The square settled.
The body of Brunks on the stone. The empty pole above the watch-keep. The bonfire burning lower. The coins nobody touched.
And then — the locals found their feet.
Not all at once. The way people found their feet after something had been pressing on them for a long time — one person first, testing whether standing was permitted, and then the next, and then the next, each one reading the previous one and determining that yes, this was something that was allowed now.
An old woman was the first to approach Lexel.
She moved with the slow deliberate movement of someone whose knees had been on stone for hours and hadn't fully forgiven her for it yet. She stopped in front of him. Looked at him — at the Silver greaves, at the Mythril gauntlets, at the smirk that had been there since the gate and was still there now, the smirk of someone who had found the situation mildly interesting and had addressed it accordingly.
She reached out and took his hand in both of hers.
