They’d been angling gradually downhill all morning, trees thinning, the air turning heavier and more humid. The steady sound of water had shifted from distant murmur to companionable rush, until finally the forest opened and the river lay beside them in full view.

  Wide. Clear. Sunlight catching on the surface in broken silver shards.

  Tony immediately veered toward it.

  “Wait,” Tamsin said automatically.

  “For what?” Miri countered.

  Tony didn’t wait for either of them. He bounded down the bank in three massive strides and skidded the last few feet, sending pebbles rattling into the shallows.

  The water here widened into a natural bend, slower and deeper, bordered by smooth stone worn flat by time. A fallen tree stretched half across one edge, its trunk bleached pale and warm in the sun.

  Miri stopped at the top of the bank and stared.

  A wide, clear swimming hole carved by the river’s curve. No visible current in the center. Shallow shelves near the edge. Dragonflies skimming the surface in lazy arcs. The opposite bank dipped into reeds and wildflowers. The whole scene looked like it was pulled out of a storybook.

  It was perfect.

  “Tam,” Miri breathed reverently, “tell me we’re stopping.”

  Tamsin scanned automatically. Upstream. Downstream. Tree line. No obvious tracks. No broken brush. No shimmer of hostile mana.

  “It is defensible,” she admitted.

  Tony was already ankle-deep and drinking noisily. Miri dropped her pack with a thud. “I call first float.”

  “You have been walking for four hours,” Tamsin said.

  “Exactly.”

  After two weeks on the road — after mud and mosquitoes and the memory of a blade descending toward her throat — Miri would have traded half her inventory for a hot shower and a towel that didn’t smell like smoke. A river would do.

  She toed off her boots and flexed her sore feet against the warm stone. The relief was immediate and almost sinful. Her ribs still ached faintly when she twisted — a reminder of her hubris days earlier — but the worst of it had faded to stiffness. She crouched at the edge and splashed water over her face. Cold and clean.

  Tony waded deeper, chest submerged now, tail cutting lazy arcs behind him. He lowered himself further until only his head and shoulders remained above the surface, looking deeply pleased with his life choices.

  Miri blinked at him. “Are you… floating?”

  Tony blinked back.

  “Of course he’s floating,” Tamsin said dryly, already unstrapping her bracers. “He weighs as much as a small cart.”

  Miri looked at the tiger, “I think she just called you a big ol’ chonker.”

  Tony flicked water at her with his paw. She shrieked as the splash soaked her shirt. “You absolute—”

  She lunged into the river fully clothed. The shock of cold hit her like a slap and then dissolved into bliss. She pushed off from the bottom and let herself drift on her back, ears underwater, sky bright and endless above her.

  For a moment, there was no road.

  No warder.

  No bandits.

  No future fight waiting somewhere ahead.

  Just sunlight and water and the soft rushing sound of her own breathing, the world around her wrapped in thick velvet. She could almost pretend she’d chosen this life deliberately. Almost pretend she wasn’t still figuring out who she was becoming inside it. She rolled upright and wiped her face.

  “Tamsin,” she called.

  “Yes.”

  “Can I call you Tammy?”

  There was a long pause.

  “Absolutely not.”

  Miri grinned. “You don’t strike me as a Tammy.”

  “Good.”

  Tony paddled lazily between them, sending small waves toward the bank. He dipped his head fully under the water and came up with something wriggling.

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  Miri froze. “Is that—”

  Tony jerked his head sharply. A thick river snake whipped through the air and smacked against a rock with a wet crack before dropping limp into the shallows. Tamsin blinked once. Tony looked extremely satisfied.

  “Who’s a good boy?” Miri gushed, because it was easier than retroactively freaking out.

  Tony dropped the snake at the water’s edge and resumed floating like a creature entirely unbothered by mortal threats. Tamsin nudged the deflated and bloody snake with her boot.

  “He is a good boy,” she admitted.

  They stayed longer than they meant to. Long enough for their muscles to loosen. Long enough for the sun to climb higher and dry their clothes in patches. Long enough that the road didn’t feel quite so urgent. Eventually Tamsin stood and reached for her gear.

  “We should move,” she said.

  Miri groaned but hauled herself out of the water. She wrung out her sleeves and glanced once more at the river bending away into the distance. Part of her wanted to stay. To anchor herself to something harmless and bright. But the road didn’t stop because she wanted it to.

  “Fine,” she said. “But if we find another one, I’m naming it Tammy’s Pool.”

  Tamsin didn’t dignify that with a response. Tony shook himself violently as they gathered their packs, spraying both of them with river water. Miri sputtered and cast Cleanse again.

  “Worth it,” she muttered.

  By midafternoon the current had widened and slowed, the banks sloping into low grass and scattered willow trees that trailed their fingers in the water. The road curved upward along a rise of stone, and ahead of them the river narrowed again where an old bridge arched from bank to bank.

  It wasn’t grand. Made of stone blocks fitted so tightly they looked grown instead of built. Moss clung to the lower edges. Ivy crept along the sides. The parapets were carved with shallow grooves that spiraled into one another like overlapping rings.

  Miri squinted at them. “Are those—”

  The grooves flared. A cool blue-white glow traced the carved lines from one end of the bridge to the other. The trio stopped to watch. The glow deepened, threads of light chasing one another through the etchings. The air above the river shimmered faintly, like heat rising off pavement. Miri stepped closer to the edge of the road.

  “Tam.”

  “I see it.”

  The shimmer grew stronger and the river itself changed. The water beneath the bridge flattened unnaturally, smoothing like glass. The current slowed further, as if held in careful hands. Something moved beneath the surface. At first it looked like a shadow. Then the shadow broke the water surface. A hull rose silently from the river — long and narrow, carved from dark wood veined with faintly glowing lines that matched the runes on the bridge. The vessel didn’t displace water the way it should have. It seemed to slide through it, the surface parting cleanly around its shape.

  No oars.

  No sails.

  Along its sides, small crystals pulsed in time with the runes overhead.

  The bridge brightened as the vessel passed beneath it.

  Miri stared, mouth slightly open.

  A deck came into view. Stacked crates. Sealed barrels. Two figures in travel leathers standing near the bow. The entire boat was suspended in a sheath of structured mana — subtle but unmistakable if you were looking for it.

  Miri was looking for it. Her Mana Sense tingled like static behind her eyes. “It’s riding the flow,” she whispered.

  Tamsin nodded faintly. “Trade craft. Rune-guided current. Stabilized channel. Safer than road caravans this far south.”

  Miri barely heard her.

  In her world, ships needed engines. Fuel. Sails, at the least. This one rose out a river because someone had carved the right shapes into stone. They had solved physics with patience and magic. The vessel cleared the bridge and the runes dimmed. The river resumed its natural motion as if nothing had interrupted it. The boat glided onward, slicing down the center of the channel, silent except for a faint crystalline hum.

  Miri let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

  “That,” she said reverently, “is the coolest fucking thing I have ever seen.”

  Tony’s ears flicked forward, tracking the vessel as it passed. He made a low, curious sound but didn’t seem threatened by it.

  “They’ll make three stops before dusk,” Tamsin said. “Quartz shipments. Alchemical reagents. Probably silk coming upriver.”

  Miri dragged her gaze away long enough to look at her. “You’re just… normal about this?”

  “Yes.”

  “That boat just rose out of the river.”

  “Yes.”

  Miri looked back at it again, watching the way sunlight caught on the faintly glowing lines in the hull.

  For days she had been thinking about killing. About shields breaking and blades descending and the exact weight of a human body collapsing. This—

  She smiled slowly. “This place is insane,” she murmured. Tony bumped his shoulder lightly against her hip, as if in agreement.

  The vessel curved with the bend in the river and disappeared behind reeds and trees. The bridge dimmed fully and the road stretched on ahead of them.

  Miri adjusted her pack. “Okay,” she said, still grinning. “Now I want one.”

  They continued south, the air growing thicker, the earth softer underfoot, the forest shifting gradually into something wetter and greener. But for the rest of the afternoon, Miri kept glancing at the river. Not because she expected danger.

  Because she half-expected wonder.