Mageirith and Valerius leave the shrine behind and step onto a narrow downhill path. Damp leaves cling to the earth, and the forest thins toward a valley road below, where a village bell tolls with uneasy patience.
The trees part at a ridge, revealing a small hamlet of slate roofs and mud walls. Smoke curls from chimneys in the cold air, and a cart stands abandoned beside the lane, its wheel sunk deep in soft ground.
Valerius slows at the edge of the village, fingers closing around the pendant at his chest. He scans the road, the rooftops, the inn sign, as if each thing might remember him.
Mageirith
The bell is closer than it sounded from the shrine.
Valerius
So this is the part where the world starts weighing us again.
A hooded villager appears near the well, then stops dead when she sees the pair. Her hand tightens on the bucket rope, and her wary stare fixes on Valerius, then on Mageirith, as if both are strangers from a story she does not want repeated.
Ease the villager’s fear
Find out whether Valerius’s past has followed him here