The sun had dipped below the treeline by the time Leo and Sera crossed the path toward his parents' cottage. Sera carried the bundle of raw pork belly wrapped in waxed cloth. Leo had the rest - rye bread tucked under one arm, the jar of rendered rd in his pocket, and a cy jug of brown ale swinging from his free hand.

  He'd bought the ale from old Bertram, the vilge brewer, for twelve coppers that afternoon. It wasn't good ale. But it was leagues above the watered-down swill Marsh drank.

  Sera had noticed the crossbow earlier. The stirrup and belt hook were hard to miss. Leo told her he'd brought it to the carpenter for upgrades. She'd looked at him, shrugged, and then turned back to bundling the pork without another word.

  Maren opened the door before they reached it. Her eyes dropped to the bundle in Sera's arms, to the jug in Leo's hand, and her mouth pressed into a line thin enough to cut bread with.

  "No."

  "Good evening to you too, Ma."

  "I said no. I can feed my own family, Leo. I don't need my son showing up with charity like I'm some widow begging at the temple steps."

  "It's not charity. I accidentally bought too much and it'll turn if we don't eat it fast. You'd rather we throw it out?"

  Maren's eyes narrowed. She looked at Sera.

  "The weather's too warm. It won't keep for long," Sera held the bundle out, expression perfectly neutral.

  "And the ale?" Maren's gaze swung back to the jug.

  "Cheap. Bertram practically gave it away."

  "Bertram has never given anything away in his miserable life."

  "Then I got lucky."

  Maren stood in the doorway for another three seconds, jaw working. Then she snatched the pork from Sera's hands and turned inside, muttering something about sons who thought they were cleverer than their mothers.

  Leo caught Sera's eye and winked. He tried to steal a kiss on her cheek, but a painful pinch on his side from Sera stopped him.

  The cottage smelled like root vegetables and wood ash. A thin broth was already simmering over the hearth, steam curling toward the ceiling beams. Maren's herb-drying rack hung near the chimney - bundles of rosemary and sage, browning at the edges. Everything was clean and properly maintained, albeit worn down to the thread.

  Ronan sat at the table.

  Leo's father was a man the nd had shaped and then kept shaping long past the point of diminishing returns. His hands were wide and cracked, the knuckles swollen from decades of gripping tools in cold weather. His shoulders, once broad enough to carry a full-grown sheep across the back pastures, had begun to bow inward.

  Deep lines cut from nose to jaw, and the skin around his eyes had the permanent squint of a man who'd spent his life reading weather instead of books. His hair was iron-gray, cropped short and uneven - Maren's handiwork with kitchen shears.

  He looked older than he should have.

  "Evening," Ronan said, nodding to Leo, then to Sera. His voice was low and unhurried.

  "Drink with me, Da?" Leo set the ale jug on the table between them.

  Ronan looked at the jug, then at Leo. Something flickered behind his eyes - a mixture of surprise and pleasure.

  "Alright."

  Maren had already unwrapped the pork and was slicing it with practiced strokes, feeding chunks into the simmering broth. The smell changed immediately - the thin, watery aroma thickened with fat and salt, making everybody’s mouth water.

  When the bowls came out, Leo peered into his.

  The broth was golden, rich with rendered pork fat, turnips and barley softened to the edge of falling apart. But the actual pieces of meat were... sparse. Three small cubes floating in a sea of liquid.

  "Ma. Where's the pork?"

  "In the broth."

  "I can see that. There's about enough meat here to feed a sparrow."

  "It's called stretching, Leo. Something you'd know about if you'd ever had to make a single piece of meat st three meals instead of eating it all in one sitting like a glutton."

  "I brought enough for tonight."

  "And tomorrow? And the day after?" Maren shot him a gre that would have been enough to shut old Leo up. "Eat your broth and be grateful there's meat in it at all. When you were five, you ate pin millet for a month straight and didn't compin once."

  "I was five. I didn't know what compining was."

  "Clearly you've learned since," Maren shot back, but the corners of her mouth were twitching. Across the table, Sera was hiding her smile behind her spoon.

  Ronan said nothing. He was already eating.

  Leo poured ale into two cy cups, sliding one to his father. Ronan took a sip, paused, and gave a slow nod.

  "Not bad. We haven’t had ale like this in a while."

  From Ronan, that was a standing ovation.

  They ate. The conversation was small and easy - Maren asking Sera about the turnip yield, Sera answering with the careful politeness of a woman navigating territory that had only recently stopped being hostile. Ronan chewed steadily, contributing a word here and there when directly addressed, otherwise content to listen. Leo topped off his father's cup twice during the meal, and each time, the old man accepted without comment.

  After the st bowl was scraped clean, Maren stood and began gathering dishes. Sera rose to help without being asked. Their hands moved around each other in the small space, and Leo watched for a moment - the two women working side by side, not warm exactly, but no longer cold.

  Good enough.

  "Leo," Ronan said, pushing back from the table. "Come with me."

  The night had cooled. Stars were beginning to punch through the darkening sky, and the air smelled of damp earth and distant chimney smoke. Leo leaned against the fence, listening to the crickets.

  Ronan settled beside him. He produced a small leather pouch from his belt, packed a stubby cy pipe with dried leaves - cheap, rough-cut stuff that smelled acrid even before he lit it. The flint sparked twice before the ember caught, and Ronan drew a long pull. The smoke that curled from his lips was harsh and gray.

  They stood in comfortable silence. From inside came the muffled sounds of dishes being stacked and water being poured.

  "I used to go in," Ronan said.

  Leo turned his head.

  "The Pit," Ronan crified, not looking at him. His eyes were fixed on the middle distance, somewhere past the fence, past the darkened fields. "Me and your uncle and our friend."

  He took another drag. The ember glowed orange in the dimness.

  "I know what it’s like down there. That sweet rot, the sound the beetles make, and the way the air gets heavy before something big is close."

  “Why did you stop?” Leo asked.

  "The friend got hung by a mutated Strangler, but mainly because I married your mother and she got pregnant with Marsh. Decided the money wasn't worth the risk. Not with a family," Ronan paused. The pipe smoke drifted. "I hoped you wouldn't go in there."

  "We're careful, Da," Leo said. "We don't take unnecessary risks."

  Ronan was silent for a long time. The only sound between them was the soft crack of the pipe.

  "Treasure that girl," he finally said. "She's good."

  Simple and direct. The way Ronan delivered everything that mattered.

  "I know, Da."

  Ronan grunted. Knocked the ash from his pipe against the fence post. The conversation was over.

  The walk home was quiet. Cool air, the crunch of dirt under their boots, and the faint glow of candlelight from shuttered windows along the path.

  "Your mother taught me a knitting stitch," Sera said, breaking the silence. "And she showed me how to stretch a broth properly. Apparently I've been wasting barley."

  "She taught you?" Leo gnced at her.

  "Mm. While we cleaned," Sera shrugged. "She just... started showing me things. I think that's how she makes amends."

  "That's exactly how she does it."

  They walked a few more paces. Then Leo smiled.

  "Da told me to treasure you."

  "Your father is a wise man," Sera ughed, slipping her hand into his. They walked the rest of the way home in the dark.

  The carpenter's workshop smelled like pine shavings and linseed oil.

  Leo had dropped the crossbow off first thing, before the vilge had fully woken. The upgrade components - the stirrup and the belt hook - were clean and precise, craftsmanship that looked almost too good for a vilge weapon. But the rest of the stock still bore the scars of the dungeon: scuff marks ground into the grain, a nick near the trigger guard where he'd banged it against stone, grime worked deep into the wood's pores.

  The carpenter, a taciturn man named Aldous, had quoted him six coppers for a full sand-and-oil. Leo paid and waited around two hours for the man to finish the job.

  Now he was walking home through the narrow ne that ran between the cooper's workshop and the back wall of the tavern. It was the kind of passage people used as a shortcut and nothing else - too narrow for carts, too shaded for anything useful to grow. The walls on either side were close enough to touch with outstretched arms. Stale ale and sawdust thickened the air.

  Then he heard footsteps ahead of him.

  Two men stepped out from behind a stack of the cooper's barrels, blocking the ne. Leo stopped.

  The man in front leaned against the barrel stack with the ease of someone who'd done this before. Mid-thirties. Lean and wiry, with a ferret's face - narrow jaw, close-set eyes that never stopped moving. A thin scar ran across his chin, pale against sun-browned skin. Dark hair slicked back with some kind of grease. He wore a leather vest over a shirt that was cleaner than any borer's, and his boots were oiled.

  The smell of cheap leaves rolled off him, sour and stale.

  Beside him stood a man built like a rain barrel given legs. Thick neck, barrel chest, hands that could palm a man's skull. His face was ft and ruddy, nose broken at least twice and healed crooked both times. His eyes were small and dull, the eyes of someone who didn't think much about consequences.

  Vilko and Bram. Leo didn't recognize them from old Leo's memories. Every vilge had at least one of those, thugs, good-for-nothings that mooched off everyone and terrorized their neighbors.

  "Morning," Vilko said. His voice was smooth, almost friendly, and it didn't match his eyes at all. "Leo. Leo. Heard you were up and walking again. Good to see."

  "Move," Leo said.

  Vilko smiled. It was the kind of smile that never reached past the mouth.

  "Heard some other things too. New pot. Meat from Rockhaven," he ticked the items off on his fingers, still leaning against the barrels. "Lot of spending for a man who was eating pin millet two weeks ago. Makes a fellow curious about where the money's coming from."

  Leo said nothing.

  "Thing is," Vilko's tone shifted, dropping the pretense of friendliness. "Ashwick's a small pce. People who come into money attract attention. That can be dangerous. But it doesn't have to be."

  "Get to the point."

  "A contribution. A friend's tax, let's call it. You keep earning, you share a little, and nobody bothers you. Simple arrangement. Everybody wins."

  "In your dream."

  Vilko's jaw tightened. Just for a moment. Then the smooth mask slid back into pce.

  "That's a shame," he sighed. "See, I was hoping we could be reasonable about this. Because the st time someone had to deliver a message to you…" His eyes flicked to Bram, "...you ended up face-down on the cobblestones. Remember that night, Leo?"

  So it was these bastards, Leo thought, but he didn’t react. They would pay for the bruises and fractures that bound him to his bed, but not in the broad day light. Even if they were menaces, with Sera’s family’s background, Leo didn’t want to take chances.

  The ws might not favor us if there are witnesses…

  "Bram here hits hard," Vilko continued, casual as discussing rain. "But he follows instructions. That time, the instructions were specific. Someone wanted your plot. You weren't supposed to keep farming it."

  Vilko pushed off the barrel and took a step closer.

  "Now, I don't care about your dirt patch. But that pretty wife of yours walks to the field alone every morning. Long stretch of empty road. No one around."

  Something shifted behind Leo's eyes. He’d heard enough. The indifference in his eyes warped into something colder now. He raised the crossbow. A smooth motion. Stock against his shoulder, sight line level with Vilko's face.

  Vilko ughed. Bram grinned, slow and stupid.

  "What are you going to do, farmer? You get one sh…"

  Leo pulled the trigger.

  THWACK.

  The bolt buried itself in the barrel pnk right next to Vilko's face. Splinters sprayed across his cheek. He lurched sideways, stumbling, all pretense of control gone from his face.

  “What the fuck! Are you crazy!!?”

  Before either man drew another breath, Leo stepped into the stirrup, hooked the string and pulled. The mechanism locked with a solid click. He seated a fresh bolt in the channel and brought the crossbow back up.

  Three seconds.

  The tip of the bolt hovered six inches from Vilko's left eye.

  Silence filled the alley. Vilko's chest was heaving. A thin line of blood welled on his cheek where the bolt had nicked him. Bram hadn't moved, his small eyes were fixed on the loaded crossbow.

  "You threatened my wife," Leo said. His voice was quiet and steady. "I will remember that, Vilko."

  Vilko's tongue darted across his lips. He gnced at Bram. Bram gnced back.

  "We're leaving," Vilko gestured with his hand.

  They left. Walking fast, shoulders rigid, Vilko's hand pressed to his bleeding cheek. Not running - they wouldn't give Leo that - but the speed said everything their mouths wouldn't.

  Leo stood alone in the alley. His hands were shaking. The crossbow's weight suddenly felt enormous. He lowered it, leaned against the wall, and breathed.

  I just pointed a loaded weapon at a man's face. Me. A guy who watched YouTube in a hospital bed for two years.

  Fighting a monster was one thing, facing a human being was another. Though Leo knew he wouldn’t hesitate if Vilko and Bram didn’t wise up and left.

  But I can’t let things end like this, Leo was still quite miffed about the beating. Even though the one who was beaten wasn’t him, he still had to bear the consequences. And more importantly, they brought up Sera…

  After a minute, he pushed off the wall. Walked to the barrel and pulled the bolt free. The iron tip was bent slightly from the impact. He slid it back into the quiver anyway.

  After their second dungeon run, he and Marsh would have some business to take care of.