Something to Carry

On the fourth night of their final preparations, Maeril cleared the center of her table and set down two stacks of paper.

By then, the road south had weight. Rishi and Maeril had asked favors, checked routes, mended packs, reinforced straps, and patched their cloaks against the weather. Together, they wrapped food and bundled herbs. Maeril sorted remedies into small pouches by purpose and danger.

At Lantern Hall, Rishi settled who would hold the keys, mind the stores, and take each watch. On Wyrm’s Crossing, Maeril made sure everyone understood that her stall would remain hers while she was away.

Now the weight that mattered lay on her table.

The working folio slumped to one side, swollen with crossed-out lines, cramped margins, charcoal smudges, grease stains, and a thumbprint of dried blood. One corner still smelled faintly of stew. Maeril denied this on principle.

Beside it lay the clean sheets: cream-colored, good paper, better than either of them would have chosen for their own work.

Rishi had raised an eyebrow when she brought them out.

“This deserves clean skin,” Maeril had said.

So they gave it one.

Rishi copied in a slow, even hand, pausing between lines to let the ink dry enough not to smear.

Across from him, Maeril checked each page against the working folio. Half her hair had fallen loose from its braids, but her eyes remained sharp.

They began with the title.

At the top of the first clean page, Maeril wrote the words in charcoal to test their shape.

On the Thresholds of Baldur’s Gate

She leaned back to judge it. The words had room around them.

Below it, Rishi added the second line in his steady hand:

A Study of Wounds and Ways of Mending at the Edges of a City

Maeril squinted at it.

“Accurate,” she said.

“You sound disappointed.”

“I wanted to accuse it of being melodramatic, but unfortunately it says what it is.”

“Then we keep it.”

“Yes, yes. Keep your tragic little subtitle.”

He almost smiled.

“Little?”

“It is trying very hard to be taller.”

This time he smiled, and the next stroke of his quill wandered a little crooked.

Hours later, when Rishi lifted the quill from the final page, neither of them spoke. He set it aside and opened his cramped fingers. Ink stained them almost to the nails.

Maeril reached for the stack, then checked herself before she touched it. The last lines were still wet. Fresh ink had made the pages solemn enough to require manners.

“It looks real,” she said.

“It is real.”

Her eyes lifted to his.

“We only made it visible.”

Maeril looked back at the pages. For once, no answer came.

Then she cleared her throat far too loudly and pushed herself to her feet.

“Well. Since you have chosen to be inconveniently right, we should bind the thing before I become sentimental.”

Binding required a slower patience.

Rishi cut narrow strips of leather and softened them over steam. He drew each one taut between his hands, eased it, then tested it again. Too loose, and the pages would shift. Too tight, and the folds would tear. His fingers found the narrow measure between.

He gathered the pages into signatures, squared their edges, and pierced the folds. The needle passed through one fold after another, the thread looping around the leather strips. With each pull, the pages settled closer against the spine.

While he sewed, Maeril prepared the cover. She heated a marking tool over the fire and worked a gate into the leather, plain and sturdy. Along its lower edge she added three smaller signs: a bridge, a circle, and a hut.

She held the cover up.

“Too sentimental?”

Rishi studied the marks.

“No,” he said. “Honest.”

“Hm.” Maeril lowered the cover, but her smile remained.

He fitted the sewn pages into it.

By the time Rishi tied off the final thread, the fire had burned low. Cold river air moved through the open threshold, and the finished book lay between them.

Maeril placed her palm flat on the cover.

“Thank you, Rook,” she murmured.

Rishi looked at her hand, then at the book. He set his palm beside hers.

Not over hers.

Beside.

Their ink-stained hands rested on the first thing they had made together.

Maeril drew back and rubbed at one eye.

“If I cry on this now, I will kill us both.”

Rishi lifted the book before she could prove it.

The book settled into his palm with more weight than he expected. Not enough to strain his hand, but enough to make him adjust his grip.

Maeril saw it.

“Feels heavier than it looks?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Truth usually does.”

He held it a moment longer. The road to Candlekeep had a shape now: paper, thread, and leather, all of it held in his ink-stained hands.

Rishi set the book back on the table with care.

Tomorrow, he would patrol as usual. Maeril would feed the bridge. Elisa would light the Hall before dawn. Carts would grind over the bridge boards, and Baldur’s Gate would go on as if nothing had changed.

But a small door now rested between leather covers.

Rishi took up his staff. At the threshold, the hanging herbs brushed his shoulder.

“Sleep,” he said.

Maeril leaned against the table, too tired to pretend she was not.

“You first.”

“I have farther to walk.”

“Exactly. You need the practice.”

He bowed his head, smiling despite himself.

“Good night, Maeril.”

“Good night, Rishi.”

He stepped through the beads and leather and into the damp night.

Ahead, Lantern Hall waited: Elisa, the cots, and the life he would soon leave for a while but not abandon.

Behind him, the book rested on Maeril’s table, the small gate on its cover dark in the low fire.

The weight waiting for them was one they had chosen together.