Chapter 8. The Grey Griffin

The Grey Griffin was a long, low building near the center of town. Inside, I found something I had not known for several days.

Warmth.

A fire burned in the hearth against the far wall. The air smelled of smoke, baking bread, and meat simmering in a pot, making my stomach tighten again. A dozen rough tables stood among benches on a hard-packed earthen floor. The place was not crowded: several men sat over their mugs, along with two Seekers wearing the same copper badges I had seen outside. Every head rose when Hald brought me through the door, and every gaze followed us.

As it had at the gate, the warmth struck me somewhere I had not expected. The fire, the smell of bread, the low murmur of conversation, the cups on the tables—everything was so familiar, so human, that my throat closed for a moment. The last time I had been warm among other people was that morning in my kitchen, sharing a single cup with Mira.

I swallowed and pulled myself together. I could not afford to unravel here. I would save that for later, if there was a later.

A woman stood behind the counter.

She was past fifty, broad-shouldered, with gray threaded through the hair pulled back from her face. It was a face that had long ago stopped wasting smiles. Her sleeves were rolled up, revealing a long, pale scar along her left forearm—not the uneven mark of a knife in a tavern fight, but the kind left by claws.

She looked me over from boots to face in one quick, expressionless motion, as though counting the coins in someone else's purse.

“Hald,” she said, addressing him rather than me. “What have you dragged in?”

“Couldn't tell you, Brenna.” The guard shifted his weight, and I noticed again how his voice changed. At the gate he had growled; here he sounded almost apologetic. “Walked out of the Verge alone. No weapon, no pack. Says he woke in the forest several days ago and doesn't remember how he got there. I thought you should have a look at him.”

“Good thinking.” She nodded toward a stool beside the table nearest the counter. “Sit. Hald, get back to the gate. If he attacks me, I'll be sure to shout.”

Hald grunted and gave me one last look. There was no warmth in it, but the spear had left his voice. Then he went outside.

I recorded the exchange as I had begun to record everything. A guard with his own strength and level had left at a single word from this woman, without argument.

Brenna truly did carry weight in Greyfall.

I sat.

She did not hurry to begin the interrogation. She disappeared behind the counter, rattled something around, and returned with a wooden bowl of stewed meat and root vegetables, a piece of dark bread, and a mug. She set them before me and walked away as though the matter required no explanation.

“I can't pay,” I said.

“I know. It shows.” She leaned against the counter. “Eat.”

So I ate.

I tried to control myself, to eat slowly and like a civilized person, the way I had eaten all my life. I failed. Several days in the forest had taken their due. I came back to myself only when the bowl was empty and I was chasing the last traces with my spoon.

I raised my head and met her gaze. She stood behind the counter with her arms crossed. There was no pity in her expression and no disgust, only calm, sober attention.

“Thank you,” I said, hearing the roughness in my own voice.

It was the first meal anyone had given me here. The first thing anyone in this world had done for me without asking for anything in return. After the forest, the scavenger, the cold night beneath two moons, and the unseen accounting of every creature I defeated, a simple bowl of stew from a hard-faced stranger almost undid me more thoroughly than any of it.

I lowered my eyes to the empty bowl and spent several seconds simply breathing.

“Sit straight and listen,” Brenna said, coming over and lowering herself onto the bench opposite me. “I'll ask questions. You'll answer as well as you can. But remember one thing: nearly everyone on the frontier has something behind them they won't talk about. I don't care who you were. I care who you're going to be in my town. If you're bringing trouble, finish your meal and leave now while your stomach is full. Understand?”

“I understand.”

“First question. You told Hald you don't remember how you reached the forest. Is that true?”

I considered the answer for a moment. Lying to her would be a mistake. I could already see that.

“It's true,” I said. “I remember my former life. I remember how it ended. Then there's nothing, and I woke in the forest. I don't know what happened between one and the other.”

Her eyes narrowed. She had found no lie because there was none, but that did not reassure her.

“How it ended,” she repeated quietly. “A strange way to speak about your own life, as though you were watching it from outside.” She did not pull on that thread. She set it aside, the way I would have done. “All right. Second question. You came out of the Verge whole. Only Seekers know how to travel there, and not all of them return. You aren't a Seeker. You have no badge, and you carry yourself differently. So what are you?”

This was where the difficult part began.

“I'm trying to understand that myself,” I said.

Again, it was the truth. Perhaps the most honest answer I had given throughout the entire conversation.

Brenna watched me for a long time. Then she leaned back, and for the first time something shifted in her face—not softening, exactly, but growing tired.

“You know, I spent twenty years walking into the Verge on my own two feet. This scar came from there.” She moved her left arm. “I've seen things no sensible person should have to see. People come out of the Verge in different states. Sometimes they aren't the same people who went in. Sometimes they don't remember who went in at all. So perhaps you aren't lying.” She paused. “Or perhaps you're something worse. Time will tell.”

I said nothing. There was nothing to argue with, and defending myself would have been foolish.

“Where am I?” I asked instead. “At least tell me that. What is the land beneath my feet called?”

She gave a short, humorless laugh.

“Land is land. This is Greyfall, the last town before the Wild Verge. Beyond the palisade there is nothing but forest, beasts, and death. May the gods give you enough sense not to go back.” She nodded vaguely toward the wall. “If you mean the wider world, the nearest true city is three weeks from here. Korvengard. That's where the people cleverer than me sit with their records, laws, and learned societies. If you have questions a frontier innkeeper can't answer, go there—provided you live long enough.”

Korvengard.

I placed the word beside the others in my imaginary table, alongside Analysis, my three rules, and the System's judgment of Anomaly. Somewhere three weeks away, real answers began.

Which meant the road began there too.

“Suppose I want to stay,” I said. “Not forever. Long enough to find my footing. I have no name that means anything here, no coin, no trade. What does someone like me do in Greyfall?”

“Someone like you?” Brenna studied me again, differently this time, weighing and measuring. “No family, no money, but he walks out of the Verge alive and doesn't shake.” She tipped her head toward the two people wearing badges in the corner. “He goes to them. The Seekers' Guild. They don't care who you were or where you came from. They care about one thing: can you enter a hole full of beasts, do what needs doing, and return? If you can, you'll have coin, a roof, and a place among people. If you can't, the Verge will keep you, and no one will even ask your name.”

Enter a hole full of beasts. Fight. Return. Grow a little stronger every time. I already knew how that worked. I had felt it above the first creature I defeated.

It was exactly what I needed.

The road to strength—the strength with which I would one day break through the wall between me and home—began two steps away, with the people wearing copper badges.

“Where do I find them?” I asked.

Brenna looked at me as though I had confirmed some grim suspicion of hers.

“The guildhall is across the square. It opens in the morning.” She rose and took the empty bowl. “Tonight, you can sleep on the hay in the shed behind the inn. You'll earn it tomorrow by splitting firewood. One more thing, stranger.” She stopped and looked down at me. “Do you have a name?”

“Adam,” I said.

My name. My true name from home. The only thing besides the ring that had arrived here whole.

“Adam,” she repeated, testing the weight of the word. “Sleep, then, Adam. Tomorrow we'll see who you choose to become.”