Maruzan moved through the crowd like a man moving without full sight. He carried a crate too heavy for the number of coins it might be worth. His hands had the steady habit of years of work, but his mind kept slipping away from the task. Around him, the quay was a sea of motion. Ropes were thrown, sails pulled, carts overturned. People shouted. Children cried. Watchmen pushed through the throng, barking orders like dogs that had been trained to cut the panic into pieces.

  Every noise felt like a hammer hitting a bell. Someone had decided the city must move now, and everything else would have to follow.

  He had nearly reached the outer edge of the quay when the thought hit him so sharply he had to set the crate down and press his hand to his mouth.

  Velthur. The name was a small thing in his head, but it widened like a wound. His chest tightened. He turned around to see the boy following behind him several paces, something he had taken for granted but was just now realizing the biggest concern he had: where would Velthur go and be safe? If they were separated, what would happen to him? Who would teach the boy how to read a face that lies? Who would pull him from danger when danger came from the side the boy could not see?

  For a moment, he stood still, looking out over the water and the line of ships, watching the backs of women and children climb gangplanks. The priests at the dock muttered quick blessings. A few of them cried. A woman folded her boy into her arms and covered his face with her scarf. A man with hands stained by work kissed the leather of his wife’s palm and then helped her up the plank.

  They could go. They could climb on a ship and leave. They could get out of the city and find somewhere to hide until the world calmed enough to be a place where people did not have to sleep with one eye open.

  He thought of the road north. He thought of the small town where his mother might be staying. He thought of how she had always taken him in when trouble came.

  Maruzan pressed both hands to his forehead until the skin hurt. He tried to count breaths. In, out, ten times. The racket of the quay rolled on around him. His breath came back in ragged pieces.

  He knew the reasons he could not just hand the boy off to someone and vanish. Guilt lived in him like a stone. Velthur was just a boy. A child who trusted him because he was family. A child who would be lost in a world of strangers.

  A voice came from his left. A watchman in a red sash stepped close and tapped his shoulder. “You there. You can help with loading that crate. We need men who work steady. You look like a steady man.”

  Maruzan forced a smile and picked up the crate again. He let the simple motion steady him for a second. “Where am I supposed to put it?” he asked.

  “Near the supplies in front of the docks. The captain will take it. They are taking food and blankets north. Move quickly.”

  He set the crate down where the watchman pointed and kept thinking. He watched Velthur’s small frame in his head. He tried to picture the boy sitting by the hearth at home, fingers playing at the hem of a shirt. The image made his throat tighten.

  He thought of the stories he had been told as a child about men who ran. Men who fled when trouble came and never looked back. The stories were not flattering. They made the runner a small man with eyes that trembled at night. He wanted to be larger than that memory. He wanted to be someone who stood where people needed him, even if he could have chosen otherwise.

  He started walking the quay, looking for a priest or a watchman who might take a child for a few days. He passed a priest who tied a small pendant into a girl’s hair. He passed a woman with hands like the sea, packing a bag with salted fish and bread. He passed a line of carts where men stacked crates in silence. Everyone was doing their piece, and in that silence, Maruzan’s worry grew louder.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  “Excuse me,” he said to a priest who was closing a trunk of holy books. “Do you have room? I have a son. I need someone to look after him.”

  The priest looked up, his eyes tired and kind. He wiped his hands on his robe as if to dust the work away. “We have room on the boats for the women and children,” he said. “We bless them and send them north.”

  “Take him,” Maruzan said. The words came out sharper than he planned. “Take him, just for a while. He is small. He needs someone.”

  The priest’s hands paused. He looked at Maruzan as though he had not yet seen the man properly. “Who will watch him if you go?”

  “Who will watch him if I do not?” Maruzan asked, voice low. “He is my kin. I cannot ship him off like a bundle. We will find a way. But he needs someone now.”

  The priest had a slow way of measuring time with his eyes. He had faced grief before. He had seen men hand over their children and not return. He shaded his face with a palm and looked at the crowd. “You could leave him with the sisters on the second boat,” he said finally. “They take children. Sister Lyzelle has a steady hand.”

  He turned and moved away, but not before adding, “Hurry. The line for the boats will not wait.”

  Maruzan pushed through the press of bodies, keeping his head down and his hands wrapped around the rope of his will. He scanned faces. Priests, captains, sailors. He was looking for one specific shape among them now.

  He found the boat with the sister’s mark on the prow, a simple symbol painted in white. Sister Lyzelle stood on the deck, tying a bundle that looked far too small to hold a child’s life. She was a woman with steel behind her eyes and a voice that could hush a crowd with a single word.

  “Sister Lyzelle?” Maruzan asked, and the word felt awkward in his mouth.

  Lyzelle looked up and stepped forward. Her gaze took him in without shock. “I am she,” she said.

  “This is Velthur,” Maruzan said. Saying the name made the fear real and smaller at the same time. “He is my son. He is small. I have work to be done to prepare. I need someone who will keep him until I can. Sometime this evening, perhaps only an hour. I will come back.”

  Sister Lyzelle did not smile. “I understand. I have work he can help with around the dock. See to it you are back by the evening, or this child will be on the next boat out…where he should be anyway. What keeps you here? I can tell this is not your home.”

  The question cut to the center of him. He had made the choice in the space between breaths, but now, when he had to tell it aloud, it felt larger. Did he stay because of duty? Because of guilt? Because he wanted to stand and watch those who had caused the fires pay in some small way?

  “For Elzibar,” he said finally. The name came out like a stone dropped into water. “Because I buried people in my mind, and I cannot leave while the world that burned still stands. Because I owe those dead something I cannot pay by leaving behind my son.”

  Sister Lyzelle held his gaze with a calm that felt like armor. “That is a good reason,” she said quietly. “We will keep him, but I urge you to consider letting him go on the next boat. His fate is tied to your decision.”

  Doubt moved through him. He wanted to collapse into it and sleep, to let the sisters take Velthur and stop thinking. But there was work to do and a limit he had set himself. He had given himself one hour. One hour to work, and think, as this was no place for a boy. He was sinking in the thought that, should he have no better ideas, he would have to see Velthur off on the ship, not knowing whether he would see him again.

  “Thank you,” he said. It felt small.

  Sister Lyzelle nodded. “Now go,” she said. “Do not let the hour pass you by.”

  Velthur looked up at him, eyes wide, then turned and let himself be guided by the sister. He did not cry. He only stared, like a small animal held close to a warmth that would not let it go.

  Maruzan swallowed hard. He felt a foolish urge to wrap his arms around the boy one last time. He did not. He had made his choice. He had one hour.

  He picked up another crate and moved back into the crowd. The quay was a river of people and motion. He found a watchman and volunteered himself for whatever work needed doing. He took orders and did them like a man trying to earn time. He carried bundles, he tied ropes, he lifted sacks. Each motion was a little prayer. Each order he obeyed bought him minutes that he could spend planning, that he could spend thinking of what would be the first thing to do when the fight started.

  There was no comfort left in the dockside. There was only the work and the counting of the clock in his head. He would honor that hour, no matter what came next. The city hummed behind him.