Chương 126: Chapter 125 – Nothing Happened, Twice

The room Sela gave them sat above a cooper's workshop on the quieter side of the compound, one window, one bed, and a second pallet rolled up against the wall that Rebekah claimed before Ant had even finished setting down the one bag they'd been allowed to carry in looking ordinary enough to pass. The whole space smelled faintly of pine shavings and lamp oil, and the floor creaked in exactly one spot by the door, which Rebekah tested twice on principle before declaring it "the alarm system" and leaving it at that.

"Small, but workable," she said, turning in place to take in all of it at once, which didn't take long.

"I've lived in worse for less reason."

"High praise."

"I don't hand it out for free." She dropped onto the pallet and stretched out with the loose satisfaction of someone who hadn't slept properly in two days and had finally run out of reasons not to. Lem curled into the crook of her knees without being asked, and within a minute both of them were asleep. Mahkir found a corner and did the same, tail wrapped tight. Ant caught the faint twitch of an ear every few minutes. Mahkir wasn't actually asleep. He was pretending, ready to stop pretending the instant it mattered.

[Mahkir HP: 80/80.] Back to full, Ant said, quiet, more to himself than anyone listening. Took its time about it. Mahkir didn't open his eyes. Wake me if something worth waking up for happens. Otherwise don't. Ant checked the room properly once the other three had settled, the way he'd have checked any room that mattered. Just the one door they'd come in through, and the single window, which Rebekah had already claimed a view from without seeming to notice she'd done it.

A washstand with a chipped basin, a shelf too high for anything but show, and a floor that held their weight without complaint except for that one loose board by the door, which he tested a third time himself just to be sure Rebekah hadn't been wrong about it. She hadn't. It groaned like an old man sitting down, loud enough to hear from the bed, which made it either the worst-placed board in the building or the best, depending on which side of a night visit a person happened to be standing on.

Either way, it was worth remembering. Nothing worth waking up for happened. Ant sat by the window most of that first night with his back against the wall, watching the compound settle into whatever passed for quiet in a clan this size, lanterns going dark one row at a time, a dog barking twice somewhere and then giving up on it. He didn't sleep much either. Nothing was wrong, exactly. His body just hadn't caught up yet to the idea that lying down inside Marigolds' walls was even allowed.

The duty roster posted outside the mess hall the next morning had his name on it in someone else's handwriting, Ethan, gate patrol, dawn shift, and nothing else to distinguish it from the twenty other names crowded onto the same board. He found himself reading down the rest of the list anyway, out of habit more than purpose, names he didn't recognize attached to shifts he'd never see, the sheer ordinary size of the thing a reminder of how little either of them mattered to it yet.

The patrol met at the east gate before the sun had properly cleared the tree line, four of them total, a woman named Priya who did most of the talking without seeming to notice she was doing it, a quieter man called Marcus who checked his gear twice before they'd even left the wall, and an armored anteater-type Kithren, long-snouted and plated in overlapping bands down its back, that belonged to neither of them and answered to both, trotting ahead like it already knew the route better than the humans did.

"You're new," Priya said, not a question, falling into step beside him easily, like they'd known each other longer than a day.

"Ethan, right? Corlan mentioned you. Said you fight decent for a level six."

"I get that a lot."

"Bet you do." She didn't push further, which he was grateful for, and instead launched into an explanation of the route that he suspected she gave every new recruit word for word, worn smooth from repetition until it barely needed her attention anymore. East along the tree line to the marker stone, north to the ridge trail, back down through the low pasture, home before the mess hall stopped serving breakfast. Four hours if nothing slowed them down. Today was no different.

They walked the tree line and saw two deer and a fox that bolted before anyone got a good look at it. They reached the marker stone, a lump of pale granite with Marigolds' mark carved into one face gone soft with weather, and Marcus touched it the way Ant guessed every patrol touched it, out of habit rather than superstition, before they turned north. The ridge trail gave them a long view of empty grass and further trees and, once, a hawk working a thermal high enough to be barely more than a mark against the sky.

The low pasture held sheep that didn't care about any of them and a farmer who waved without stopping what he was doing. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. The one real interruption came a half hour past the marker stone, when the anteater stopped dead in the middle of the trail, hackles up, snout working at something in the grass off to the left.

Priya went quiet mid-sentence, hand dropping to the short blade at her hip, and Marcus was already moving to flank wide before Ant had fully registered what had changed. Mahkir tensed beside him, low and ready, and for three or four long seconds nobody breathed easy. It was a rabbit warren. The anteater dug half a foot into loose dirt, pulled its snout back out with nothing to show for it, and looked almost offended by the whole business before trotting on ahead like the interruption had never happened.

"Every single time," Priya said, letting her hand fall away from the blade, laughing under her breath at herself.

"Every single time I think this is the day something finally happens, and it's rabbits. Six months of rabbits."

"Better than the alternative," Marcus said, the most words he'd offered all morning, and fell back into his usual quiet. I nearly enjoyed that, Mahkir said, disgust and disappointment fighting for space in the same thought. For three seconds. Then rabbits. Better than the alternative, Ant echoed, and felt the tension bleed back out of his own shoulders slower than he expected it to.

This is worse than the tournament crowd waiting for the ceremony speeches, Mahkir said, an hour later, trailing at Ant's heel with the flattened boredom of a creature that had been promised danger and delivered scenery instead. This is the job. Most days. I was under the impression a patrol like this existed to find something dangerous. Preferably unbonded and preferably soon. Give it time.

They rounded the low pasture and started back with nothing to report and nothing that had come close to needing one, and Priya kept up her running commentary the whole way, weather patterns and which farms paid their grain tithe on time and a long, mostly one-sided theory about why the tree line fox kept coming back to the same stretch even though it never got anything for the trouble.

Marcus said almost nothing the rest of the walk, but he checked his gear at every stop, same ritual each time, buckle and blade and the strap on his Kithren's harness, and Ant found himself doing the same without meaning to, matching the rhythm because matching rhythms was easier than standing out.

By the time they reached the east gate again the sun was well up and Ant's legs ached in the flat, unglamorous way that came from walking a long loop at a patrol's pace rather than a fighter's, nothing dramatic, just distance and boredom stacked on top of each other for four straight hours.

"Same again tomorrow," Priya said, genuinely cheerful about it, not just being polite.

"Most days go like this. You'll get used to how boring it is. Took me about a week."

"I can work with boring."

"Everybody says that the first day." She grinned, easy about it, and peeled off toward the mess hall without waiting to see if he followed. Marcus gave him a short nod, the closest thing to a goodbye he'd offered the entire walk, and went the other direction entirely.

Ant found Rebekah at a long table just inside the mess hall doors, a stack of supply ledgers already in front of her that hadn't been there yesterday, ink on two of her fingers and a look on her face like she'd found the work almost enjoyable despite herself.

"How was patrol?" she asked, not looking up.

"Nothing happened."

"Good, nothing happening is the whole point," she said, turning a page.

"I've spent the morning learning how this clan tracks its grain stores, which is somehow more interesting than it has any right to be, and also learning that whoever built their filing system has never once in his life had to find anything in it quickly."

"Anything useful?"

"Nothing I'd hang a theory on yet." She kept her voice low, pitched for him alone.

"There's a supply code that keeps paying out off the main ledger, no name attached, just a routing mark repeated more than it should be for anything this small. Could be nothing. Could be someone skimming for themselves. Could be worth more than that." She shrugged, like it barely mattered yet, though her eyes said otherwise.

"Give me a week before you ask me again." She glanced up then, quick, studying his face for a moment instead of just asking outright.

"You look tired."

"Four hours of walking and nothing to show for it does that."

"Get used to it," she said, echoing Priya without knowing it, and went back to her ledgers. Ant sat across from her and let his eyes close for a moment, not sleeping, just resting them against the noise of the mess hall filling in around him, plates and low talk and someone's Kithren shaking water off itself near the far door. He hadn't realized how much of the morning he'd spent braced for trouble until the bracing itself finally let go, all at once. The tiredness that followed had nothing to do with the walking.

"You did well out there," Rebekah said, quiet enough that it wouldn't carry to the next table.

"Boring is good. Boring means nobody's paying attention."

"Corlan paid attention yesterday."

"Corlan's paid to notice things. Regular patrol partners aren't, and yours spent the whole morning talking about rabbits and grain tithes instead of wondering why the new recruit walks like he's carrying more weight than he's got on him." She turned another page, not quite looking at him.

"That's the version of this I want more of."

"I'll do my best to stay boring."

"See that you do," she said, a faint, tired smile pulling at her mouth even though her eyes stayed on the ledger.

"One of us should get to enjoy this." Mahkir settled at Ant's feet under the table, already half asleep again, and for the first time since they'd walked through the gate two days ago, Ant let himself believe, just slightly, that this might actually work.

Around them the mess hall kept filling, benches scraping, someone laughing too loud two tables over at a joke Ant couldn't hear the start of, the ordinary noise of a clan that had no idea two of the people eating breakfast in it had walked in wearing borrowed names. [Mahkir: 14, 335/32, 000 to Level 9.] [Ant: 710/15, 800 to Level 13.] Neither number had moved. Neither would, most days, if today was any kind of promise. Nothing happened, Mahkir said, into the quiet, sounding almost personally offended by it.

Twice, if you count last night. I am counting it. I intend to keep counting it, loudly, until something finally does.