A mid-sized carriage's wheels creaked to a stop just outside the rough earth wall that circled a small settlement west of Buena village. The wall rose unevenly, packed dirt mixed with scavenged timber and stones, high enough to discourage wandering beasts yet low enough that a determined climber could scale it in the dark.
Beyond the single narrow gate, the place looked cramped even from a distance, rooftops pressed close together, little to no space in between houses, smoke curling from too many chimneys and windows into the cooling evening air.
From inside that carriage, Olga stepped down carefully, staff first. Her knees protested the long ride. She planted the wooden tip firmly in the dirt, steadied herself, and waited a moment for the ache in her hips to settle. The driver stayed silent on the box, eyes forward. She did not look back at him.
Inside the gate, the settlement revealed its true face. Most of the people who turned toward the sound of her arrival were older women, some bent nearly double, others still broad-shouldered but clearly past the years of hard work. A few thin old, sickly men sat on stools near doorways, hands idle.
This place had once thrived on the kind of jobs the village beside it preferred not to acknowledge: hunting the larger beasts that wandered out of Gaiya forest, quiet removals, contracts that paid in coin and asked no questions. Then the official guild branch opened in Buena. Work dried up almost overnight. The remaining faces carried a quiet resignation as if they had already accepted that their best years were behind them.
Olga walked the narrow lane toward the largest building near the center. The structure was two stories of dark, weathered wood, its sign so faded the lettering could barely be read. She pushed the door open. The hinges complained.
A woman behind a simple counter looked up. Seeing the old woman come in, recognition flashed across her face at once. She straightened, wiping her hands on her apron.
"Oh, Lady Olga," she said, voice careful. "It's been a long while."
"Yeah, I need to see Trana."
The receptionist did not ask for a reason or a name. She only pointed toward the narrow stairs that ran along the side wall, the wood worn smooth by years of boots. "She's upstairs. Go on."
Olga gripped her staff tighter and began the climb. In the narrow high stairs, each step took more effort than the last. Her breath shortened halfway up.
By the time she reached the top landing, her chest rose and fell with controlled effort, but her expression remained set, mouth a hard line.
The upper floor opened directly into a wide room with no door. Late light came through the windows along one wall, painting long rectangles across the floorboards. In the center sat a woman in a tight leather dress that clung to her still-firm figure. Her head was shaved clean, the skin smooth and gleaming faintly in the fading light. Dark tattoos wound across her arms, up her neck, and across the visible skin of her shoulders, old ink, dense and deliberate.
She looked roughly Olga's age, yet the way she held herself made her seem sharper, younger, less worn by the years. Two younger women lounged close on either side of her, soft and deliberately feminine. One rested a pale hand on Trana's thigh. The other leaned against her shoulder as if the position had long since become her habit.
Seeing someone come up, Trana looked up. A slow smile spread across her face.
"Oh my. Look who it is. My dear number one patron." She glanced at the women beside her, voice warm with amusement. "Girls, this is Olga. The one who used to keep half this place fed with her orders until just two weeks ago."
Olga did not spare the other women beside Trana a second glance. Her eyes stayed locked on Trana herself.
"Cut the shit, Trana. You heard what happened. Didn't you?" Olga said in a dry tone.
Trana's smile did not fade. She tilted her head slightly, studying Olga's face. "Of course, my dear. Words still reach me even out here, even though you decided to cut off any contact with me. Your precious daughter finally broke the deal that was made that day, didn't she?"
Olga said nothing. She only stood there, staff planted, waiting.
Trana's smile widened a fraction. "So? What can I do for you now?"
"Don't beat around the bush. You know why I'm here."
Trana spread her hands in mock innocence, the tattoos flexing across her forearms. "Oh my. What do I do? I truly don't know. You'll have to spell it out for an old woman like me. Hehe.. "
Seeing the woman joke around, Olga's jaw tightened. The lines around her mouth deepened. "I'm talking about the thing we discussed years ago."
Trana opened her mouth. But Olga cut her off before the first word left her mouth, voice low and sharp.
"And before you say you don't remember, know that I will get really angry this time. I'm not in the mood for your lame jokes, Trana."
Trana lifted both hands in surrender, the gesture exaggerated. "All right, all right. I get it. A woman can't even joke a little anymore." She sighed, leaning back against the cushions. "You know how business has been lately, don't you? That little guild of yours in Buena has been sucking work out of this place like a slime draining a corpse. Even the scraps I still had left got blown away the moment that fucking…dungeon started waking up."
Olga kept staring. The silence stretched. Trana's playful expression faded. She turned her head toward the two women still pressed close to her side.
"My little angels, please go downstairs and wait for me…will you?"
The two women rose without any argument or protest. Soft footsteps crossed the floorboards, then descended the stairs.
The room felt larger once they were gone, emptier, heavier. Trana stood, the leather of her dress creaking faintly, and walked to a low cabinet against the wall. She pulled out a dark bottle and two simple glasses, filled both without asking, then held one out toward Olga.
"I'm not thirsty," Olga said.
Trana kept the glass extended, eyes steady. After a long moment of staring at it, Olga took it. She drank the contents in one long pull, the liquid burning down her throat. She set the empty glass down on the small table beside her harder than necessary.
Trana raised an eyebrow, the corner of her mouth lifting. "Whoaaa. Slow down, lady. Are you trying to frame me as a murderer at this age?"
She drank from her own glass more carefully, then set it down with deliberate care.
"Though I understand. You had a rough day for sure." Trana leaned a hip against the cabinet, arms loosely crossed. "So? What do I owe the pleasure of having you here in person? You usually send someone else when you need something. Coming yourself means the work is important."
Olga's voice came out rough, scraped raw by the ride and the weight of the request. "Don't bullshit me. You know why I came. My daughter had to use her magic today. Yes, she used it to save people. She never aimed it at that woman. But that woman will not see it that way. Will she?"
Trana waited, expression unreadable now.
"So you know what to do," Olga continued. "Do what we talked about before. Do what you need to do to stop that woman before she comes after my daughter."
Trana let out a short breath, almost a laugh, but without humor. "Hmff…You probably don't get it yet, do you? Now you really can ask for many things, but that? That is not possible now."
Olga's eyes narrowed. The knuckles around her staff whitened. "What are you talking about? You hag. You were the one who suggested it years ago. Yeah, I was the fool who did not take it then. But now I'm saying it myself, aren't I? Finish what should have been finished long ago. Isn't that woman your enemy as well?"
Trana refilled her own glass and took a slow sip. When she spoke again, her voice had lost every trace of playfulness.
"Yeah, I did suggest it. But things have changed, Olga. Don't you see how large she has grown? She is a viscountess now. And not even an ordinary one. She holds power that reaches close to the grand-duke in this country. Do you honestly think you can walk in here and ask me to do that? Has age dulled your senses, old lady?"
Olga's voice rose, sharp enough to cut. "Then what do you suggest? She will come after Sara the moment she hears. Sara used magic in the open. Half the village already knows. That woman will know soon enough if she doesn't already. You're not telling me to sit and do nothing, are you?"
Trana turned toward the large window. Outside, the light was fading fast. Night was settling over the trees beyond the earth wall, the first true shadows stretching long across the settlement roofs.
She spoke without looking back, voice quiet and final.
"Doing that is not possible right now. She has become too careful, too well protected. But I have something that might stop her from coming after your daughter."
Olga's grip on the staff tightened. "What is it?"
Trana glanced over her shoulder. A faint, almost teasing smile returned to her mouth, but her eyes remained hard.
"Hmfff…You're not going to like it."