The road descended from the high ridge into the valley, and Orathis lay ahead—pale stone and smoke, worn by centuries yet alive with motion. Its outer walls rose against the noon sun, patched where old battles had clawed; the western gate stood open to travelers. Dust lifted in little veils and settled again. Beyond the arch, a city exhaled and drew breath.
Kaelthar moved with merchants and farmers, cloak plain, boots powdered from the road. His steps were measured. The shuffle and chatter slid past as though he walked inside a smaller weather. He did not slow, though his gaze touched everything: the ironwork at a cart's wheel, the rivet pattern on a gate hinge, the line of a spear stacked by a drowsing guard.
Beneath the carved arch he paused. Grain, rearing horses, figures locked in battle—edges worn smooth by weather. He studied them with the quiet of someone hearing a near‑forgotten song, as if he had seen the work newly carved. The stone held stories in its scrapes, the way a hand holds years in the knuckles.
A crow passed over the road, low enough that the wind of its wings brushed dust into a spiral. Something fluttered to the ground in front of his boots. A single black feather lay there, fine and glossy. He lifted it without thinking—and stilled. The day was hot, the plume was cold; not shade‑cool but cellar‑cold, as if drawn from a place where noon meant nothing. He turned it once between forefinger and thumb. Then he let it go. It caught the light, spun, and was carried toward the gate like a sliver of night returning to its nest.
No one else looked up when the crow cried again. Kaelthar watched until it tipped above the inner roofs and vanished. "Noted," he said, and stepped into Orathis.
Traders called their last bargains before the sun drove folk indoors. Copper pots gleamed; dyed cloth rippled as bolts were shaken for inspection. A boy ran past with two loaves clamped to his chest and a crust in his mouth; a woman laughed and pretended not to see. The air was rich with roasting meat and spiced figs. A stray dog nosed after scraps, then went still for a heartbeat when Kaelthar passed, as if listening with the rest of him, before trotting on with a shake of its ears.
He let the city settle into him. Sparks leapt at the smith's forge. A cooper rolled a barrel to a tavern door and thumped it in place with a practiced heel. In the fountain's shade a fiddler played a tune that had collected more coin than notes. A seller of ribbons had learned the exact amount of patience the world would buy. Kaelthar drew all of it the way stone draws heat: without hurry, as if reacquainting himself with an old, half‑forgotten tune.
"Stranger, you walk as though you've nowhere to be."
The voice came from a stall hung with woven baskets. The woman there had her sleeves rolled, dye at the base of her fingers where careful hands forget to be careful; her eyes were bright with the kind of curiosity that doesn't apologize. She studied him the way merchants study weight.
"I walk as I must," Kaelthar said.
"Most hurry at noon. You look like you're listening."
"Noise teaches, if one is willing to hear it."
She smiled. "True enough. I'm Selith. If you must walk, walk with a basket. A man who listens will find he's asked to carry things."
"Perhaps later," Kaelthar said, and the corner of his mouth shifted—something quieter than a smile.
A crow swooped and perched a little awkwardly on a grain‑piled cart. Its black eyes measured Kaelthar. It tilted its head, clicked its beak once, then flapped away with a harsh caw that made two children wince and laugh as if they'd been caught at a trick.
"Crows again," Selith muttered, watching it go. "They've pestered every quarter for a week. Bad omens, some say—yet the city still stands."
"Cities stand until they don't," Kaelthar said.
She glanced at him, amused and a little unsure whether to be. "You talk like the old men at the gate and pay fewer fees."
A voice rolled out of the press like a barrel let loose on a slope. "Bah! If crows were omens, Orathis would've fallen thrice by my grandfather's time."
A broad‑shouldered man shouldered through with the authority of someone used to making way where none lay. He carried a clay jug under one arm and had the quick eyes of a man who had counted coins in dim light for many years. Lines scored his face in friendly directions. He halted and squinted at Kaelthar as if at a sign half‑scraped from a wall.
"I'll be—" He laughed once, softly, like a man surprised at his own memory. "I remember you." He lifted the jug a little, thinking with his hand. "I was no higher than your waist when my father set me on his shoulders so I could see you pass this square. Fifty… fifty‑six years? Summer fair, the year the river ate the east road. You were just there—" He gestured to a patch of stones as if they might admit it. "And you haven't changed a lash."
Selith blinked. Her mouth opened, closed, opened again.
Kaelthar said, "Your father saw clearly."
The man's grin widened until it made him younger. "Name's Rothgar. I keep the Golden Flagon, two streets over, under the sign with the crooked handle." He lifted the jug in explanation. "I was fetching vinegar for a stew, which my Mira swears I will not ruin by existing in the kitchen. And you—" He paused, sudden formality threading his voice. "Master Kaelthar. You'll honor my table later."
Selith looked from one to the other. "Master…?"
"Kaelthar," Rothgar said, delighted to be the one to say it. "Ask your oldest customers; the name's been around longer than our wedding vows and better remembered in the wrong places." He squinted again, wonder washing back over his face. "Hells, I'd have bet a week's receipts you were a story I made up on cold nights."
"Stories pay poor interest," Kaelthar said.
"Then I'll settle for coin." Rothgar clapped his free hand to Kaelthar's shoulder with a care that admitted both strength and respect. "Come to the Flagon when the sun leans. First drink's on me. Food if you'll take it. There are always ears there that think themselves wiser than their owners, and I like to see how the balance comes out."
"I will," Kaelthar said.
"Good." Rothgar took a step, then another, then turned back as if worried he'd leave the moment behind if it didn't have a proper finish. "And… welcome back to Orathis." He nodded to Selith as well, a little bow of neighbors. "You keep selling, girl. The city will not carry itself."
"I am not carried by the city," Selith said, grinning. "It rents space."
Rothgar barked a laugh and vanished into the flow.
Selith let out the breath she'd been holding. "Fifty‑six years?"
"Some memories persist," Kaelthar said.
"And some men," she said more softly, as if testing the weight of the idea in her mouth. Then, quickly practical: "His tavern truly is two streets over. The food is honest. His wife keeps the books, which is why the food stays honest." She wiped dye from her fingers with a rag that used to be a softer color. "If you meant to listen to the city, the Flagon is a good place to hear it without the parts that lie by accident."
"I meant to listen," Kaelthar said.
They stood a moment in the thin shade cast by the stall's awning. A pennant along the lane lifted, stiffened as the breeze pressed through, then dropped momentarily as if the air had paused to reconsider. Somewhere deeper in the quarter a bell spoke two notes too close together to be a time mark, more thought than announcement. Most did not notice. Those who did blinked and went on. Kaelthar listened to the echo and filed it with the feather, the dog, the carved arch—small weights on a scale he did not show.
"When you've bought what you need, I'll show you the way," Selith said. "I know the alleys that lose people who think they have direction."
"I have what I need," Kaelthar said.
"Then you're rich," she said, and tied a length of twine with a deftness that made the knot look like a signature. "Come."
They moved with the market toward the riverward streets. The tune at the fountain resolved into something older and kinder; a pair of riders argued amiably about the price of nails; someone in a doorway whispered a prayer to a name that would be argued by a different name on the next street. Kaelthar walked as he must. The city walked as it could. Overhead, a bird crossed the sun and did not cast the shadow one might expect, but the moment was small and the light was busy and the day did not complain.