The ability to walk long and without pause was the first and most fundamental thing an adventurer had to learn. Before swordwork, before spellcasting, before map-reading or tracking or setting a fire in the rain. If a man could not walk, he could not last. That was true for Bronze Plates and true for Adamantium. The only difference was how far they could go before they dropped.

  In the frontiers, like Grahsbad, horses were a luxury. A liability, too. Their scent brought trouble. The smell of sweat and feed and warm blood carried far in the wild. Too far. Every starving beast could catch it. There were things in the woods and on the plains that knew the shape of a horse before it ever came into view. Wolves. Manticores. Winged things that hunted by sound. A good mount would only live as long as the first scream in the dark.

  So most adventurers walked.

  The Old Imperial Highway still stretched in parts, laid down in the bones of the land by men long dead and gone, but beyond it, where no road kept shape, feet were all you had. Teleportation spells were for nobles and rich merchants and high-level mages who could fold the world like paper. But even then, the cost was steep. One hundred kilometers meant ten gold coins or more, and that was without guarantee of safe landing. A misstep in the spell could plant you into a hillside or drop you into the sea.

  Syras walked. So did the Red Sparrows.

  They left Grahsbad at midmorning and made good time. The land sloped gently southeast, away from the woods and into the broken lands beyond. The trees thinned, then vanished. The soil dried and the rocks grew thicker, dustier, older. The Craglands spread wide across the horizon, marked by scattered boulders and fissures that yawned into black. No sign of roads. No animal paths. Only wind and the sun and the sound of boots on stone.

  Most magical beasts didn’t linger in places like this. Too open. Too exposed. They preferred the tangle of forest, the cover of brush, the veil of mist. Here, in the low rocky expanse, there was little to shield them. No place to wait. No place to hide. The worst danger was the terrain itself. A slip, a fall, a break. Bones shattered against rock. Water gone. Thirst chewing at the tongue.

  But none of that came.

  The day passed quiet. No sign of others. No sign of the mine. Just horizon and the crunch of steps. At dusk, they found a place to make camp. A plateau. Not high, but high enough to see far. The ground was flat. The wind was sharp. They built their fire in a low pit ringed with loose stones. The flames caught quick. Smoke drifted low and slow toward the edge of the rise.

  Syras set the cauldron on the flame and dropped in the meat.

  It was cured hard, dense with salt and age, cut from the last boar he’d brought down in the hills west of Algrad. He cracked it with the back of his cleaver and dropped the pieces in. Added dried roots. A half-handful of dried mushrooms. A thumb of fat shaved from a wrapped cloth.

  The stew thickened slow.

  Beside the fire, he laid a flat metal plate over a ring of stones. Heated it with a lick of lard spread thin from the back of a spoon. Then the bread—flour, water, pinch of salt—rolled thin between his palms. He slapped the first disk onto the plate. It hissed. The edges lifted in bubbles.

  No one spoke.

  The wind moved across the plateau and tugged at cloaks and hoods. Somewhere down below, the land creaked in the dark.

  Syras flipped the bread. Stirred the stew.

  They waited.

  “Where did you first learn to cook?”

  The voice came from Thrane. He hadn’t spoken all day. Hadn’t spoken on the march. Not when they made camp. Not when they built the fire. His voice was low but clear, without strain, and quieter than it ought to have been coming from a man who could fill a doorframe. It rolled out into the firelight and settled there.

  Syras didn’t look up from the stew. He stirred once with the back of the spoon, watching the broth lap at the edge of the cauldron.

  “Valgrad,” he said.

  The bread on the iron plate bubbled along the edge. He pressed it down with his palm, careful not to burn his hand.

  “Started with rats. The ones in Valgrad grew to the size of piglets. Caught ’em in crates, barrels, behind the broken walls. Cooked them over garbage fires. Didn’t want to eat 'em raw. Didn’t trust the meat.”

  He flipped the bread. Steam rose. He reached for another ball of dough and shaped it with quick hands, flattened it against his palm.

  “Didn’t want to eat food that tasted bad either. So I broke into kitchens. Storage rooms. Took what I could. Salt. Pepper. Cloves, sometimes. Onion skins, if there were any. Scrap bits of lard cut from the edge of a butcher’s board.”

  He laid the new bread onto the pan. It hissed. They all turned to listen, even the Elf.

  “Learned what worked. Learned what didn’t. Started with rats. Moved on to pigeons. Dogs, once or twice. When I could get them. Later it was scraps from taverns. Bones. Fish heads. Burnt ends. I had to figure out what’s edible and then figure out how to make it better.”

  He paused. Stirred the stew again. The broth was thick now, the color dark. The meat had softened. He dipped a spoon in and tasted. Nodded once.

  “After that, kitchens started taking me in. Not for the cooking. For washing. For cleaning. But I watched. Learned by watching.”

  “How old were you when a chef took you under their wing?”

  It was Orlen this time. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, the firelight catching on the edge of his helm where it rested beside him. His eyes drifted to the cauldron, watching the surface of the stew roll and shift. Syras stirred it with slow, even circles, the motion practiced, thoughtless.

  He didn’t answer right away.

  He reached to the side, picked up the flatbreads, now browned and blistered, and laid them out on a cold pan to keep them from burning. The smell of the cooked lard and dough drifted up in small, quiet curls. He set the pan near his feet, close to the stones but not in the heat.

  Then he spoke.

  “Twelve.”

  He didn’t look up.

  “Chef Vylka. Wolfkin. From Narksir. Took me in after I won a local cooking competition. Didn’t have much to work with. One pan, a sack of millet, a broken spice jar. But I made something from it. She was there. Watched the whole thing. Pulled me aside after. Said if I didn’t have a proper kitchen, she’d give me one.”

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  He stirred the stew again. The broth was thick now, nearly done.

  “I stayed with her three years. Maybe more. Learned near everything I know about food under her roof. Butchery, baking, preservation. Fire control. Wild forage. She taught me how to cook in places that didn’t want you cooking in them. Swamps. Mountains. Salt flats. Said you didn’t need a palace to make something worth eating.”

  He ladled a bit of the stew into a small wooden bowl and set it to the side to cool.

  “When I was sixteen, she sent me to school. Said I’d hit the limit of what she could teach. Formal place, strict. Clean coats and knives that cost more than a room’s rent. I stayed there four years. Maybe more. We didn’t speak after that. Exchanged letters every once in a while.”

  He didn’t say more. Didn’t need to.

  He remembered her final night. The quiet of it. How her breath had turned ragged and shallow. How her fingers had gone cold and still. How she’d smiled when she told him what she wanted done.

  She was the first sentient he had ever cooked. The only one who did not scream. The only one who gave him her body without fear. Because she loved him. Because that was her way. The Wolfkin did not bury their dead. They ate them. Passed them down. So nothing would be wasted. So nothing would return to the soil unfinished.

  He had honored that. Cut slow. Seasoned light. Said no words as he ate. That was the first and last time he ever shed tears.

  He did not tell the Red Sparrows this.

  He gave a nod toward the pot.

  “It’s done,” Syras said. “You may eat.”

  The words hung there for a moment before the group moved.

  Kidu was the first to rise. Quick and quiet, the way he did everything. He stepped to the fire, took up the ladle, and dipped it into the stew without ceremony. The broth clung thick to the wood. Chunks of meat, softened root, and wilted leaf floated to the surface. He filled the bowl in his hand until it threatened to spill.

  He brought it to his face. Sniffed once.

  Then again, slower.

  His brow creased. He looked up at Syras.

  “What meat is this?” he asked. “Never smelled anything like it before.”

  Syras stirred the pot once more, though it needed no stirring now. The fire popped under the cauldron. He reached down and shifted one of the flatbreads on the cooling plate.

  “Cured Thunder Elk,” he said. “From the Blue Mountains.”

  Kidu blinked.

  Syras didn’t look at him.

  “Hunted them myself. Cleaned them on-site. Bled them out proper. Took only the good cuts. Salted the rest. Smoked them and then packed in wax cloth and birch oil. Been traveling with the stuff in my [Inventory] since before Grahsbad.”

  The stew hissed as the broth shifted.

  “It’s not common,” Syras went on. “Most don’t make it far enough up the slopes to find them. Big beasts. Antlers like trees. Hide thick as bark. You don’t kill one unless you know where to cut. Most people don’t like their meat. Too gamey, they say.”

  He ladled out another portion and handed it off.

  “The meat turns sweet if cured right. Dense, holds flavor. Keeps well.”

  Kidu didn’t ask more. Just gave a short nod and stepped away from the fire, bowl in hand. He sat cross-legged near the edge of the plateau, close enough for warmth, far enough to watch the dark. He blew on the surface of the stew, let the steam curl up into his face, and raised the bowl to his lips.

  Before the first sip touched his tongue, Orlen cleared his throat.

  It wasn’t loud. The others looked over. Vanya glanced up from where she’d been mending a tear in her cloak. Thrane shifted slightly, the steel of his shoulder plate creaking under the weight.

  Orlen sat with one knee up, arm draped over it. His bowl sat untouched beside him. His gaze passed over each of them before settling on Syras, then drifting toward the cauldron.

  “We don’t usually share,” he said. “Not food, anyway.”

  The fire popped. Wind moved across the stone.

  “Every-man-for-himself policy. Old rule. We eat what we carry. Cook our own when we have to. If someone runs out, that’s their problem.”

  No one argued. No one nodded either. It was an old rule, said plainly.

  Orlen leaned forward. Picked up his bowl. Rested it on his thigh.

  “But we’ve got a Chef now,” he said. “A proper one. Knows what he’s doing. And I figure, if someone’s going to take the time to make something that doesn’t taste like boiled regret, then we might as well do it right.”

  He turned his head slightly. Not to Syras. To Thrane.

  “Yes, that includes you.”

  The big man didn’t move at first. Then a grunt. Something between acknowledgment and acceptance. He reached for his pack, unbuckled one of the side flaps, and began pulling out a wrapped bundle of dried meat. Something dense and dark, cured to the edge of jerky.

  Orlen looked back at the others.

  “If we’re eating as a group,” he said, “we share as a group. Everyone throws something in when it’s time to cook. Could be root, could be meat, could be spice. Doesn’t matter. We all eat better that way.”

  “Simple rule,” Orlen said. He set the bowl down between his boots and looked around the fire. “Alright. Everyone thank Syras for cooking unprompted, then we eat.”

  There was no sarcasm in it. No bite. Just said straight.

  And then, oddly enough, they did.

  Orlen spoke first. “Thank you, Syras,” he said, without looking up. He said it the same way he gave orders—clear, even, without decoration.

  Kidu followed. Still seated, still holding his bowl with both hands. “Thanks,” he said, short and soft, eyes still on the surface of the broth. Then he took his first sip.

  Thrane’s voice came next. He spoke without turning his head, deep and low like the grind of shifting stone. “Thank you.”

  And then Vanya. She didn’t speak at first. Just gave a single nod, slow, her eyes on the fire. Then a sound escaped her, little more than a grunt, almost missed beneath the crackle of burning wood. It might have been thanks. Might have been breath. It passed for enough.

  Syras said nothing. Just sat still, bowl resting in his lap, spoon idle in the stew. The smell of the meat rose with the heat, heavy and faintly sweet.

  For a moment his mind drifted.

  He was standing again in the kitchen of the Shieldwall. Back in Valgard. Far from stone plateaus and cracked lands. A white coat on his shoulders, apron starched stiff, knives lined like soldiers along the counter. Diners in tailored cloaks. Wines poured into glass thin as spider silk. The clatter of silverware muted by thick rugs and good manners. When the plates were cleared and the palates satisfied, the diners would rise and clap, polite and rhythmic, and some would lean through the kitchen door and give their thanks directly. A nod. A compliment. A request for a return dish.

  He remembered those voices. Soft. Cultured. Distant.

  He blinked once. The memory passed.

  The stew was warm. The bread was hot. The silence around the fire was companionable, not forced.

  He took a spoonful. Ate. Then another.

  “This is good.” Thrane said.

  Vanya grunted in agreement.

  Orlen smiled. “Way better than my boiled slop.”

  “I’m glad you enjoy it.”

  No more words were spoken.

  They ate until the bowls were scraped clean and the cauldron was empty. No one spoke much after the second helping. Just the sound of chewing, the crack of bread pulled in halves, the faint clink of spoons against wood. Syras ladled out the last of the broth and set the pot aside to cool. The fire burned down slow.

  They slept without tents.

  The Craglands didn’t know rain. The sky stayed open and wide and full of stars, windless and dry. They rolled into their cloaks and laid down with only their sleeping bags at their backs and eyes to the sky. One at a time, the fire faded and the world quieted.

  There were no dreams worth mentioning.

  They rose before the sun and did not eat breakfast. Adventurers ate once per day and that was it.

  The dark still clung to the edges of the plateau when they packed. Gear cinched. Bedrolls tied. The smell of last night’s fire hung in the air, faint as smoke through old walls. Thrane reattached his armor piece by piece. Vanya checked the fletching on each of her arrows. Kidu disappeared for a time and came back with a rabbit skull in his hand. Said nothing. Dropped it in a pouch.

  They left as the first line of gold cracked along the eastern rim of the world. The sun rose hard and without ceremony, casting long shadows behind them as they moved. The stone underfoot warmed slow, the wind dry in their mouths.

  They walked without talk. Just the march of boots across rock and the creak of worn leather straps.

  Five more days passed the same way before they found the cave that was marked by a red flag.