Maruzan’s arms burned as he dragged the barrel of salted fish up the slope that wound past the market quarter. The weight bit through his gloves, the leather stretched thin and cracked from days of use. Sweat gathered at his temples and rolled down his cheeks in narrow lines. His back ached, but he kept moving, shoulders hunched, steps uneven.

  The city around him pulsed with a rhythm that had nothing to do with trade or laughter anymore. Harbinth had changed. It no longer felt like a port where merchants sang out prices or sailors staggered home from taverns. It had become something harder. Sharper.

  Everywhere he looked, people moved with purpose. Sailors tore planks from broken crates and nailed them into barricades across alleys. Smiths hammered at anvils, sparks bursting in every direction as they reshaped anything that could be called metal into rough blades or spearheads. Children who hadn’t yet been sent to the boats darted between the crowd, clutching bandages, water, or messages too important to leave to chance. Horses clattered down narrow lanes, their riders shouting orders no one had time to question.

  Maruzan set his jaw. No one rested.

  He thought of the cave.

  A day earlier, he had overheard two sailors muttering to each other in a corner tavern. They spoke over half-empty mugs of ale, their voices low, though not low enough. They hadn’t noticed the quiet man at the table nearby, the one with the calloused hands and eyes that looked past them as if he wasn’t listening at all.

  “A cove a quarter mile south,” one sailor had said. “Smugglers used it, back before the watch cracked down. Nobody goes there now. Not unless you’re mad or desperate.”

  The other sailor had snorted into his drink. “Or both.”

  The words had stuck to Maruzan’s ribs like burrs. He’d rolled them around in his head last night, considering.

  The kobolds didn’t like water. That much he knew. They feared it, or avoided it, though whether it was instinct or memory, he wasn’t sure. Old stories whispered of their kind drowning during raids, of ships pushing them into the dark waves with burning torches. Whatever the reason, kobolds stayed away from the sea.

  If the cave was real, if it was hidden and dry enough, then maybe it could serve as shelter. A place to keep Velthur safe, at least while the city braced itself.

  He heaved the barrel into a waiting cart. His hands shook when he pulled them away, his fingers raw where the gloves had worn through.

  Two more loads, he told himself. Then he would slip away. Follow the southern bluff, keep low along the rocks until he found the cove. If he looked safe enough, then tonight after Velthur went to sleep, he’d test it, see if it held. If it was safe, he’d stash blankets there, some food, a flintstone. A place ready to hide in, if the worst came.

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  If the city fell, Velthur wouldn’t be trapped inside its walls.

  Maruzan tried to imagine the boy sitting in the dark of the cave, listening to the sea pounding the rocks outside. He pictured the boy’s small hands holding a blanket, his eyes wide, too awake for sleep. The thought twisted his stomach. But the image of Velthur lying dead on Harbinth’s stones was worse.

  He wiped his brow, leaving a streak of grime across his skin.

  Three days. That was the limit he set in his head. Three days in that cave, listening to whether the city survived or not. If the horns still blared in warning but no armies were at the gate after three days, then he’d take Velthur’s hand and leave. They would walk west, slip through the gate if it still stood, and follow the road until they found another town. Another chance.

  A woman hurried past, clutching a baby so tightly against her chest that the child’s cries were muffled against her shoulder. For a moment, her eyes met his. They were wide and empty, searching for something she could not find. He gave her a small nod, trying to say what words couldn’t: You’re not alone.

  She didn’t nod back. Her gaze slid away as if she had already given up on believing anyone could help her. She vanished into the crowd.

  The air smelled thick with smoke from smithies, salt blown from the sea, and the sour sting of sweat.

  Maruzan passed by the temple square. A cluster of boys barely older than Velthur stood with worn swords too heavy for their arms. Beside them shuffled men with gray hair and stiff knees. They were recruits now. Fighters, though they looked more like farmers and beggars still. Their hands shook as they tried to copy the drills, but they didn’t drop the blades.

  From the plaza, Commander Ennett’s voice carried. She shouted orders that rang clear and sharp, words cutting through the noise like a blade through cloth.

  Someone else was shouting about provisions, their voice strained with panic. “The grain’s nearly gone! Salted stock won’t last the week!”

  A dog broke free of its owner’s grip and ran wild down the lane, barking at nothing, then bolting toward the sea.

  Maruzan’s throat tightened. Nothing here was safe. Not the walls, not the streets, not the people who filled them.

  But safety was not his plan.

  Survival was.

  And survival, he reminded himself, often belonged not to the strong, but to the ones stubborn enough to prepare for it.

  He clenched his fists, feeling the sting of his raw palms. Three days. That was the measure he had given himself. A thread of time to test his choice.

  He turned back toward the cart, ready to haul another load. His muscles screamed in protest, but he ignored them. His body could break down later. His doubts could wait, too.

  If Velthur was to have even the smallest chance, Maruzan had to move.

  The boy deserved more than being a leaf in the storm. He deserved a shelter, a hand that would not let go, and someone willing to carve hope out of stone if that was all the world left them.

  And Maruzan was willing.

  He set his jaw and reached for the next barrel.