Barison could no longer keep the chill from his bones. It had become a persistent ache that no amount of wool or cloth was able to ward off. How comfortable he had become in Marchand, unused to the cold, to the empty wastelands. He had forgotten the North for what it was, not merely a place, but something that actively conspired against the living. He had forgotten the way the air brought the damp into his lungs, and how the frigid wasteland of the Northern Kingdoms could swallow a man’s hope before he had even crossed the first ridge. He looked over at Ester, a girl who undoubtedly felt the cold even more profoundly than he did, and yet despite her wiry frame and a life spent in the temperate gardens of her father’s estates she did not shiver. Even amidst the grime of travel and the heavy mists of the high country she bore herself with a regality that few in her position could muster, and Barison was reminded then how vastly different they truly were.

They had been on the road for three weeks now, and the trauma of Marchand felt like a distant dream to Barison. He wondered, not for the first time, what had become of the scared woman in the dungeons; wondered what the boy who had opened his cell and freed him had become. Barison hoped the boy had become one that sung the gentle song of the Cantor, that his soul had found the peace it craved. But the long dormant part of Barison that cynically knew the hearts of others did not believe for a moment the boy had become anything other than a killer.

The woman, at least, should have fared better. She would not have lost herself. But hers had been a gentle soul, and those did not last long in the chaos of revolution. Would she be strong enough to survive the days ahead? Would she be strong enough to bear life if she had not found her boys?

Barison twisted his neck, forced his mind from the endless onslaught of memories. The silence in these cold Northern wastelands had done more to age him than the years of drink in Marchand. He felt a yearning then for the faces he had left behind. Syril, Frederick, even William’s weasily face would have been welcome. But no faces materialized from the icy wastes, no friendly voices called to them from the treeline as they travelled. Only biting wind, swirling snow and the distant calls of lonely wolves kept them company. The only consolation was that they were nearing the end of their journey, or at least the end of this particular stage of it. The peak of the Dansen Pass was almost upon them, and he knew they would arrive within the next few days if the weather held. Still, knowing they had almost reached their destination did not lessen the strange ache within Barison, or the growing apprehension for what he would need to face in those cold wilds.

Then the forgotten backroads they had been traversing came to an end and Barison was forced to join the main road, a much wider path carved by centuries of trade and military ambition. They had only been on it for half a day, and Barison knew that with the main Dansen Pass came the inevitability of other travelers, and the thought bolstered him even as Ester seemed to shrink from the new route. Barison turned and gave Ester a wan smile. His face stretched into the familiar position, but he felt no joy. Did she see through the falseness of it? Did she see the underlying tension that twisted his heart into endless knots despite the end of their isolation? No one would be hunting for a fallen heiress or a Northern sympathizer out here; they would only find other world-weary travelers and hard-eyed soldiers of the Imperial garrison. Barison knew it to be true, but still he could not stop the deep tension within his chest, or the overwhelming tiredness in his bones that reminded him of his own mortality.

After another hour of the horses’ hooves echoing against the frost covered stones, a small waystation emerged from the gloom. The building was a hunched thing, half inn and half market, constructed from thick timber and grey mountain stone. Behind, several other smaller outbuildings were set back into the dark line of the pines. From here Barison could see the stables were mostly full, the steam from the horses breathing rising from the stalls. Barison whistled low and their own horses came to a stop, heads drooping with immediate, weary gratitude.

Beside him, Ester’s eyes shone out bright now, clear and piercing. Barison had noticed the subtle change several days previous, the way the fog in her gaze had lifted, replaced by a sharp, calculating awareness. She was seeing the world again, processing the threats and the geography with the practiced precision of a Royal upbringing. Still, Ester had chosen to remain silent. She had not uttered a single word since the night the palace burned. Barison did not begrudge her this small remaining control over her life. She had lost her home, her father, and her status; her silence was the last thing she held dear, and she would lower the drawbridge only when she was ready.

He chose to be his jovial self, the mask of the charismatic merchant slipping back into place as easily as an old glove despite the uncertainty he felt. He needed to ease any fears she might have, to show her that the world could still contain warmth and safety, even if it was bought with a bit of silver and a lot of chatter.

Ester eyed the inn warily, taking in the door, the vacant windows, and the stabled horses with something that resembled suspicion. Barison grunted, his joints popping as he climbed down from the driver’s seat. He guided the horses toward an open spot sheltered from the biting wind, patting each of the horses in turn on their tired muzzles and offering grain as they settled in to rest.

“Sister Ester,” Barison said, his voice warm in the cold. “I do believe that you will appreciate a hot meal cooked by someone with far greater gifts than I have for once. And I, in turn, will appreciate the comfort of a warm room for a night. My knees are singing a song of protest that only a feather mattress can silence.”

He hoped to ease her wariness, but his words seemed to have little effect. Ester stood and gracefully descended from the carriage, her movements fluid and silent as she came to stand beside him. Even now though her eyes continued to scan every nook and cranny of the yard. Barison wondered what she expected to see, but did not voice the question.

“I have stayed here on many trade journeys,” Barison said, gesturing toward the flickering orange light in the inn’s windows. “There is no danger here, except for the danger of not wanting to leave. From here to the peak of the mountain, the path turns as treacherous as the weather, and we would do well to take comfort in the gifts given us while we may. This will likely be the final hospitality we will experience in Nieśmiertelny. The Imperial garrison at the peak is a hostile place, and hostile places rarely have even the simple luxuries we can expect here.”

Ester did not respond. She did not nod or smile, but she did not shy from the door either, instead falling into step just behind him, her presence a quiet, watchful shadow.

They entered the large common hall. It was a cavernous space, dominated by a massive stone hearth where a warm fire roared. Several empty tables and stained benches were pushed toward the walls, and the air was thick with the intoxicating, savory smell of roasting game. How long had it been since he had enjoyed red meat? Barison salivated in anticipation, his mind drawn towards the smells origin. With effort he drew his gaze away and took in the rest of the room. Ahead, a small counter sat in the back corner, situated just before a staircase that wound upward into the dark reaches of the building.

“What brings you fine folks in?”

The voice was thin and raspy, and if Barison had not known the speaker to be a women he would have expected a gruff soldier. Barison turned and bowed low, his merchant’s flair on full display. The frail woman half-shuffled and half-dragged herself toward them, leaning heavily on a gnarled cane. Her half lidded eyes bored into them, the thousand wrinkles that flowered around them twisting with each of her ragged breaths. Barison did his best to ignore the way she had spat the word fine, tried to ignore the familiar viciousness barely masked in her.

The woman was old, but her eyes blazed with a green, predatory fire. Cautious, perhaps, and now they flicked quickly between Barison and Ester as if searching for a weakness in the pair. Barison could feel a second set of eyes on them now, and he felt the prickling between his shoulder blades. He did not expect a blade, but he did not expect the other figure to know him, and so he accepted their wariness. They had undoubtedly heard of Marchand’s fate. The already dangerous pass had likely seen a flood of opportunists and brigands, and he could not blame the proprietor for her distrust. Barison let the unseen figure watch him and made no move that could be taken as a threat. Beside him he heard Ester’s breath hitch, and she stiffened, now aware of the unseen guard waiting to met out violence. To her credit the girl made no move.

Barison did not mind. Though they weren't yet free of Nieśmiertelny’s borders, they were near enough to the Northern Kingdoms that the suspicion of their people had bled over. It was a form of hospitality in its own; it meant the owners intended to keep the peace. Barison slowly opened his arms wide, cloak billowing.

“Sister, I don't believe you could forget a man of the Cantor such as I, even if I am a bit more weathered than the last time I graced your doorstep. I see that you are the same as ever, an unchanging beauty in a sea of misery. I wonder if this time you will finally share your secret with an old man?”

The woman, Miara, blinked suspiciously at him.

“I ain't your sister, mister, and I have half a mind to turn you away just for insinuating as such,” she grumbled, though the edge was gone from her voice. She shuffled closer, squinting up at his face. No recognition softened her features.

“Lots of men claim to be Godly up here, and then they slit your throat as soon as you turn to the stew. We're full up. Don't need no more ‘godly’ folk or vagrants. Got enough to worry about with the pass being what it is.”

“Sister Miara, I am absolutely wounded,” Barison replied, the hurt in his voice only partially feigned. He gestured toward the hearth. “I sold you that fine coat hanging by the fire. I see it has seen much use since I last came this way. You might even say it has the look of a loyal companion.”

The coat in question was a once-proud garment of dark fur, now speckled with dried mud and bearing a long, jagged tear near the bottom hem that had been roughly stitched back together.

An audible groan erupted from the shadows behind the counter. Miara’s husband had a deep voice that was somehow equal to Miara’s own. Barison marvelled that the voice came from mankind at all.

“Damn it, he's back. That mad southern preacher. Always yapping about gifts while trying to wheedle more liquor out of the casks for half the price.”

Miara crinkled her face in a look of profound disgust as recognition crossed her face. She turned her back on Barison and hobbled away toward the counter, her cane tapping against the floorboards. Her husband continued to mutter from the back about how there wouldn't be a moment’s peace as long as they hosted a toss-pot in the house.

The old woman stepped behind the counter and beckoned them over with a sharp, bony finger.

“Was hoping we’d seen the last of you, Veril. Keep your ceaseless chatter to yourself for once. The only reason I bought that useless thing was to get you to shut your face and move along.”

Barison noted with satisfaction that he hadn't been turned away.

“You missed the evening meal already,” Miara continued, a rough cough interrupting her. “But I could throw together a bowl or two of the leftovers. Was just going to throw it out for the pigs anyway. It’s gone cold and it’s mostly just the crusted soup residue at the bottom of the pot, but it’ll fill your bellies.”

She waved a dismissive hand toward a heavy black pot sitting on a side table. The man from the shadows, Miara’s husband, trudged out to stand beside his wife. He was a sour-looking man, even more frail and bent than she was, but he carried a short hunting bow in his calloused hand and despite his trembling limbs, he held the weapon with the ease of a man who had learned to use it. Ester stiffened as he walked by, her body tensing, but she did not outwardly react except to subtly shift her weight, placing Barison’s large frame between herself and the old man.

“Who's the girly?” Miara asked, green eyes now boring into Ester with an uncomfortable intensity. “Don't remember you bringing womenfolk with you last time. You usually travel with nothing but your sins and a wagon full of furs. Didn’t think anyone would have the patience for your rambling.”

“She's my daughter,” Barison responded quickly, but the lie sounded oddly false to his ear, and he knew that Miara did not believe him.

“Don't see the resemblance,” Miara's husband said darkly, clearly also having seen through the lie. He leaned against the counter, eyes narrowing. “You ain't branched out to selling girls on the side, have you, Preacher? Or buying ‘em? We’ve seen it a hundred times before, so-called godly men taking advantage of the vulnerable for your own twisted lusts. If that’s the sort of trade you’ve taken up, you ain’t welcome in these parts. We may be poor, but we aren't animals.”

“I assure you both, she is my daughter,” Barison replied, his voice losing some of its jovial edge as he stepped closer to Ester, a protective instinct swelling in his chest.

Miara and her husband fell silent, each watching and judging, but not speaking. They stood that way for several long breathes. Barison felt sweat prickling the back of his neck. But the two didn’t press his story, and whatever they saw in Ester seemed to satisfy their searching eyes. It was Miara that broke the silence first, but when she did her line of questioning had changed.

“You know, I've been around a long time here, preacher,” Miara said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Folks tell us stories. The comings and goings, the life and the loss. Not too many merchants source wares from the Northern folks anymore, and it makes me wonder about a story I heard once.”

She paused, green eyes sharp as a steel blade. “Heard about a southern merchant who married a Northern gal a while ago. Heard it said he was a greedy man, shifty and untrustworthy as the worst of the politicians in Klejnot. Rumour is that after they married he put a curse on her that caused her to fade away into the ground, and then he abandoned his infant daughter in the snow and ran back to the ‘civil’ parts of the world to hide from the Northerner’s justice.”

Miara's husband grunted, eyes twisting to Barison’s face. Barison didn’t notice the man’s gaze, instead his entire attention focussed on Miara’s words, and a strange dizziness that had blossomed as they had been spoken.

“Half the stories we hear are made up by drunks looking for a free pint. But that one... it has the ring of something more to it..”

Barison stood perfectly still. The air in the room had become as cold as the wasteland outside despite the crackling fire. He knew then that the ghosts he had spent fifteen years trying to outrun had finally caught up to him in a dingy waystation at the edge of the world. The dizziness gave way to a familiar, hollow ache within his chest, and with it the profound, unfixable loss that defined the man he was. Yet, he chose not to fall into the trap of self-pity. He had a girl to protect, and the Cantor to serve.

He bowed his head, his voice low and steady as he recited a passage from the holy manuscripts.

“The passage of time comes, and it wipes away the sins of all who seek the light. Know that, and take comfort in the dawning of each day as a new chance to mend the hurts and bind the wounds of the lost.”

Barison closed his eyes for a moment, seeing the face of the woman he had loved, and the one he had left behind in his cowardice. When he opened them, the grief was there, but so was a steely resolve.

“I cannot say if the story you have heard is of me,” Barison said softly. “But all have fallen short of the holiness we were meant for. Each sin, each crime committed, can be atoned for through the sharing of one’s gifts and the protection of the weak. I acknowledge my failings, and I strive every hour to guide others away from the mistakes of my past.”

Miara stared at him for a long beat, her expression unreadable. Then, she rolled her eyes and shoved a wooden bowl of burnt stew scrapings across the counter toward Barison. She scooped out a second for Ester, her movements either annoyed or impatient, clearly regretting the conversation already.

“Don't suppose it much matters what an old woman remembers of some drunkard’s story,” she grumbled. “Just be sure you don't be selling any girls up here. This ain't the capital. We may be in the Empire, but unlike those bastards we have standards up here. Morals. Ain't no worthless Emperor gonna make us into something corrupt, and if you start bringing your southern rot into our house we won’t put up with it.”

She leaned over the counter, face inches from Barison’s. “And with that same thought in mind, you'll not be breaking any rules while you’re here. I'm not talking about the Governor’s laws, those burned with his palace. I’m talking about the rules of Nature. The Northern Kingdoms got some stuff right, and we won't put up with no corrupting witchcraft or the ilk. We heard what happened in Marchand, the reckoning they had there. Was because they failed to obey the true rules of this world, and they reaped the death that they sowed.”

With that her warning was done and the woman held out a small iron room key as she gestured toward the stairs. “You'll have the third room on the right. Got two beds. I've already put away my ledger for the night, so pay me before breakfast tomorrow. Now get out of my sight. Seen enough hypocrites pretending to be saints for one night.”

Miara turned her back, grabbed the large pot of stew, and gingerly shuffled toward a small door leading to the kitchen. Her husband followed a moment later, bow still clutched in his hand. With their departure Barison and Ester were alone in the flickering firelight.

Barison stood there for a long time, the key cold in his hand. He looked at Ester, wondering if she had understood the weight of the words spoken. She was looking at him now, her gaze intense and questioning, as if she were seeing through the jovial preacher and the merchant of furs to the broken man beneath.

He did not speak. He simply picked up the bowls of stew and gestured toward the stairs. He would carry the weight of his past a little longer, for as long as it took to get her to safety, and he would face whatever justice the Northern expanses held for him. The North was a land of memory and ice, and as Barison led the way up the creaking stairs, he knew that the hardest part of their journey was not the mountain pass ahead, but the reckoning that waited for him in the shadows of the peaks. He was home, and the North never forgot a debt.