The first thing Arin noticed about freedom was how loud it could be.
Not the obvious noise—boots on cobblestones, merchants hawking yesterday's bread, the eternal clatter of cart wheels over uneven stones. No, it was the whispers that had grown teeth. Every conversation that stopped when he passed. Every glance that lingered a heartbeat too long. Every door that opened just a crack before slamming shut again.
Ashveil had always been a city of rumors, but now those rumors had his name carved into them like scars.
He picked at the stale flatbread Kaelis had scrounged from somewhere, trying not to think about how it tasted like sawdust and regret. They'd found shelter in an abandoned grain warehouse near the docks—the kind of place where honest folk didn't venture after dark, which made it perfect for people who'd stopped pretending to be honest.
"Eat," Selene said, though she hadn't touched her own portion. Her voice carried that particular brand of exhaustion that came from healing others while your own wounds stayed fresh. "Revenge burns calories."
"Is that what we're calling it now?" Lyara sat with her back against a wooden pillar, methodically cleaning her sword despite the fact that it was already spotless. Some habits died hard. "Revenge?"
Kaelis snorted from her perch near the window. "What else would you call it? Justice? Please. Justice is what happens in courts, with judges and witnesses and all that civilized nonsense. This is just good old-fashioned payback with better planning."
Arin finally looked up from his untouched food. "Does it matter what we call it?"
The question hung in the air like smoke from a dying fire. Outside, a drunk was singing something that might have been a love song if love songs usually involved this many references to someone's mother and various livestock.
"It matters to them," Lyara said quietly, nodding toward the window and, by extension, the city beyond it. "Half the Lower District thinks you're the second coming of the old Veilborn kings. The other half thinks you're going to get them all killed for sport."
"And the Upper District?"
"Oh, they've moved past thinking you're dead," Kaelis said cheerfully. "Now they're just trying to decide how many pieces to cut you into."
Arin stood, pacing to the window. The harbor stretched out below them, dark water reflecting the scattered lights of ships that couldn't afford better berths. Somewhere out there, beyond the forest of masts and the maze of warehouses, the Black Fang was licking its wounds and sharpening its teeth. The Council was probably holding emergency sessions, drawing up new laws to make breathing while Veilborn a capital offense.
And here he was, eating stale bread in a warehouse that smelled like rat droppings and broken dreams, trying to figure out how to save a city that couldn't decide if it wanted saving.
"There's something else," Selene said, and her tone made everyone turn. She was holding a small piece of parchment, the kind of cheap paper merchants used for quick notes. "This came while you were brooding by the window."
Arin took it, recognizing the careful script immediately. Old Brynn's handwriting looked like it had been carved with a very nervous chisel, but the message was clear enough: Word is Lord Dren's called in favors from the Outer Cities. Sellswords, mercenaries, the kind who collect ears as proof of work completed. Also, the Baker's Guild wants to meet. Don't ask me why. —B
"Sellswords," Lyara mused. "How many?"
"Does it matter?" Arin crumpled the paper. "However many it is, it's more than we have."
"That's never stopped us before," Kaelis pointed out.
"Before, we had the Red Fang behind us. Supply lines, safe houses, people who knew which officials could be bribed and which ones needed to be bypassed entirely." Arin ran a hand through his hair, feeling every day of the past few months like physical weight. "Now we have... what? An abandoned warehouse and whatever coins sympathetic merchants slip us?"
"Now we have something the Red Fang never had," Selene said softly.
"What's that?"
"People who believe in us instead of just fearing us."
The words hit harder than Arin expected. He thought about the woman in the market who'd pressed coins into Selene's hands. The blacksmith who'd left weapons "accidentally" where they could be found. The dozen small acts of defiance that had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with hope.
"The Baker's Guild," he said finally.
"What about them?"
"They want to meet. That's not political—that's personal. Bakers feed the city. If the city's hungry enough to risk talking to us..."
"Then maybe it's hungrier than we thought," Lyara finished.
Kaelis was grinning now, the expression sharp as her favorite knife. "So what's the plan, oh great leader of the resistance? Do we graciously accept this invitation to what's probably a trap, or do we politely decline and wait for the sellswords to find us?"
Arin looked around at the three women who'd followed him into exile, imprisonment, and whatever fresh hell was coming next. Months ago, he'd been a failed execution stumbling through basic sword drills. Now...
Now he was something else entirely. He wasn't sure what, exactly, but it felt dangerous in all the right ways.
"We meet with the bakers," he said. "But not where they expect. And not how they expect."
"Meaning?"
Arin's smile felt foreign on his face, like he was trying on someone else's expression. But it fit better than he'd thought it would.
"Meaning it's time Ashveil learned that shadows can bite back."
Outside, the drunk had moved on to a different song—something about heroes and lost causes and the thin line between them. Arin decided he liked it better than the one about the livestock.