Knock, knock.

  "Hm? Are you expecting someone?" Kuro asked.

  "I think it's Ella. She said she'd drop by this morning." Fenric moved toward the door. "And she told us not to wander off—especially you."

  He opened it.

  Lovia stood on the doorstep. Her eyes were red and swollen. Her hair hung loose around her shoulders—she'd never worn it that way before. She looked past Fenric and found Kuro standing in the hallway.

  "Is it true?" Her voice cracked. "You're leaving?"

  Fenric blinked. "Uhm—what?"

  She was still panting. She didn't answer.

  "Lovia." Fenric leaned forward, studying her face. "Did something happen? You look like a troll spat you out. Who died? Wait—did the boss ma—"

  Lovia didn't answer, but her eyes cut to him so sharply he stopped mid-sentence.

  "Okay, sorry." He stepped aside. "Whatever it is, come in. I'll brew you some tea—I have arxlec flowers, they'll help. Come on, come in."

  Lovia stepped inside. She kept her eyes on Kuro, closing the distance between them slowly.

  "Before anything, sit down and calm yourself while I get the tea, hm?" Fenric said.

  "Are you leaving for good? Just like that?"

  No, huh? Fenric glanced at Kuro. She's asking you. Answer her.

  "Right," Kuro said. "I'm about to leave now. Is there a problem?"

  Tears fell. One, then another, then more—quiet and steady, dripping off her chin before she could stop them.

  Both Kuro and Fenric went still. Fenric looked genuinely alarmed.

  "Girl—what happened? Why are you crying? Did the boss actually—"

  "You heartless bastard." Lovia turned on Kuro, voice breaking. She wiped at her tears and her nose with the back of her hand. "You just say you're leaving like it's nothing."

  Fenric turned to Kuro, brow furrowed. "Dude—where are you leaving that she's crying like this? I've never seen her cry."

  Kuro's expression shifted slightly under the chaos. "I'm going to the guild," he said. "To get my sword back."

  "WHAT?" Fenric stared at him. Then he turned to Lovia. "That's it. Lovia, he's just stepping out to collect his sword. That's not worth—"

  "You IDIOTS." Lovia wiped her face clean in one sharp motion. "I'm talking about Kuro leaving this town. To the second city."

  Fenric turned back to Kuro slowly. A scoff of a laugh escaped him, disbelieving. "Partner. Are you going to Euneim?"

  "Yes."

  The amusement in Fenric's eyes snapped out like a candle.

  "See?" Lovia's voice climbed. "He's leaving. I can't believe this—after everything we've been through—"

  "Partner." Fenric's tail had gone completely still. "When did this happen? Without my knowledge? How are you getting there? When are you—"

  "Beast, calm down." Kuro crossed his arms. "I'm not saying I'm leaving today. I'm saying that's my destination. Eventually. That's all."

  A beat.

  "...Wait." Lovia blinked. "What?"

  "...Oh." Fenric let out a breath that seemed to deflate him entirely. He pressed a hand to his chest. "Oh. Ha. Ha ha." He turned to Lovia. "He's not leaving now. He's saying eventually. What's gotten into you—you nearly gave me a seizure."

  Lovia stood with the expression of someone realising they'd screamed at a spider that turned out to be a piece of thread. Her face went red. "I was having one too, but—wait." She looked at Kuro. "Cutie, didn't Ella ask you something about this?"

  "...Ask me what?"

  "I would have by now," came a voice from the doorway, "if you hadn't shown up first."

  Everyone turned.

  Ella stood in the entrance with a bag over her shoulder, taking in the scene with the mild expression of someone who had walked into stranger things.

  "Looks like you're all having a party," she said. "Mind if I join?"

  "Gladly," Fenric said, "if you can explain what's going on."

  "Gladly. But first—" Ella looked directly at Lovia. The look held. Lovia's expression went tight, then she turned and walked out without a word, the door swinging shut behind her.

  Ella watched it close. "Now that the drama's settled—Fenric, your Beretta's rear tyre looked soft on my way in. You should check it."

  Fenric's ears perked. "Really? I just—" He was already out the door, tail swaying. A moment later: "It's fine! The tyre's completely—Ella, you—" He pushed against the door. It held. "Oh, come on. Not again. Fine. Keep it to yourselves!"

  His footsteps faded down the porch steps.

  Ella sat on the couch and set her bag on the cushion between them. Kuro stayed standing.

  "What do you want," he said.

  "You," she replied.

  "...?"

  "Sit. I'll explain."

  He sat. A quiet fell over the room.

  "You know I'm from the second city—Euneim," Ella began. "I'll be heading back tomorrow, with the head obviously. I heard you've been trying to reach the city too. Right?"

  "Yes."

  "Good. I have a proposition that benefits both of us. Join my team—that gets you legitimate passage and a place in the city. What do you say?"

  Kuro was quiet for a moment. "Team as in joining the Dragonbloods."

  "No. Of course not—I told you, I left them for good." Ella leaned forward slightly. "I mean a team of two. You and me. I'd be captain, and I have some condi—"

  "Sure."

  She stopped. "...Hm? Wait. Really?"

  "Yeah. My path to the city just got a lot shorter."

  "I mean—yes, but—" She studied him. "You're okay with me being captain?"

  "Whatever."

  Wow. Just like that. She'd bought the bag specifically for this conversation. "Hm. I have conditions though—you didn't hear them yet. Are you sure?"

  "Does it matter?"

  "Maybe. Fine. First—as your captain, you follow my lead. No talking back. No doing things your own way without warning." She watched his face. Nothing. "Second—you address me as captain." She let a smile creep in, waiting for resistance. He looked perfectly unbothered. Okay. Hm. Weird. "And third—you never call me an idiot again. Ever. So if you—"

  She glanced at him.

  His expression had shifted. Just slightly. A small tension at the jaw, eyes going somewhere inward—as if the first two conditions had slid right past him, but this one had actually landed.

  "Are you serious?" Ella's voice rose. "You have a problem with that one? You're already lost in thought over it. Is not calling me an idiot really that hard?"

  Kuro didn't answer. He sat in silence, genuinely considering it. Then he exhaled slowly and said, "I don't know."

  "You—" She pressed her lips together. Sighed. "Fine. I can't believe I'm using this for this." She reached into the bag and placed the item on the cushion between them.

  Kuro opened the bag without hesitation and pulled out a long, dark coat.

  He went still.

  It was a near-perfect copy of his old military coat. The cut, the weight, the way it fell—all of it right, except the colour, which was a deep, clean black. He turned it over in his hands slowly.

  "Morvane's lower wing tissue, mixed with other materials," Ella said. "Whatever damage it takes, it repairs itself. No stitching required." She watched him. "So. Your answer?"

  "You got the colour wrong."

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  Ella opened her mouth. Closed it. "You know what—forget it. Give me that—"

  "I'll join you," Kuro said. "One condition. Tell me everything about the arcane gun. Where you got it. All of it."

  Sure, once we reach the city, Ella stood and held out her fist.

  Kuro stood, expression neutral, and bumped it.

  "For our new team," she said. "The Wolfbloods."

  "No."

  "The name is good."

  "It isn't."

  "Fine—we'll figure out the name later." She turned for the door. "I'll come for you tomorrow. Be ready." She paused at the threshold. "And if you're thinking you'll ride along until you're inside Euneim and then disappear—don't. You'll be out on the road before you finish the thought. Keep that in mind."

  She left.

  Tch. Kuro looked at the closed door for a moment. I'm getting close to my answers sooner than I thought. Bird—hold tight.

  The door opened again. Fenric stepped inside, clearly working to keep his face straight.

  Kuro glanced at him. "Beast. Your ears heard everything. Why are you asking?"

  "...Fair." Fenric swallowed. His tail had gone still. "So. You're leaving, then."

  "Yes."

  "...Ha." The laugh came out wrong—too bright, too short. "Good for you. You got what you wanted. Ha ha. I'm happy for you. Ha." He walked back out without another word and pulled the door shut. A moment later, Beretta's engine grumbled to life in the street.

  Kuro stared at the door.

  What's with him.

  Out in the field beyond the road, a tree stood in morning quiet.

  A hand moved.

  One clean swing—and the top half slid free and dropped without ceremony, the cut face smooth as polished stone.

  "Would you look at that." Rhanes raised Mosvmora and turned it slowly in the light, studying the edge. Then, with the grin of a man who'd completely forgotten his age, he started on the next one.

  And the one after that.

  He cut through debris, dead stumps, a rotting log he'd walked past a hundred times. The sword moved through all of it the same way—quiet, effortless, no drag, no resistance. Like drawing a finger through still water.

  Eventually he noticed the sun and swore under his breath.

  He drove back to town in his plain two-seater—not the Goliath's Beard, the other one—and arrived at the Smithblood Guild with Mosvmora still sheathed at his side. Inside, no Lovia behind the counter.

  "Kid. Where is she?"

  The attendant barely looked up. "Day off, Master. When I asked her for a reason, she said, and I quote, 'It's none of your business.'"

  "Did she." Rhanes considered that for a moment, then let it go and headed for his office.

  Kuro was already there.

  "Senior."

  "You're early. I'm late. Sorry." Rhanes set the sword on the desk between them. "Pick it up. Cut that wood."

  Kuro took the blade, drew it, and sliced the log propped against the wall in one motion. A clean line. No effort behind it.

  He looked at the two halves.

  "So?" Rhanes prompted. "What do you think?"

  "...It cut the wood."

  Rhanes stared at him. "It cut the wood. Yes. That is what it did. Do you notice—" He stopped. Composed himself. "Kuro. That blade is as thick as a drill. It has no business cutting cleanly. A sword that dense should crush what it hits, not cleave it. And the grain is perfect—no tear, no compression. It's as if it passed through without touching."

  Kuro looked at the cut edge. "...Oh. Hm."

  "And look at you sword—do you see the marbling? The pattern's changed since I last held it. It's deepening." Rhanes's voice had taken on the helpless enthusiasm of a man who wanted desperately to study something he couldn't keep. "The sword is feeding itself like we talked before. Every life you take with it—the blood doesn't go anywhere, it goes into the blade. It's growing, especially it drank morvane blood it became more stronger, Kuro. Getting sharper. Nobody alive could forge what this is becoming. Nobody except me, obviously, but the point—"

  "Oh," Kuro said. "Cool."

  Silence.

  Rhanes placed the sword in Kuro's hands with great deliberateness. Then he pointed at the door. "Take it and go. Before I find a reason to keep you here."

  Kuro was almost out when Rhanes's voice stopped him.

  "Are you joining Ella?"

  Kuro looked back.

  "Yes."

  They held the look for a moment. Rhanes nodded—the small, certain kind.

  Beretta shot through the main street at a speed that scattered pedestrians like startled pigeons.

  "You mangy mutt! Trying to find a post to shit."

  "I thought dogs only lived ten years—why are you still breathing!"

  Fenric heard all of it and cared about none of it. He'd long since stopped counting the insults.

  He drove to the riverbed and cut the engine. The clouds had thickened, strips of pale light pressing through the gaps. He walked to the water's edge and stopped.

  "Can I join you?"

  Lovia sat on a flat stone above the bank, watching the river. Fish broke the surface here and there, catching light. She didn't turn around.

  "Sure," she said.

  Fenric sat beside her, knees drawn up, hands clasped, face resting against them. His tail lay flat. His ears were down.

  They didn't talk. The birds did. The river did. The silence between the two of them was the heavy kind, the kind that has weight.

  Then Fenric made a sound.

  It wasn't much—a thin, unsteady breath. The kind that slips out before you can catch it. A drop fell from his face and hit the stone below.

  Lovia turned to look at him. His eyes were shut, jaw working.

  She didn't say anything clever. She put her hand on his back and rubbed a slow circle.

  "You must be more devastated than me," she said quietly. "Losing someone that close. Leaving you behind like this." Her throat caught. "I know. I feel it too. I don't know when it happened—I just fell in without thinking. And me, of all people." A wet sniff. "It'll be okay. It's going to be—"

  Her voice broke.

  They cried together then—properly, without dignity, without any effort to make it smaller than it was. Fenric's nose ran. Lovia's shoulders shook. The rain arrived quietly and then less quietly, coming in heavy and even until the cobblestones vanished under thin rivers of grey water.

  Time passed.

  Evening. The rain had pulled back to a drizzle. The streets gleamed.

  Kuro sat alone at his usual corner table in the guild, nursing a beer he'd barely touched. He flipped the coin Evandrous had given him—over and back, over and back—his eyes distant, already mapping the road ahead.

  The coin spun.

  Slowed.

  Around him, the guild went still.

  Not quiet—still. The attender mid-step froze in place. Cups halted an inch from mouths. A conversation died between one word and the next. The lamplight dimmed, and the colour bled out of everything until the hall was shades of black and white and nothing else.

  Kuro noticed. He didn't move.

  "SO." A voice—deep, abrading, wrong in the way of something speaking through a mouth it didn't belong to. The guild member at the next table had turned his head too far, his eyes black from edge to edge. "MOVING TO THE BIG CITY."

  "Yes, you shit," Kuro said.

  "HMM. ARE YOU SURE YOU'RE READY? STRONG ENOUGH? DON'T YOU THINK YOU'RE MOVING TOO FAST?"

  The voice came from the frozen attender now. Then the night receptionist.

  "Wow," Kuro said. "The bird's worried about me. Why do you even care?"

  "CARE? NO. I JUST DON'T WANT THE GAME TO END TOO SOON."

  "End." Kuro's voice went flat. "I've endured enough hell in this town to last me a lifetime. You think whatever's waiting in the city is going to stop me?" He picked up his glass. "I might be borrowing your power, bird. But don't mistake that for a leash."

  Every face in the guild hall turned toward him at once. Every mouth opened together.

  "MORVANE—THAT WEAK OFFSPRING OF MINE—IS NOTHING COMPARED TO WHAT COMES NEXT. TREAD CAREFULLY, KARL, IF YOU STILL WANT MY HEAD."

  The coin landed in his palm.

  Sound crashed back. The attender kept walking. The guild breathed again, glasses moving, voices overlapping, everyone carrying on as if nothing had interrupted anything.

  Offspring!!?.

  The glass shattered in Kuro's hand.

  Beer spread across the table. Every head turned. Kuro was already on his feet, money down without counting it, jaw set, moving for the door.

  Morning came grey and still.

  Kuro dressed methodically. New coat—Ella's, the black one, fitting like it had been cut for him, which maybe it had. Mosvmora at his belt. Cigarettes, lighter. The Ebonwing last—he turned it once in his fingers before tucking it away.

  He picked up the rifle wrapped in its cloth and considered it. Then packed it. You didn't leave a weapon behind just because no one had asked for it yet.

  The door opened.

  Fenric stumbled in still dressed from the night before, smelling like he'd slept inside a barrel. He was holding a bottle in each hand, one empty.

  "Beast." Kuro looked at him. "Where have you been."

  "Hic—nowhere—anywhere—hic—nowhere—"

  "Right."

  Fenric swayed in the middle of the hall, blinking. "Hic—getting ready, huh? Finally leaving wearing a new coat and shit." His voice went somewhere odd. "To where you want to go." He looked down. "Did you even look for me? It was raining and everything. Of course you didn't. When did you ever worry enough to..." He stopped.Thought it without saying it: My delusional ass thought you'd at least ask me to come. How stupid.

  "That was a long monologue, Beast. Go get cleaned up."

  "Why? So I can drive you and that—" He caught himself. "—and Ella to the station? Forget it. You Walk."

  "Beast." Kuro waited until Fenric's unfocused eyes found him. "I know you ran that motor half to death, but I'm not asking you to drive to Euneim on it."

  Fenric stopped swaying.

  "...What?"

  "What."

  "The thing. With Euneim." A very long pause. "Me. Coming with... you?"

  "Hm?"

  Fenric crouched down slowly and stared at the floor. Then he made a very quiet, very private sound and pressed both hands against his face. He's serious. He's actually inviting me. That's why—I can't believe I didn't see it. How dumb am I.

  He stood up. His face was wide open with something between joy and the edge of something else. "Partner... I don't think I can. My kind isn't allowed in Euneim unless—"

  "Slave status," Kuro said. "I know. That's how you're coming. The idiot is fine with it as long as you are. So. Are you coming or not?"

  Fenric looked at him for one second.

  Then he turned and disappeared into his room. Ninety seconds later he came back out with everything he owned in a bag.

  "Ready," he said.

  His eyes were watering. He kept his face angled away.

  Kuro went to open the front door.

  "Partner."

  He turned.

  Fenric held out the pocket watch.

  Kuro looked at it. Something moved through his expression—fast, small, gone before it could be named. He reached out and took the watch and pressed it into his inner coat pocket without a word.

  He looked sad. Fenric watched him. Why? I've never seen him look like that.

  They stepped outside.

  Ella was already waiting, geared and packed. Behind her, Rhanes had brought the Goliath's Beard around. The Morvane's head was strapped to the top, enormous, wrapped in canvas that did nothing to hide its shape.

  "Ready?" Ella said. "The train won't hold."

  Fenric and Ella climbed into the wagon. Fenric immediately looked up at the roof. "Boss—are you sure that thing is secure up there? One rough patch and we're—"

  "Keep talking," Rhanes said pleasantly, "and you're walking to the station."

  "Understood. Everything's fine."

  Rhanes glanced at Kuro, who'd gone still, looking back toward town. He followed the line of his gaze.

  "Be quick," he said.

  Kuro nodded and left.

  The Smithblood Guild was mid-morning quiet.

  An adventurer was leaning on the counter, complaining loudly about his drink order. Lovia lay face-down on the countertop, head on her arms, listening to him with the flat patience of someone conserving the last of their energy.

  He kept going.

  She raised her head. Her eyes had the quality of a storm that hadn't decided how serious to be yet.

  "Shut your mouth," she said, with great calm. "I'm in a bad mood already. Get out before I find somewhere creative to put that glass."

  He went.

  She straightened—and saw Kuro walking toward her.

  The colour rose in her face instantly. She went rigid. "K—Kuro. How are—when did you—"

  "I came to say something," he said.

  She looked at him.

  He paused for a moment. Then: "Your drinks are good." He held her gaze. "I'll miss them." A beat. "Bye."

  He turned away and went out.

  Seconds passed.

  "CUTIE."

  He looked back.

  She came around the counter at a full run and crossed the distance and kissed him—properly, no hesitation, no apology for it. Rhanes raised his eyebrows. Fenric's face split into a grin wide enough to hurt. Ella stared.

  It lasted a good while.

  When Lovia finally pulled back, she was close enough that her words were only for him. Her face was blazing red.

  "Goodbye, sweetie," she whispered.

  Then she turned and walked back inside, not looking back, chin up, door swinging shut behind her.

  Kuro stood on the street for a moment. Then he walked back to the wagon and got in.

  Nobody said anything.

  Rhanes flicked the reins. The Goliath's Beard moved.

  They rode to the station in complete, smiling silence—everyone smiling except Ella, who was looking out the other side of the wagon.

  At the platform Rhanes said his goodbyes, quiet and brief. The Morvane's head went into the luggage compartment. Kuro, Fenric, and Ella found their seats.

  The whistle screamed.

  The platform began to slide away. Fenric had his face at the window.

  "Boss!" he shouted back through the glass, already needing to raise his voice over the noise. "Mail Beretta to the city!"

  Whether Rhanes heard him, he gave no sign. Bear Path shrank. The rooftops flattened to a line. The line thinned to nothing.

  The train ran north.

  Kuro leaned back in his seat, eyes forward, hands still.

  Euneim, he thought. I'm coming.