The last chord of the evening prayer echoed through the stone courtyard, long and hollow, before fading into the quiet streets of Arnathe. The Temple of the Sun Creator stood still beneath the dim blue light of dusk, its towers shadowed, its windows glowing faintly with the flicker of dying candles.

  Winnum sat on the steps outside the temple, hunched forward, elbows on his knees. His robe, once a clean grey of the Sojourning Servants, was wrinkled and dusted with the grit of travel and long neglect. His boots were scuffed, his hair unkempt. The marks on his hands told more than his face ever did: rough skin, burn scars, and a few faint lines from broken glass or blade edges.

  He had been there for hours.

  He wasn’t praying. He wasn’t even thinking clearly anymore. Just sitting, watching the temple’s tall doors open and close as the last worshippers left.

  The air smelled faintly of incense, lavender, sage, and something sweet that reminded him of home. He tried not to breathe it in too deeply.

  “Figured I’d find you here.”

  Xonya’s voice came from behind him, calm and steady, the kind of voice that never seemed to carry judgment even when it should.

  She stepped into the courtyard, her long black hair tied back and a thin layer of dust clinging to her travel cloak. Her armor, the dark red leather Maruzan had made from basilisk hide, caught the torchlight like the surface of a dying ember. She looked tired, but strong. Always strong.

  Winnum didn’t look up.

  Xonya crossed the courtyard with quiet steps and sat down beside him, her elbows resting on her knees. She set her pack down with a soft thud and stared out at the darkening city.

  “I brought a beer,” she said after a moment. “It’s at the leather shop. Chilled it in the well bucket for half the day.”

  No answer.

  She sighed and nudged his shoulder. “You want it, you’re going to have to move your legs and actually walk there.”

  A corner of his mouth twitched, but he didn’t speak.

  “You don’t talk much anymore,” she said.

  He shrugged, voice rough when it finally came. “Not much worth saying.”

  Xonya leaned back on her hands. “You sound like every other broken man I’ve met at a tavern. That’s not a compliment.”

  He gave her a sidelong glance, the faintest bit of annoyance crossing his face. “You have a way of comforting people that’s… unique.”

  “I’m not trying to comfort you,” she said, meeting his gaze. “I’m trying to remind you that you’re still here.”

  For a while, neither spoke. The sound of footsteps and quiet conversation from the temple faded away. The last few priests extinguished the candles inside, and the golden light behind the stained glass began to die out, one window at a time.

  Xonya picked at a loose thread on her glove. “You’ve been coming here every night for weeks, haven’t you?”

  Winnum nodded once.

  “Praying?”

  “No.”

  “What then?”

  He hesitated. “Trying to remember why I believed in any of it.”

  She looked down at her boots. “You don’t have to go to a temple to do that.”

  He didn’t answer.

  The silence that followed wasn’t comfortable, but it wasn’t angry either. It was the kind of silence that lived between two people who had seen the same kind of pain, just from different sides of the same wound.

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  After a while, Xonya spoke again, quieter this time. “There’s work coming.”

  He didn’t react.

  “Maruzan got the King’s favor,” she continued. “The warband’s official now. First job came in this week, royal request. Something serious. I told him I’d find you.”

  Still nothing.

  She sighed and turned toward him, her tone firm but not unkind. “Winnum, I know it still haunts you. But you can’t keep rotting on these steps.”

  His jaw tightened.

  She kept going, even when he didn’t look at her. “You think you failed. That’s all I ever see when I look at you now. But his dying, that wasn’t your fault.”

  His head turned sharply toward her. His eyes, once a calm grey, were shadowed now, full of something hard and painful. “You weren’t there.”

  “No,” she said, holding his stare. “But I’ve buried people too. I know what it looks like when someone blames themselves for things they couldn’t control.”

  He exhaled slowly, looking away again. “He was a child, my little brother. I prayed until I couldn’t speak. And still nothing. What kind of healer am I if I can’t heal when it matters most?”

  “A human one,” she said quietly.

  The words landed between them like a small weight.

  Winnum leaned forward, elbows on his knees, his voice lower now. “Yohanan used to follow me around the monastery garden. Said he wanted to be a monk one day. He got sick, fever that came quick and cruel. The elders said it was divine testing. I said it was punishment.”

  Xonya’s brow furrowed. “Punishment for what?”

  He gave a humorless laugh. “I don’t know. Maybe for thinking I could save everyone. Maybe for believing I had a different fate than the rest of the world.”

  He rubbed a hand over his face, the calloused fingers trembling slightly. “I’ve tried praying since. Nothing. No warmth, no voice, no peace. Just silence.”

  The sound of the wind filled the space between them.

  Xonya reached out and, without warning, placed a hand on the side of his face, turning it toward her. Her hands were rough from years of drawing bowstrings and skinning beasts, but her touch was careful.

  “You can still heal,” she said, her voice firm but gentle. “You think it’s about miracles and light and holy words. But I’ve seen you. You’ve saved people in ways no god ever did. You just don’t see it.”

  He closed his eyes. “Not when it mattered.”

  Her hand fell away.

  Neither spoke for a long time. The last few clerics descended the steps, their linen robes whispering against the stone as they passed. Their chanting, the slow, melodic hum of the Sojourning Servants, trailed behind them until the sound faded into the night.

  Winnum stared after them. “They still have their faith,” he murmured. “They keep singing like they’ve already made peace with everything the world gives, and takes.”

  “Maybe they have,” Xonya said. “Or maybe they’re just better at hiding doubt than you are.”

  He gave a small, tired laugh. “Maybe.”

  She leaned forward, resting her arms on her knees. “Look, Maruzan’s putting the band together again. Farrin, Bram, Ennett, me, everyone’s coming. It’s official now, under the king’s seal. We’re heading south in a few days. You should come.”

  Winnum shook his head slowly. “What would you need me for? A broken monk who can’t hear the divine?”

  “You’re more than that,” she said flatly.

  He started to speak, but she cut him off. “You’re still the one who pulled three men out of the fire at Harbinth when everyone else froze. You’re still the one who stitched half the city’s wounded until your hands bled. You think I forgot that?”

  He looked at her, and for the first time that night, his eyes softened.

  Xonya stood and brushed off her knees. “There’s beer waiting, and bread. You can sit here and keep arguing with your past, or you can come share it with someone who’s here to find your future.”

  He didn’t move.

  She gave him a half-smile, not the playful one she usually wore, but something gentler. “You know what I think? You’re not afraid of dying. You’re afraid of being needed again.”

  That made him flinch. She wasn’t wrong.

  She turned and started down the steps, her boots tapping softly against the stone. “If you don’t follow me in ten minutes, I’ll drink your half too.”

  He sat there for a long while after she left. Watching the last candle go out behind the stained glass. Listening to the faint rustle of the trees and the echo of the monks’ chant fading down the hill.

  He thought about Yohanan. About the fever. About the silence that came afterward, the kind of silence that wasn’t peaceful but heavy, like water pressing on your chest.

  He thought about what Xonya said. About being needed again.

  Maybe she was right. Maybe he had been hiding behind his grief because it was easier than forgiving himself.

  Winnum rose slowly to his feet. His knees cracked. His legs felt stiff from sitting too long. He brushed off his robe and started down the steps.

  By the time he reached the bottom, the night was fully set, and Xonya was waiting by the corner of the courtyard, leaning against a pillar. She didn’t say a word, just gave him a small, satisfied nod before turning toward the street.

  He followed.

  For the first time in months, the weight on his shoulders didn’t feel quite as crushing.

  It wasn’t gone. But it was lighter.

  And as the two of them disappeared down the quiet avenue toward the lamplit workshop, Winnum realized that maybe healing didn’t always start with prayer.

  Sometimes, it started with someone refusing to leave you behind.