Safe Enough

They had spent two full days in Trademeet without being found.

By the third morning, the rented room no longer felt like a hiding place.

It was small enough that Maeril had already struck her shin on the cot frame twice.

The bed barely held them both. Maeril kept her elbow clear of his bruised ribs, and Rishi took care not to crowd her injured shoulder.

Across the room, the narrow cot served as a table for their packs, spare cloth, and gear they no longer kept ready for flight.

Their cloaks hung from two wall pegs, dry at last.

The washbasin by the shuttered window still held a faint gray ring of road dirt from two nights before.

Rishi’s staff and Maeril’s satchel leaned beside the chair with one short leg. A heel of bread, wrapped in cloth, rested on its seat.

Even the floor had become familiar.

It creaked when Maeril shifted her weight near the basin. It creaked when Rishi crossed the room too carefully after waking. It complained softly each time, but it had stopped sounding like a warning.

Outside, Trademeet woke loudly and without urgency.

After their night crossing through rain, when every hoofbeat might have meant pursuit, the ordinary market noise felt almost impossible. Carts rolled past. Voices argued over bread and coin.

No one stopped in the yard, struck their door, or asked after a green tiefling and a bruised monk.

Teren had said Trademeet would be safe enough.

Not safe. He had been too honest to promise that.

But the town was large enough for strangers to disappear. Questions traveled slowly here, and the Battlescarred Bard was far enough away that the lie had not reached them yet.

Maeril had known Teren for less than a day, yet she had trusted him enough to follow his route and seek safety in the town he named.

That still surprised her.

Now she lay still and listened to the morning prove him right.

Sunlight slipped through the shutters and caught the dust. The faint smell of boiled grain drifted up from downstairs.

Beside her, Rishi breathed slowly and heavily. His bruised ribs did not interrupt the rhythm.

He was deeply asleep.

Good.

Maeril turned her head on the pillow.

His split lower lip had dried to a dark line. It looked ready to open again if he smiled too broadly.

Fortunately, broad smiles were not a habit of his.

Sleep had loosened his face. His jaw was unclenched, and the lines around his eyes had softened. Without his usual watchfulness, he looked simply exhausted and badly bruised.

Maeril watched him for one breath longer than necessary, then looked away before tenderness became a task she would have to explain to herself.

The shutters rattled in a mild morning wind.

Rishi stirred.

He woke slowly. His fingers flexed first, then his breathing changed. His eyes opened, moved from the ceiling to the window, and settled on her.

“Still alive?” she asked.

He considered it. “Apparently.”

“Good. I am too bruised to carry you downstairs.”

Rishi smiled. The split in his lower lip opened again, cutting the expression short.

Maeril pushed herself onto one elbow. Pain shot through the shoulder she had landed on during the fight at the Battlescarred Bard.

She ran her tongue over her teeth. The acid bitterness was finally gone.

Thinking of the assassin’s burned face made the taste seem close again.

She pushed the memory aside.

From the chapel, it had taken one more guarded day to reach Trademeet. They watched every rise, listened for every cart, and measured each traveler twice.

The town appeared slowly: roofs, smoke, wagons, then the blessed ordinary ugliness of people more interested in selling onions than hunting fugitives.

At the first incurious inn, the woman behind the counter asked only for coin, the number of nights, and whether they wanted breakfast.

No names. No explanations.

Maeril had nearly kissed her.

The bed shifted beneath her as Rishi eased himself upright.

“Bad?” she asked.

“Better.”

“That was not the question.”

“It is the answer least likely to put me back in bed.”

“Monk honesty. Technically present. Morally irritating.”

“Wizard concern,” he said. “Technically kindness. Mostly threat.”

Maeril raised an eyebrow. “Mostly?”

They washed, dressed, and went down.

In the common room, travelers crowded the tables over bread and thin porridge. Inn workers moved among them with bowls, cups, and plates of something fried beyond recognition.

The innkeeper’s daughter came by with hot water and said, “Market’s full today,” in the tone of someone announcing weather.

Maeril thanked her.

The girl glanced once at Maeril’s horns and tail, then at the coins on the table.

She took the payment without flinching or reaching for a holy sign. Her second glance at Rishi’s bruises held curiosity, not judgment.

Trademeet, Maeril decided, had manners.

Or better: Trademeet had commerce.

Commerce had uses.

Beyond the open inn door, a vendor shouted the price of sweet cakes. Another voice called him a liar, and the crowd laughed.

Maeril turned toward the sound.

“I have spent enough time upstairs.”

“The chair will miss you,” Rishi said.

“The chair knows what it did.”

Maeril stood. “Come on. Let’s see what kind of trouble honest commerce can become.”

Trademeet opened around them in the full noise of morning trade. Wagons stood in uneven rows beside stalls under patched awnings. Bright cloth moved in the breeze, and food smoke carried bread, onions, and spiced meat through the crowd.

Everywhere, people argued over prices with the bright indignation of those who expected to leave alive afterward.

Maeril stopped at a pot of stew thick with beans, onion, and sausage.

“That,” she said, with grave reverence, “is food.”

“Yes.”

“Actual food.”

“Yes.”

“Two bowls?” Rishi asked.

Maeril considered. “Three. The third is emotional compensation.”

The woman serving grinned and ladled with respect.

Maeril tasted the stew and closed her eyes. Too much pepper, soft beans, good sausage, onion cooked properly.

“Sacred,” she said.

They ate at the edge of the stall while the market moved around them. Rishi ate slowly, and the heat gradually brought color back into his face.

Something in Maeril unclenched.

When the bowls were empty, the market drew them onward.

Maeril stopped at herbs, wax, paper, and several stalls whose usefulness became increasingly difficult to defend.

Rishi followed patiently until he reached a leatherworker.

Waxed thread hung above rolls of tools, leather scraps, beeswax, and stoppered bottles of oil. His attention narrowed.

Maeril followed his gaze to the materials.

“The boots.”

Rishi nodded.

Cleaning had exposed the damage: torn stitching, a scuffed toe, and leather strained by feet that had shaped the boots before his.

The leatherworker showed him three weights of thread. Rishi tested each between thumb and forefinger before choosing one, then added finer thread, a small awl, beeswax, and soft cloth.

He opened a bottle of oil, smelled it, and returned it.

“Too harsh.”

The leatherworker produced another. Maeril smelled this one.

“Better. Still wants something green.”

“For the boots?” the man asked.

“And for the feet of a monk who believes suffering builds character.”

Rishi looked at her.

“I respect your discipline,” she said. “I refuse to smell it for three days.”

The leatherworker looked at them and named a price.

Maeril argued it down.

When they left, Rishi carried the repair tools. Maeril carried the oil as though she had prevented a public disaster.

Farther along, they reached the road-sellers beneath a broad canvas awning. Maps hung overhead, with route-books and travelers’ guides spread across the tables.

Maeril opened several before a worn stitched volume caught her attention. She turned it over and read the title.

Forest of Tethir and Wealdath Margins.

“Wealdath,” Rishi said.

She looked up.

He remembered the name—an old forest she wanted to see if the road ever carried them far enough south.

“You wanted to go there.”

“I said I was interested.”

“More than once.”

Maeril narrowed her eyes. “I was attempting subtlety.”

“It did not survive repetition.”

She returned to the guide before he could become pleased with himself.

Its pages described mosses that grew beneath old shade, bark resins gathered without cutting the tree, mushrooms among wet roots, and white-veined vines that should never be touched barehanded.

“A real forest,” she said.

“You have known forests.”

“Not like that. Not old like that. Roots through kingdoms and wars. Trees that were alive before half the borders on these maps existed.”

She turned another page.

“And this is only the margin.”

They bought the guide and two maps: one official, one covered in handwritten corrections marking wells, shrines, and safer crossings.

Rishi studied the open guide. The notes on roots, slopes, and old paths held his attention more than the names of plants.

“I would like to see how people move in a forest that old,” he said.

“Of course you would.”

He looked at Maeril.

“You want to go.”

Her hand remained on the page. “Yes.”

“Then we go.”

Maeril’s expression softened.

They stood for a moment with the guide between them and the market moving around them, both looking south now.

Then Maeril packed the guide where she could reach it easily.

Trademeet had given them rest. The Wealdath had given them direction.

They returned to the inn before midday, collected their packs, and prepared for the road. Food was wrapped, maps secured, and the repair materials packed against rain.

Soon after, they reached the southern edge of town. The Trade Way stretched ahead through low grass and hedges, carrying them toward Mosstone and the forest beyond.

Maeril adjusted her satchel and looked back once before facing south.

“Come on,” she said. “Before I buy a third map just to correct it.”

Rishi set his staff to the road.

Together, they left Trademeet behind and started toward the Wealdath.