"The hidden master makes himself known through a series of carefully weighted gestures designed to produce awe. This works on most people. Most people have not read enough stories."

  · · · ? · · ·

  Sigrid's instructions, issued at the inn door with the tone of a contract being signed: stay within the market district, spend no more than three Copper between them, do not go near the Wyrd-shrine alone, be back before the second bell after midday.

  Then she looked at Eirik specifically — because she trusted him, and because Leif existed.

  "Understood," Eirik said.

  "Same," Leif said, which was doing a lot of work for a single word.

  Rí, who was going to the apothecary with the adults and had been told early enough that she’d burned through her objections and reached acceptance, said nothing. She only gave Eirik a look as she climbed into the wagon that clearly meant:

  Find something worth telling me.

  He intended to.

  · · · ? · · ·

  The market district at mid-morning was the living version of a headache: loud, bright, and full of smells that refused to mind their own business. The front streets were polished — painted signs, neatly stacked goods, vendors performing friendliness like it was a skill they could level.

  Two streets deeper the performance thinned.

  Here the signs were handwritten, the goods were real, and the merchants looked like people who sold things for a living rather than people auditioning for it. This was also where you found the oddities. The things locals bought. The things travelers didn’t notice because they were busy being impressed.

  Leif bought a small carved wooden fish before they'd been in the district ten minutes.

  Eirik stared at it like it might confess.

  "Why," he said.

  "I liked it."

  "You spent a quarter of our money on a fish."

  "It's a nice fish." Leif turned it over proudly. The scales really were well done. "I'll put it somewhere."

  "Where."

  "I don’t know yet." He pocketed it. "That’s part of the appeal."

  Eirik sighed the sigh of someone forced to accept that the world contained people like Leif. "Fine. But if we starve, I'm eating the fish."

  "It's wood."

  "I'll chew it bitterly."

  Leif grinned. "Where are we going?"

  Eirik pointed with his chin. "Back streets. The part that isn’t selling souvenirs to idiots."

  Leif blinked. "How do you know where that is?"

  "Because this is a market," Eirik said. "There's always a shiny side and a real side."

  Two streets later, the real side proved him right.

  And then the smell proved it even harder.

  · · · ? · · ·

  It hit them at twenty feet and got worse with commitment. Not subtle. Not shy. The kind of smell that didn’t ask permission — it announced itself, sat down at your table, and started telling stories about your childhood.

  Leif slowed. "Is something dead?"

  "Something is winning," Eirik said, and kept walking because curiosity was a disease he’d never successfully cured.

  The stall was exactly where the smell was coming from. A wide table. Stacked jars. Hanging fish. Hooks. Smoke-blackened boards. A handwritten sign that looked like it had been written in a hurry and kept that energy forever:

  SKEGGI’S PRESERVED PROVISIONS

  FINEST HERRING IN THREE DISTRICTS

  Behind the counter was an old man in an apron that had seen more brine than soap. Ropey forearms. Grey-white hair pulled back like he couldn’t be bothered to argue with it. Eyes the color of winter water.

  He didn’t look up when they stopped in front of the table.

  Leif, being Leif, immediately asked the worst possible question.

  "What's in the dark jar?"

  "Regret," the man said, still not looking up. "Also fish."

  Leif leaned in. "Can I try it?"

  "You can," the old man said. "And then you'll spend the rest of your short life learning humility from your own stomach."

  Leif reconsidered. "What about the herring?"

  "That you can survive." The old man finally looked up. His gaze moved over them once — quick, practiced. Like a man checking a blade for chips. "You two buying, or are you here to stare and waste my air."

  Leif took that as a challenge. "I'll buy herring."

  "Of course you will," the old man muttered, as though this was what brats always did right before they suffered. He slapped a small wrapped portion onto the board. "One Copper."

  Leif paid, beaming.

  Eirik was still blinking through the smell.

  "You look like you're trying to solve it," the old man said to him.

  "Solve what."

  "The smell." A pause. "Don't. You won't win."

  Eirik decided not to argue with an expert in defeat. He reached instead — lightly — with Appraiser’s Touch, the way he’d learned to do when he wanted a feel for something without getting lost in it.

  The stall lit up in impressions.

  Salt. Smoke. Time. A low, stubborn kind of ?nd that didn’t feel cultivated so much as… seasoned. Like the materials had sat in the same place long enough to pick up the shape of a person’s life.

  Interesting.

  He didn’t say that out loud.

  Unfortunately, his face did.

  The old man’s eyes narrowed a fraction. "You’ve got a reading skill."

  Eirik paused. Honesty was usually safer with adults like this. "Appraiser’s Touch."

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "How old."

  "Seven."

  The old man made a noise that might have been amusement, if amusement had been beaten into a more durable shape. "Seven. And you’re poking my jars with your eyes."

  "It’s not—" Eirik stopped. "Yes. That's accurate."

  Skeggi reached under the counter and set something on the board between them: a short length of bone, smooth and old, pale as driftwood.

  "Tell me what that is," he said.

  Eirik picked it up and ran the Touch again — carefully, keeping it shallow.

  The bone felt like: old. Very old. From something large. And under that, a faint residue like the aftertaste of a strong drink — not active, not dangerous, but there, the lingering memory of something that had been much more than ordinary.

  He swallowed.

  He did not get a helpful label like “Tier 4” or “thirty-four years.” The Touch didn’t work like that. It never had. It gave him shape, weight, direction — not a ledger.

  "It’s beast bone," Eirik said slowly. "Big animal. And… it had cultivation in it. Higher than anything I’ve seen around here."

  Skeggi watched him for three breaths. Then he took the bone back and set it out of sight.

  "Good enough," he said.

  Leif, who had been holding his herring like it was a holy relic, whispered, "Is that important?"

  Skeggi looked at him like he’d just discovered an insect that talked. "Everything is important if you live long enough."

  Then he looked back to Eirik.

  "You’re with the man with the bad shoulder," Skeggi said.

  Eirik went still.

  Skeggi pointed with his chin, casual. "Saw him yesterday. Strong walk trying to pretend it isn’t. People think if they don’t mention a thing, the thing stops being true. That’s adorable."

  Eirik tried for neutral. "You watch a lot of people."

  "I sit in a market." Skeggi spread his hands. "It’s either watch people or talk to the fish, and the fish are terrible conversationalists."

  Leif said, very sincerely, "You could talk to frogs. My friend does."

  Skeggi stared at him. "Your friend is broken."

  Leif accepted this. "Fair."

  Skeggi’s eyes returned to Eirik, sharp as a hook. "Your father told the gate he's a contracted cultivation instructor."

  Eirik said nothing.

  Skeggi snorted. "Sure. And I’m the King of Realm Four."

  Eirik couldn't help it. "He’s not good at lying to people who know what to look for."

  "He’s not lying," Skeggi said. "He’s using the cleanest sentence that doesn’t invite more questions." He leaned forward slightly. "Frontier work. Free huscarl work. Hunting and culling so the border stays quiet. That’s what he is."

  Eirik’s throat tightened — not fear, exactly. More like: someone said the quiet thing out loud.

  Skeggi watched him clock it, then looked away first, as if that was the polite move.

  "Eat," he told Leif, as if issuing an order to a dog.

  Leif took a bite of herring. Chewed. Paused.

  His eyes widened.

  "This is—" he said, and had to swallow. "This is actually really good."

  Skeggi looked smug in the way only someone smug about fish could look smug. "Obviously."

  Eirik took his own bite, because he wasn’t going to let Leif be the only brave idiot.

  It was good. Very salty. Very sharp. The kind of food that made you understand why people invented beer.

  He nodded once despite himself.

  Skeggi saw it and pretended he didn’t.

  · · · ? · · ·

  Customers came and went while Skeggi did that old-man thing where he continued working so he could pretend he wasn’t thinking, even though he very clearly was. He sold smoked eel. He argued with a woman about brine strength like it was a moral issue. He rearranged his jars twice for no reason other than to reassert dominance over his own stall.

  Leif stood there politely, which meant something had truly rattled him.

  Eirik waited, because waiting was sometimes the only correct move around people like this.

  Eventually, Skeggi spoke without looking up.

  "Your feet are ahead of your hands."

  Eirik blinked. "What."

  "You move like someone taught you to stand correctly before you ever held steel. That’s rare." He finally glanced up. "Your hands are still learning how to belong to a weapon. Your feet already do."

  Eirik wanted to deny it. Mostly because it was true.

  Skeggi nodded once, like he’d just confirmed a private theory. "And you’re watching everything at once."

  Eirik tried for casual and failed. "Is that bad."

  "It keeps you alive." Skeggi’s mouth twitched. "It also keeps you from being fully in anything. You’re always half a step back, checking exits."

  Leif muttered, "He does that."

  Eirik shot him a look.

  Leif shrugged. "You do."

  Skeggi slapped the counter once, sharp. Both boys jumped.

  "Good," Skeggi said. "You can still jump. Means you’re not dead inside yet."

  Eirik stared. "Was that… training?"

  "That was me getting annoyed," Skeggi said. "Training is more expensive."

  Leif immediately asked, "How expensive?"

  Skeggi looked him over. "You’ve got good hands. Bow hands."

  Leif brightened. "I do!"

  Skeggi’s eyes narrowed. "Don’t get proud. Pride makes people miss."

  Leif deflated a notch. "Okay."

  Skeggi turned back to Eirik. "You want to fix something, brat?"

  Eirik hesitated. He should say no. He should leave. He should go do safe market things.

  Instead he heard himself say, "My father’s shoulder."

  Skeggi didn’t react like someone hearing a child talk about injuries. He reacted like someone hearing a problem he understood.

  "Apothecary can help," he said.

  "My mother’s handling that," Eirik said, then stopped because he’d said too much.

  Skeggi snorted. "Your mother’s the real danger in that family. I can smell it on you."

  Leif leaned in, whispering loudly because Leif was incapable of whispering correctly. "He means that as a compliment."

  "I know," Eirik whispered back. "I think."

  Skeggi watched them both with the expression of a man deciding whether he was annoyed or entertained.

  Then he waved a hand like shooing flies. "Tomorrow. Dawn. Bring your father. Bring the bow, too."

  Eirik blinked. "Why would he come to a fish stall."

  Skeggi’s eyes went flat. "Because I told you to bring him."

  "That’s not—" Eirik started, then stopped, because it was absolutely the kind of logic a tropey grumpy old master used and pretending otherwise was pointless. He tried a different approach. "He’s not going to like being tested."

  Skeggi bared his teeth in something that might have been a smile if it hadn’t looked like a threat. "Good. Neither am I."

  Leif hugged his carved wooden fish against his chest like it might protect him. "Should I bring this too?"

  Skeggi looked at it. "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "Because I want to see if you wasted your money properly."

  Leif nodded, solemn. "Understood."

  Skeggi flicked his gaze back to Eirik. "Now go. Before your mother decides to invent consequences."

  That got them moving.

  · · · ? · · ·

  They walked back toward the inn at a pace that suggested they had simply been browsing, and not accidentally stepped into the gravitational field of a man who smelled like brine and trouble.

  Leif broke first. "That man is—"

  "Yes."

  "Very famous."

  "Probably."

  "The Thornwall Campaign—"

  "Leif."

  "What? He is."

  Eirik kept his face neutral and his feet quick. "He’s also just a fish-obsessed old guy who calls kids brats."

  Leif stared at him. "That is not an also. That is part of it."

  Eirik didn’t argue. He couldn’t.

  Leif shook his head like he was trying to dislodge the whole encounter. "You didn’t even react to the name thing."

  "I was busy not choking on fish," Eirik said. "Also—" he hesitated, then admitted, because Leif deserved some truth, "—I could see what he was doing. The big pause, the bone test, the weight, the ‘bring your father at dawn.’ It’s a whole routine."

  Leif squinted. "How do you know that."

  Eirik shrugged. "Stories."

  Leif looked down at his herring. "The herring was excellent."

  "It was," Eirik admitted. "I hate that."

  Leif brightened. "So we’re going back tomorrow."

  "Yes." Eirik exhaled once. "And it’s going to be interesting."

  Leif’s eyes gleamed. "In a good way?"

  Eirik thought about Skeggi’s expression when he said bring your father, and about Bj?rn’s expression when someone tried to put him in a box.

  "In a combustible way," he said.

  Leif nodded like that was the best possible category.

  They made it to the inn just ahead of the second bell.

  Rí was sitting in the common room with her arms folded and the expression of someone who had been waiting long enough to form opinions. She looked them over.

  "You smell," she said.

  "Yes," Eirik said.

  "Fish," she clarified, as if he might misunderstand.

  "Also yes."

  "What did you find?" she asked.

  "A fish stall," Eirik said.

  Rí stared.

  "And the man running it," Leif added, in the tone of someone trying to communicate the existence of a dragon without starting a panic.

  Rí’s eyes narrowed. "That’s the selected version of the story."

  Eirik nodded. "Yes."

  Rí absorbed this, then announced, as if balancing the scales, "I found my animal."

  "What animal?" Leif asked.

  Rí produced a folded scrap of paper and opened it to reveal a quick sketch — a long-necked bird like a heron, but heavier through the chest, with a ridge at the crown.

  "There are two of them," she said. "By the canal. The apothecary man called them Steinvíklingr."

  Eirik stared at the sketch. "You drew this there."

  "Yes." Rí looked offended by the idea that drawing would require permission. "He said it was very good."

  "It is very good," Eirik said honestly.

  "I know." She folded it away. "Tomorrow I’m going back."

  "Tomorrow is… fish," Eirik said.

  Rí looked at him. "Why are you going back to a fish stall."

  "Because the fish man is interesting."

  Rí’s expression shifted — calculation, assessment, decision. "Can I come."

  "If you can stand the smell," Eirik said.

  Rí crossed her arms tighter. "I can stand anything."

  Leif nodded gravely. "It’s worse than Eirik’s feet in summer."

  "Leif," Eirik warned.

  Rí considered, then decided it only strengthened her argument. "Fine."

  Somewhere across the city, Skeggi was probably rearranging jars and muttering about brats with no respect for fermentation. The Wyrd-shrine pulsed its low warm rhythm through the stonework. The apothecary had the order for Bj?rn’s medicine. And tomorrow morning, at dawn, a free huscarl who pretended to be a contracted instructor was going to meet a fish-obsessed grumpy old master who absolutely didn’t want to be impressed.

  Eirik went upstairs to wash his hands.

  The smell stayed.

  He scrubbed harder.

  It stayed anyway.

  He stared at his palms and decided, with sudden deep respect, that whatever Skeggi was doing to fish was not normal.

  · · · ? · · ·