breath left him, too small to be called laughter and close enough to count.

“It’s also a vow,” he said. He let the words settle between them, then turned to leave.

At the edge of the canopy, he angled his head back and bowed—hands folded behind his lower back, quiet and formal, a monk’s shape in the middle of the bridge’s churn.

“You may send your familiar with me,” he said, voice low enough that it was only for her. “If you want to know the way.” He didn’t wait for an answer.

As he stepped away, the hawk lifted from the ridgepole and slipped into the air behind him.

Rishi left Wyrm’s Crossing, and the noise fell away behind him. Past the last crush of stalls, the boards gave way to uneven cobble, and the air off the Chionthar slid cold along his cheeks.

He kept well away from the main road, following a narrow path near the river. He walked mindfully, placing each step with care as the dark gathered around him.

Brampton took him in on the other side: tar, rope, salt, lanterns under eaves, wet stone dark between their pools of light.

As he made his way deeper into the neighborhood, he slipped into a recessed doorway where the wall stole him from view and checked himself quickly.

Hand wraps first, then the arm guards, and finally the reinforced knuckle guards. The kind of things the neighborhood made you carry after dark.

He paused for only a beat, then stepped back into the street in one fluid motion.

He had gone only a few paces when a tavern door burst open behind him and threw lantern light across the wet cobbles.

A broad-shouldered man stumbled into the lantern light, drink-heavy, his fury plain in his clenched jaw and fists.

“Out,” someone snapped from the doorway. “I said out.”

The drunk turned back, face twisting.

Rishi stopped.

The tavernkeeper stood in the doorway, holding back a lean dog that strained against its leash, with its teeth bared and a low, broken sound in its throat.

“Don’t,” Rishi said.

The drunk surged toward the door.

The tavernkeeper let go of the leash.

The dog launched.