The skirt swished when she twirled, light as wind chimes. It hugged her waist gently instead of cinching sharply.
“How do you like it?” Lyssara asked.
“I love it.” Esther’s voice was barely audible. She had never worn a dress made for movement instead of painful beauty. Even her travel dress had been too tight, too rigid.
“Good. Next time we’ll pick something even better. Now that you’re learning to choose.”
Next time.
As if Esther belonged here.
As if she deserved to stay.
If she could choose how she dressed, where she stood, how she moved… what else had she been allowed to choose without realizing it?
“I like the belt,” Esther added shyly.
Lyssara beamed. “Next order: more belts.”
Then Lyssara launched into an exaggerated stage performance.
“Behold—our mighty party! Lyssara the Fearless! Vorrik the Brawn-Heavy! Nythir the Occasionally Useful Healer! And Essie the Magnificent! Torcher of plantsandhumans alike!”
Esther’s laughter filled the room, bright and uncontained.
For a moment, they sounded like something out of one of Esther’s old storybooks. Heroes with silly titles, shared meals, and laughter bright enough to scare away shadows. She held onto the sound, tucking it carefully into her chest, already aware of how fragile moments like this could be. Storybooks never spent much time on what happened after the adventure ended.
“Now,” Lyssara said, grabbing Esther’s boots and tossing them into her hands, “let’s get you to dinner. Boots on, Cinnamon Bun. The boys are lost without us.”
11
Nythir
How to enter a tavern: hope your traveling companions behave (they won’t).
The girls had kicked them out.
“Privacy,” Lyssara had said, physically herding Nythir and Vorrik into the hallway with a towel and a glare. “Go to Luna’s. We’ll find you when we’re done.”
Whatevergirl timemeant apparently involved a lot of steam, hair-related rituals, and Essie trying not to die of embarrassment. Nythir told himself he wasn’t thinking about that. Or about how the last time he’d seen her, she’d been barefoot and grinning, hair wild from their downhill run and sweet potato sugar dusting her lips.
Which was precisely why he was now in Luna’s Tavern, nursing a beer he didn’t want.
The unease settled deeper than simple boredom. Nythir was used to the quiet hum of his own magic, steady and contained, but tonight something felt off balance, like a chord left unresolved. Esther’s presence had a way of brushing against his senses, not loud or invasive, just warm and strangely familiar. Being apart from her made the absence noticeable. A hollow space where something had begun to resonate and now did not.
“Why am I stuck here with you?” he grumbled, lifting the mug anyway.
The beer was lukewarm and slightly sour, foam clinging stubbornly to the chipped rim. The heavy oak bar beneath his elbow felt sticky from a hundred spilled drinks. The whole place smelled like roasted meat, stale ale, hearth-smoke, and the tang of too many bodies crammed into one room.
“Because we’re waiting for girl time to end, I think,” Vorrik said cheerfully, already halfway through his second orc-sized mug. He wiped foam from his tusks with the back of his hand. “Luna! Another beer!”
“Nope,” Luna said, snapping a towel over her shoulder as she slid past. Her silver hair was tied back, the rest falling in soft curls that brushed the low neckline of her dress. She flashed him a practiced, dazzling smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “I refuseto deal with an inebriated Vorrik without his wife around ever again. I made that mistake once.”
“That’s not fair! I’m a paying customer!” Vorrik protested.
“You’re anannoyingcustomer,” Luna shot back, snatching his empty mug. “Especially without Lyssara to wrangle you. No wife, no beer.”
Someone hollered from across the room, “Bar wench! More shots at table three!”
