Chapter 16 — The Torn Hood
(First-person — Crimson)
I hadn’t realized how cold I was until the door shut behind us.
The wind still clung to my neck, slipping beneath the torn edge of my hood.
Warmth hit next—thick and immediate. It carried the smell of stew, smoke and damp wool. Firelight moved along the walls, caught on metal cups and the edges of faces, then broke apart again.
The inn was louder than the street outside.
Not loud in celebration. Loud in use.
Chairs scraped. A mug struck wood. A knife tapped a bowl. Low voices overlapped in short exchanges that sounded like counting.
Blade stepped forward as if the room belonged to him.
A few heads turned when we entered.
Not long. Just enough.
My hand lifted toward my hood before I remembered it was torn. The motion stopped halfway, leaving my fingers hovering near my cheek like they had forgotten what to do next.
Blade didn’t look at them.
He stopped just inside the room.
I looked at him.
He met my gaze once—brief, steady—then turned and walked toward an empty table near the wall. Not the center. Not by the hearth. A place where his back could rest against wood and his eyes could reach the door without effort. His sword rested against the table leg, close enough that he wouldn’t have to reach twice.
He sat.
I followed, slower than I meant to.
When I took the bench across from him, my knees bumped the underside of the table. The wood was scarred with old knife marks and heat stains. I found myself staring at the lines as if they might explain the room.
The looks didn’t stop immediately.
They weren’t open. No one pointed. No one whispered.
But I could feel the moments when eyes lifted and lowered again. Like someone weighing and pretending not to.
My shoulders tightened.
Without thinking, I shifted closer to Blade. The torn edge of my hood brushed my cheek as I pulled the fabric forward, trying to cover what I could. Trying to hide what I could.
“Don’t.”
His voice was quiet. Not sharp. Not loud.
I froze.
My fingers were still holding the cloth.
Blade didn’t look at me.
His gaze stayed on the room—the door, the men by the hearth, the empty spaces between tables.
“Don’t fold,” he said.
Not sharp. Not raised.
Just steady.
I let the fabric fall.
He leaned back slightly, one arm resting along the table’s edge as if he had all the time in the world.
The room did not change.
A chair scraped near the hearth. Someone laughed—short and tired, like a cough that almost became something else. A bowl was set down. The rhythm returned as if my movement had never existed.
The eyes that had lingered moved on.
My fingers stayed where they were, resting on the table, useless.
I watched the room like it might suddenly remember me.
It didn’t.
Blade’s gaze wasn’t fixed on anyone. It moved—door, counter, stairs, back to the room in a slow circle that didn’t look like caution. It looked like habit.
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I didn’t understand how he could sit like that.
Not relaxed. Not guarded.
Just present.
“How did you know?” I asked before I could stop myself.
He didn’t hesitate.
“They’re not positioned.”
I blinked.
“For what?”
“For anything.”
His head tilted slightly.
He nodded once toward the door. Then the counter. Then the stairwell.
“If someone means to move,” he said, “they’ll make room first.”
My eyes followed his line of sight.
No one had made room.
People sat close to the hearth and closer to each other. Elbows overlapped. Knees brushed. A man leaned back in his chair and nearly bumped the table behind him, but he didn’t care. A woman stepped between benches carrying two bowls and no one stood to let her pass. She pushed through anyway.
There was no space here for a clean motion.
Blade leaned back again.
“This place isn’t charged.”
The words dissolved into the room.
I looked again.
The men by the hearth were loud. One knocked his mug over. Another leaned too far back in his chair.
Blade hadn’t moved.
His hand wasn’t on his sword, but it wasn’t far.
His weight stayed balanced. One boot planted. The chair tipped just enough that he could shift forward without scraping wood.
Nothing shifted.
My grip loosened.
“You can never be too careful,” I said quietly.
Blade didn’t look at me.
“You can,” he replied.
That made me blink.
I was still turning his words over when a shadow fell across the table.
“You staying?”
The voice was flat. Not unfriendly. Not warm.
I looked up.
The innkeeper stood beside us, arms folded. A man with a thick apron and hands that looked more suited for splitting wood than holding keys. His eyes moved between Blade and me, pausing where they paused, not lingering long enough to be called staring.
But they did pause.
On my horns.
Then the torn edge of my hood.
“Rooms are limited,” he said. “Payment upfront. Two nights.”
Blade didn’t look surprised.
“That’s enough,” he said.
The innkeeper nodded once, as if that was the correct answer and nothing else mattered.
“Keep the fire fed,” he added. “Don’t start trouble.”
“We won’t,” Blade said.
The innkeeper gave him a long look—measuring, not suspicious.
“Keys in a moment.”
Then he moved on.
I watched him go, then looked down at the table again.
The warmth didn’t reach my neck.
My hand lifted again—less than before—toward the torn fabric.
I stopped it.
“He should’ve made it back,” someone said.
The voice wasn’t loud. Just tighter than the others.
“He left before the storm,” another replied. “Plenty of time.”
“He knows that ridge.”
“He packed for it.”
A pause.
“So what happened?”
No one answered right away.
Someone cleared their throat.
“Maybe he waited it out.”
“On that slope?”
A chair scraped.
“It’s taken worse men,” someone muttered.
The conversation thinned after that—voices lowering, turning back toward ale and winter and anything easier than the ridge.
The fire cracked, throwing a brief spark that vanished before it could become anything.
I didn’t know the ridge they were speaking of.
Blade didn’t react.
If he heard it, he didn’t show it.
He reached for a cup of cider when a server passed and set it down, then slid one toward me without looking.
Steam curled faintly from the rim.
The cup was hot enough to sting my fingers.
I held it anyway.
The warmth helped, but it didn’t erase the feeling that something was wrong with my hood. That the air kept finding the same exposed place at my neck and settling there like it knew where to pass.
The inn went on.
More people arrived.
Two women argued quietly about cloth, one insisting she had already paid and the other insisting that payment didn’t matter if there was nothing left to sell.
“No more bolts of cloth,” the second woman said.
“There has to be.”
“There isn’t.”
A third voice cut in.
“Save it for someone who needs it.”
Someone else muttered something I didn’t catch.
The conversation sank back into the noise.
It wasn’t chaos.
Just strain.
A while later, the innkeeper returned.
He set a small iron key on the table.
“Upstairs,” he said. “End of the hall.”
Blade reached for it.
The innkeeper’s gaze passed over me again—brief, measuring. It paused on my horns, then shifted to the torn edge of my hood.
This time he spoke.
“You’ll want that replaced,” he said. “Wind’ll cut through you before the ridge does.”
He tapped the table once, like punctuation.
Behind him, a girl not much younger than me crossed the room with a stack of folded linens balanced against her hip. She didn’t slow when her eyes passed over me. Didn’t stare. Didn’t look away too quickly either. Just a brief nod, the kind given to anyone occupying the same space.
Then she kept walking.
“Clothier two streets over. Still open.”
The innkeeper moved on to the next table without waiting to see if I understood.
I watched him disappear into the noise of the room.
His daughter passed him near the hearth, saying something I couldn’t hear. He answered without slowing.
Blade turned the key once between his fingers.
“He’s right,” he said.
I looked at him.
“You’ll need something heavier before we go north.”
The words rose before I could stop them.
“I’ll manage.”
The torn edge of my hood brushed against my neck again.
Cold lingered there.
Blade didn’t argue.
He just looked at me once.
Not harsh. Not dismissive.
Just certain.
I stared at him, trying to find the part of his face that would soften the statement into something else.
There was none.
I looked down at my hands.
I knew he wasn’t wrong.
That was the part I disliked.
Blade stood, key in hand.
“We’ll go in the morning,” he said.
He didn’t wait for agreement.
I rose and followed him toward the stairs.
The room had returned to its earlier rhythm—bowls, low voices, firelight. Someone near the hearth was telling the same story again, and people still listened as if repetition made it safer. No one looked at us now.
The stairwell was narrow. The air warmer as we climbed, holding the smell of old smoke in the wood.
The torn edge of my hood brushed against my neck again.
My fingers twitched toward it.
I resisted the urge to pull it forward.
At the top of the stairs, Blade unlocked the door.
He pushed it open halfway and paused. His gaze moved once—window, corners, floor—then he stepped inside.
The corridor beyond was dim, lined with doors that all looked the same.
“Two weeks,” he said quietly.
I didn’t know if he meant it for me or for himself.
I stepped inside after him.
The door shut.
The warmth stopped at my collar.
