The village is smaller than it looks from a distance.

  Eric feels it the moment he steps between the first two buildings. Doors close too quickly. Windows stay shuttered. Conversations thin out and die when he passes. No one greets him. No one asks his name.

  A dog growls from behind a fence.

  Eric keeps his hands visible and his pace unhurried. He has learned that hunger makes people reckless, but fear makes them cruel. He doesn’t belong here, and they know it.

  At the well, a woman glares at him as if he’s already stolen something. When he asks where he might buy bread, she points without speaking. The baker charges him double and watches his hands the entire time. At the general stall, the merchant pretends not to hear him until Eric lays coins on the counter.

  He gets what he came for, water refilled, a small bundle of dried grain cakes, a strip of smoked meat, but no warmth comes with it. No work is offered. No questions asked.

  Good, Eric thinks. I won’t stay.

  By late afternoon, he’s already walking away from the village, the desert stretching wide to his right and a line of scrub forest to his left. He chooses the trees. Shade. Cover. Options.

  The sun sinks fast here.

  Eric finds a small clearing tucked between twisted trunks and low brush. The ground is soft with old needles and dry leaves. It feels, wrong.

  Too quiet.

  No birds. No insects. Even the wind seems hesitant.

  Eric pauses, breath slowing, senses sharpening. The lessons from the road whisper back to him. Stillness like this isn’t peace. It’s waiting.

  He doesn’t light the fire right away.

  Instead, he walks the perimeter, noting where the ground dips, where roots rise, where the undergrowth thickens. He chooses a spot near the edge of the clearing, not the center. When he finally strikes flint and coaxing flame, he keeps it small. Controlled.

  He lays out his bedroll deliberately, too deliberately. Right beside the fire.

  Then he moves away.

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  Carefully. Slowly. Circling wide until the fire is behind him and the forest closes in. He settles into shadow, back against a tree, breath steady, senses stretched thin.

  Minutes pass.

  Then voices.

  “…swear I saw him stop here.”

  Eric doesn’t move.

  “Fire’s lit,” another voice says. “Solo traveler. Easy.”

  A third chuckles. “Boss’ll like this one. Looks young. Probably got coin from the mountain folk.”

  Eric counts them by sound. Three. Footsteps light, practiced. Not drunk. Not careless.

  Bandits.

  They slip into the clearing like ghosts, silhouettes flickering in firelight. Eric watches them from the dark, heart steady, hands loose.

  “One at the fire,” the first whispers. “I’ll take his throat.”

  They move toward the bedroll.

  Eric exhales silently and shifts.

  When the blade strikes empty blankets, the bandit swears loudly.

  “Where’d he…”

  Eric doesn’t wait.

  He moves away from the clearing, not toward it. He circles wide, putting trees and brush between himself and the fire. He knows the forest better than they do now. He’s walked it. Felt it.

  Behind him, confusion breaks into anger.

  “He tricked us!”

  “Spread out!”

  Eric smiles grimly in the dark.

  He doesn’t run. He walks. Changes direction often. Steps where the ground is firm. Avoids snapping branches. Breath slow, measured, intentional.

  He hears them talking as they search, voices louder now, frustrated.

  “Doesn’t matter,” one growls. “Boss said take his things. Kill him if he resists.”

  So that’s why the village was cold.

  They aren’t just unfriendly. They’re helping, or scared.

  The bandits regroup near the fire, arguing in low tones. Eric listens, memorizing voices, rhythms, habits.

  One complains about guarding “the safer way through the mountain” being boring. Another jokes about how travelers never think to ask. The third spits and says the boss likes it that way.

  A safer way.

  Eric stores that away.

  When the bandits finally realize he isn’t coming back to the fire, irritation turns to impatience. They stomp through brush now, less careful, convinced strength will make up for lost subtlety.

  Eric lets them pass him.

  One moves within ten paces, blade bare, eyes scanning shadows that don’t move. Eric holds his breath until the man goes by, then slips away again, ghosting deeper into the trees.

  He doubles back only once, to erase his trail, then angles away entirely, putting distance between himself and the clearing, the fire, the village, the men.

  By the time the bandits realize they’ve lost him, he’s already setting up camp again half a mile away, fireless, wrapped in darkness.

  He doesn’t sleep much.

  But he lives.

  Lying there, listening to the forest slowly remember how to breathe, Eric feels something shift inside him.

  He isn’t powerless.

  He doesn’t need to be stronger than everyone. Faster. Deadlier.

  He needs to think.

  To choose.

  Violence would have killed one, maybe two, but the third would have finished him. Tonight, patience saved his life.

  Eric grips the rock Mara gave him, cool and solid against his palm.

  Tomorrow, he will avoid villages that feel wrong. He will remember that roads are watched, but forests listen. He will remember that sometimes the safest path is the one no one expects you to take.

  The fire from the clearing glows faintly in the distance, a false promise burning itself out.

  Eric closes his eyes.

  Breathing steady.

  Learning.