That night Illara didn’t sleep soundly. She tossed and turned beside me, words spilling out of her in jagged whispers.

  “No—stop. Don’t make me hurt you.”

  I pulled her closer until her shaking eased, rubbing slow circles into her back. Her nightmares were getting worse.

  Morning came cold but bright, an early-winter sun glinting off wet cobbles. We dressed in silence and went out to find food. Even this early the main street was already awake: stalls lined the road like a patchwork market, wooden frames draped in canvas, smoke curling from braziers into the clean air.

  The smell of grilled chicken drew us in. A plain-looking man in rolled sleeves stood behind the coals, turning skewers with quick, practiced fingers.

  “Morning, ladies,” he called. “Looking for something hot?”

  “Yes,” I said. “How much for a chicken skewer?”

  Illara was already staring at the food like it might vanish.

  “One copper for two.”

  “Ten skewers, then,” I said.

  He blinked, then shrugged and started loading them onto a tray. I handed him a silver, and he counted the change back without comment.

  The meat was smoky and well-seasoned, the kind of street food that makes you realise how hungry you really were. Illara ate fast, cheeks pinking with warmth. Whoever this man was, he knew his trade.

  When our fingers were greasy and our stomachs finally settled, we headed for the guardhouse. If we wanted steady coin, that was the best place to start. At the very least, there would be bounties — names tied to reward money, jobs that didn’t require us to beg.

  In daylight the guardhouse looked less like a threat and more like what it was: a city building doing a hard job. Still, the stone walls held their weight.

  We knocked.

  The door opened onto a man in a guard’s tabard. For a heartbeat I forgot how to breathe.

  Same face. Older now — harder around the eyes, lines cut by years and authority — but I knew him.

  Percy.

  I let Drisnil’s calm slide over me before my expression could betray anything.

  “Good morning,” I said evenly. “My name is Drisnil. This is Illara. We’re looking for paid work. We’re experienced with bounty hunting and clearing monsters.”

  His gaze flicked over both of us, measuring. Not unkind, just practiced.

  “Lieutenant Briggins,” he said. “Come in. I think I’ve just the job.”

  He led us into the barracks room. It was cramped but orderly: bunk beds along one wall, weapon racks along the other, a scarred mess table in the middle still smelling faintly of porridge and oil. Swords, spears, shields — the city’s tools for keeping the peace.

  We sat. Percy—Briggins—shuffled through paperwork, then pulled out a small map and flattened it on the table.

  “There’s a goblin nest forming here.” He tapped a patch of forest marked a few miles from the city. “We want it dealt with before it grows into a problem. We can’t spare guards yet. Payment is one gold on completion.”

  I leaned closer.

  “How many goblins?”

  “Last report said ten.” His mouth twitched as if he knew how unreliable reports were. “That was a month ago. Expect more.”

  I knew that rhythm too well. Ten becomes fifteen. Fifteen becomes twenty. And a nest isn’t a nest anymore — it’s a foothold.

  “And proof?”

  “Ten goblin ears minimum. One silver for every extra ear.”

  The pay was solid. Enough to keep us fed, housed, and moving forward.

  “We’ll take it,” Illara said before I could speak.

  Percy nodded as if he’d expected nothing else.

  I kept my voice casual. “Percy, by any chance?”

  His brows rose. “Yes. I don’t think we’ve met. How do you know my name?”

  “Barnabus mentioned you,” I said lightly. “Years ago.”

  That did the trick. His expression softened into familiarity.

  “Ah. The Captain’s known me a long time.” He smiled faintly. “Want me to pass along your greetings?”

  It was almost funny — how clean a title could make the past disappear.

  “No need. He won’t remember me after all these years.”

  Percy chuckled. “An elf with your features? Hard to forget.”

  I forced a small smile. Distinct faces were liabilities in more ways than one.

  “If you insist,” I said. “But our time together was short.”

  “I’ll mention it,” he said, still amused. “And I’ll be disappointed in the Captain if he’s forgotten you.”

  He rose and gestured toward a drawer set into the far wall.

  “Do you have gate passes?”

  “No.”

  “Then you’ll want these.” He pulled two small wooden tokens from the drawer and handed them over. Each bore a raven carved in relief.

  “Free entry while you’re working for us. I’m recording your names. If you don’t return them when the job’s done, a bounty goes on both of you.”

  The bluntness of it made me blink. That was a steep price for a scrap of wood.

  “Understood,” I said. “We’ll take care of them.”

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  Illara frowned. “What if we lose them?”

  His reply was flat as stone. “A year in prison and a platinum fine. So don’t lose them.”

  I didn’t like it — but refusing now would look worse.

  “Right,” I said, standing. “We’ll head out. You’ll have your ears.”

  We shook hands and left the barracks, the raven tokens heavy in my pocket.

  We went straight back to the inn to gather our belongings. I needed a plan. I wanted those two men dead—slowly, miserably—if only to dull the guilt that had festered in me since the massacre I hadn’t been able to stop.

  Illara noticed my silence.

  “Is everything alright?”

  I hadn’t realised how tight my face had gone until she said it. I forced it to loosen.

  “Yes. I’m just thinking about how we’re going to tackle the goblin nest.”

  The lie came too easily, even to the one person I trusted most.

  “Okay…” Illara’s voice went small. She looked away, letting the subject drop.

  We headed through the gate and out toward the marked forest. The lieutenant’s directions had been crude, but with Illara’s tracking I was sure we’d find the place. The day was crisp, brightening as the hours passed. Early winter had already stripped the trees bare; their branches clawed at a pale sky.

  After a couple of hours across open fields and low plains, the forest from the map rose ahead of us. Skeletal trunks crowded together, turning the interior into a tangle of shadow even under daylight. The undergrowth was a dark, wet sea patched with mud, still softened by yesterday’s rain.

  Illara set to work at once, scanning for tracks. We entered slowly, her attention on the ground while mine stayed on the brush for any sign of movement.

  Not long in, she found the first clue: a small, humanoid footprint pressed into the mud, more like a child’s step than a man’s.

  “I think we should go the way it came from,” she murmured. “The direction it’s heading leads into thinner forest.”

  She truly was a gifted tracker—an unusual talent for a temple-trained healer, but invaluable now.

  We followed the faint trail until we spotted our first goblin. It was stalking a rabbit, hunched low and intent, oblivious to us.

  I raised a hand to signal Illara to wait, then drew my cloak close and slipped forward. This body knew how to move through trees. I didn’t think about it; I just became quiet.

  I got behind the goblin and drove my blade through the back of its neck. It dropped without a sound. This was the first humanoid I had killed in this world with my own hands, and to my surprise I felt no guilt at all.

  I motioned Illara in. She knelt, swift and steady, and took an ear for the pouch.

  The goblin’s gear was pitiful: a crude spear and a ragged loincloth torn from what had once been a plain dress. Goblins this close to civilisation hunted more than rabbits.

  “First one down,” I said quietly. “Nine more to go. Let’s hope the rest are just as easy.”

  The new tracks were fresher and deeper. Illara followed them without hesitation. By early afternoon the trail tightened, and we found the cave mouth.

  It was narrow—big enough for us to crawl, but for goblins it would be a stoop at worst. Two goblins stood outside on guard, leaning on spears, bored and inattentive.

  “Not good,” I whispered. “If we have to fight while crawling, we’re at a disadvantage. We may need to smoke them out.”

  Illara nodded. “I’ll take one with my bow. You kill the other at the same time.”

  Feasible. Clean.

  I slipped forward again, close enough to hear their lazy breathing. Neither even glanced my way. I reached the first guard and cut in a fast arc. His head separated from his body before his brain could catch up to danger.

  The other goblin drew breath to shout—but an arrow buried itself between his eyes. He fell backward without a sound.

  We dragged the bodies away from the mouth and collected two more ears. Their clothing was torn in the same way, and I couldn’t help hoping—grimly—that it was all from the same stolen dress.

  We piled green branches mixed with drier ones inside the entrance and lit them. Smoke surged up thick and bitter. I fanned it inward while Illara stayed poised with her bow for anything that bolted.

  Inside, high voices rose in panic.

  “Fire! Escape!”

  Two goblins burst out first, unarmed and coughing. Illara dropped both with quick arrows before they could fan into the woods. I hauled them aside.

  A moment later five more came running. Two went down to Illara’s bow. I met the others in the mouth: one thrust clumsily, and I drove my rapier through his heart. Another rushed wide; I slashed across his skull with my short sword, leaving him limp before he hit the mud. The last tried to shout, “It’s a—”

  I ended it with a thrust through the throat.

  The smoke stack began to sputter as dampness choked the fire. I heard frantic, high-pitched argument deeper inside.

  “I’m not going out there! The others—dead in seconds!”

  The fire wouldn’t hold much longer. If we wanted this done, we had to go in.

  “Illara, stay out here,” I said. “Watch for any goblins returning from hunting. And hide the bodies so they don’t get tipped off.”

  She nodded without argument. She understood the job.

  I sheathed my blades, took up a goblin spear, and ducked into the low tunnel. The embers behind me had already died.

  I could move in a crouch, and darkness wasn’t darkness to me. The cave opened in my sight like a dull twilight. For a heartbeat, unfamiliar memories brushed against me—stone corridors, cold air, the press of the underground.

  A goblin charged me almost at once, shrieking and thrusting wildly. His movements were slow, desperate. I stepped aside and drove the spear into his chest. He folded.

  The tunnel widened into a larger cavern where I could finally stand. The relief lasted one breath. An arrow sank into my left arm.

  Pain flared hot and sharp. My instincts snapped tight. Drisnil surged up like a rising tide.

  I threw the spear. It struck the goblin archer and pinned him to the wall. Three more came at me—one larger, two smaller.

  I met them head-on.

  Steel moved without thinking. The large goblin went down first, then one of the smaller ones in the same breath. The last lunged and scraped my arm as I twisted away. He hesitated when his companions fell, and the fear in his face was almost human. He dropped his spear.

  “Please… mercy.”

  My rage didn’t leave room for mercy. I drove my rapier through his skull. The anger kept climbing anyway—something old and ugly in me that wanted more.

  Now for the children.

  I went deeper into the back of the cavern. A human woman lay there, breathing raggedly. Her right arm and leg were gone, crudely sawn off. A filthy bandage barely clung to the wounds. I didn’t have to look far to understand where her limbs had gone—human bones were scattered in a heap nearby.

  I pushed past her into a smaller chamber.

  Five small faces looked up at me, crying, eyes wide with terror. My hand didn’t shake. That scared me more than their sobbing did.

  I did what had to be done—quickly.

  Then I forced myself to breathe again, gathered an ear from every goblin I’d killed, and returned to the woman. I hauled her up and began dragging her toward the entrance.

  The arrow wound made it agony, but leaving her here wasn’t an option.

  Outside, Illara’s eyes went wide when she saw my arm and the half-conscious woman in my grip.

  “You got hurt!”

  “Yes,” I said, breath tight. “But she’s worse. Help her first.”

  Illara knelt, shock stiffening her shoulders. The horror of the cave hadn’t made her sick, but it had hollowed her out—like something sacred in her had cracked and she didn’t yet know what shape it would take.

  “I can heal her,” she said quietly. “But I can’t… I don’t think I can return what she’s lost.”

  “That’s all anyone could do.”

  Illara laid her hands on the woman and murmured a prayer. Warmth spread visibly through torn flesh. The woman’s breathing steadied. Colour returned faintly to her lips.

  I pulled off my cloak and draped it over her.

  Illara’s gaze flicked back to my arm. “Barbed?”

  I remembered the archer’s crude weaponry. “No. Just sharpened wood.”

  She nodded and pulled the arrow free in one swift motion. I hissed. Her hands followed immediately, soft light blooming under her palms. The pain ebbed, then vanished. When she finished, my skin was whole again.

  “I think that’ll do it,” she said, relief loosening her voice.

  “Thank you, Illara.”

  “We should wait here,” she whispered. “If hunters come back…”

  We hid the bodies and waited until nightfall. No more goblins returned. Either none were left, or the survivors were smart enough to abandon the place.

  We had our quota.

  And that was what mattered.