Rain lashes Effruin’s back as the carriage rolls beyond Tahu’s outer foundations. Behind him, the burning inn stains the low clouds red, while bells and shouted orders spread through the capital.
Within the city, soldiers seal the lower quarter and drag witnesses from hiding places. Smoke blots out the Black Sluice Inn, and the massacre of Harvess’s household becomes the night’s unfinished rumor.
No ally accompanies Effruin. Eve and the wounded rebels remain concealed beneath the Weirwood canopy, while Braugarth lies behind in the flooded passage and Remi’s marker stands beside the cleft.
The stolen carriage creaks along the rain-dark road. Coin sacks thump beneath the bench, provisions shift in the rear, and the horses settle into a hard, frightened pace.
Effruin
Tahu is behind me. The road ahead is unguarded for now.
His shoulder burns beneath the cloak, and his bruised ankle complains whenever the wheels strike stone. Beyond the rain, the road divides: one branch bends toward the Weirwood Forest, the other toward the eastern imperial roads.
“I release control of the reins, and let fate choose what comes next for me.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled +1)
Effruin releases the reins. They fall slack across the carriage board, leaving the frightened horses to choose their own path beneath the cold rain.
For several breaths, only wheels, weather, and hoofbeats govern the stolen carriage. The horses pass the western branch without slowing and take the eastern imperial road.
The road climbs through black hills, carrying Effruin away from Tahu, the Weirwood Forest, and every survivor who might still remember his name.
By dawn, the rain thins to silver mist. His shoulder remains wounded, his ankle bruised, and the coin beneath the bench is enough to purchase distance but not absolution.
Behind him, Harvess and her daughters are dead, the Black Sluice is ash, and the family that sold him into slavery has no living voice left to summon him home.
The horses continue east beneath a paling sky. Effruin travels alone, with no master, ally, or unfinished vengeance ahead of him, while the broken empire closes over his trail.
The carriage rattled past the western branch. Effruin let the reins hang loose, and the horses bore him east beneath the fading rain.
Effruin
No road behind me. No hand ahead. Good.
His shoulder burned with every jolt, and his bruised ankle throbbed against the carriage floor. Still, he did not turn back.
By dawn, Tahu was only a dark stain behind the hills, its alarms swallowed by distance and mist. Effruin traveled alone along the imperial road, carrying stolen coin, old wounds, and the final weight of his vengeance. The world had taken every former tie from him, and he entered its eastern vastness with nothing left to call home.