Henry woke up early in the morning.
Light pierced through the window shades, the rising sun eager to peek inside. After two long days, his rest late last night felt hazy. It was all dreamlike, and he had drifted into the Dreamlands exhausted. Still, it was a good sleep.
Beside him, a warm weight shifted—Lady Keirin.
Light snuck through the blinds and lay pale-yellow stripes across her face, not daring to reach her closed eyes. She was beautiful, yes, but it was more than that. There was something untouchable in her sleep, like a holy statue in a run-down grotto.
Her mouth was slightly open, dark hair tangled, breathing slow and easy, as if not a sound outside—or anything, really, in this world—could taint her quiet.
But Henry knew himself.
He wasn't much more than a smudge in the margins, the kind of man who touched pretty things only to watch them wither in his grasp. That's why he found the King of Rot an appropriate ability. The thought of what he might leave behind on her made him pull away, though his eyes lingered on her shoulder, barely resisting the urge to trace his finger down her skin, to hold onto something he had no right to hold.
Just a few moments more.
Somewhere in between the moans and passionate sighs they shared, a choir they can only hear, he might've spoken of letting her come with.
Drunken promises and statements are feeble.
It's more brittle than an empty shell of a snail dried in a summer bay.
He knew better than to trust the drunk heart, the one that swells and bursts with fantasy, only to sober up and die in the morning. It is made when the heart takes root more than it should, choking the mind with its veins. Like a lightning, it passes a moment and nothing more.
He knew it all too well.
The last intimate relationship he had ended on bad terms. Henry Savoy made an everlasting promise on a drunken night. He met the woman while stumbling home from the Walking Stick, and there, in the dimming city lights and the peeking sun, her twinkling eyes caught his. Fortune favors the bold, and he introduced himself, creepy as that was. He never really cared for the usual things.
Beautiful things were never meant for him.
After months of love, the whole thing curdled in a moment of contempt. In the end, they parted without closure or ceremony. Why bother, he thought; not everyone deserves a proper goodbye. The ache was the final farewell, and that was more than enough.
A break-up text, a hastily scrawled note, or silence—it all bruises the heart the same way.
Leaving was always the only real goodbye he knew how to give.
And this time, he felt that dull thrill of certainty: this was one of those. So he left, making sure it would hurt.
But, at the very least, that hurl of hurt would fade faster, even though it had yet to scar him.
Henry Savoy moved out of bed, trying to find a paper and pen. The only thing he could find was a parchment and fountain pen. He tried to use it, but he wasn't accustomed to it. So, his writing looked like a raven tried to write with an open beak.
"Keirin,
I'm breaking away because if I stay, it's ache, it's both of us down in the gutter. You'd trade your color for my shade—that's no kind of trade, no kind of fairness at all.
Maybe last night's haze'll fade like smoke in your mind, but I remember it. I remember it clearly. And here in the light, I know— I know I'd ruin you. I'd bleed my gray into your blue, and that'd be the crime of it all.
No one deserves a half-baked love, babe.
No one deserves a love that can't hold its own, a heart split and scarred like mine, not when it turns sober and cold. If you still want to follow me then find me.
I'll be heading North.
– Henry Savoy"
After, he carefully slipped the note under her pillow and dressed something that looked normal, paired it with a hooded cloak. He took some bottles of wine juices and other things he might use as currency in the room. He'd wrap it in a bindle. The words weren't many—well, not as much as he would've normally written—but they were honest. It's the most honest he'd been in ages.
He didn't want her thinking this was a mistake borne of too much wine.
With a last look at her sleeping form, he walked out without a sound and didn't look back.
Outside.
Oberden was coming alive, too busy—he thinks. Yes, sure, that the sun has barely arisen, but many of the people already were up.
Certain spices and aroma lingered in the air. There was a strong scent of coffee, cinnamon, and other things that he really couldn't put his fingers on. He dragged his boots through it, the smell of incense curling and snaking around him, strange and consecrated in a way that Oberden managed.
Up ahead, a line of monks swung censers in steady rhythm, their smoke rolling out into the waking city like ghosts in holy shackles.
It wasn't called Holy Oberden for no reason.
He kept walking.
Stalls were popping up like weeds, merchants grumbling and snapping, men and women with eyes already too sharp for the hour.
He spotted one vendor, an older man with knotted fingers and dark looks. Henry felt for the pouch he'd slapped together with loot from the castle room—a handful of brooches, small and ornate, nothing big enough to draw the wrong kind of eyes, but nice enough.
He had no cash, and these bits of things were all he had between him and the road.
"Morning," he said, tossing on a grin that he'd practiced enough times it almost looked friendly.
The merchant squinted at him, sizing up the unwashed hair, the bruised bags under his eyes, and the stick-and-rag bindle slung over his shoulder.
He looked sketchy and shouldering a bindle after all.
The stall was a smudge of madness: trinkets, powders in pouches, half-empty vials of god-knows-what. Henry fished out the brooches, laying them out like some half-cocked treasure trove.
"Are ya sellin', or just looking to trade?" the old man spoke like a real businessman.
Those deadpanned eyes paired with a bit of a smile, words buttering his arid lips in faux calmness.
"Selling, how much for the lot?"
"Three silvers," the old man raised three, the index finger half-snipped.
Henry raised an eyebrow. "Is that it?"
Three silver sounded like an insult.
The old man shrugged, a thin crack of a grin on his leathery face.
"That's the price."
Henry looked down at the goods. Gold chains, stones glittering like the shine of dead stars.
"These are gold, gemstones too," Henry said, slow. "Gold brings gold, right?"
The old man grunted, gaze sharp. "Ye're fencing, kid. None o' these are yers."
"Neither's half the stuff in your stall, right? Tell you what, the Saint of Oberin might like a word with you."
Pulling a name he barely had the right to speak—that was cheap, even for him. But necessity drives even the proud to crawl.
The old man snorted, spat at the ground, and pulled himself together.
"Alright, damn ye. For the Saint's sake, what's yer price?"
Henry leaned in. "Four pouches of silver. Everything in front of you, and the deal's yours."
The man grumbled, that sound old dogs make when they're too tired to bite. Coins clicked together as he counted, hands liver-spotted and slow, as if each coin was cut from his own skin. He pushed four pouches toward Henry, each pouch heavy with his own sin, his own risk, his own way out.
Henry pocketed the silver, stashed it close to his chest, far from the knotted bundle slung over his shoulder. He knew better than to leave it out there like chum for pickpockets; he'd rather die clutching it near his heart than lose it to nimble fingers.
"Got any carriages running out of this place? Or a wagon?" he asked.
The old man scratched his chin. "Carriages don't run outta here. Wagons neither. These are dark days, boy—war's on the wind. Lumerians are coming from the South, I eary."
The words rolled out thick and slow, hard to catch, like forgotten, pleasant dreams. But Henry got enough of it to piece the message together: No way out by the usual means.
"No wagons or carriages out," Henry repeated, mimicking the old man's voice with a twisted grin. "So, how do I get out of here?"
The old man squinted, lip curling into a smirk. "Adventurer's Guild, so'e."
Henry frowned, "so'e?"
"Nothin', just means 'friend.'"
Henry laughed, a low chuckle, and gave a two-finger salute. "Thanks for the business, brittle-bones."
With a lazy swagger, he turned and walked off, letting the old man's smirk slide off his back like rainwater.
As he left, he caught the eye of a woman watching him from across the way, curiosity flickering there. He wandered over, leaning in with a grin.
"Hello, so'e," he dropped the word like he'd known it his whole life, casual, almost friendly.
Her face twisted from curiosity to outrage. Before he knew it, a slap cracked across his cheek, sharp and stinging. Behind him, he heard the wheezy cackle of brittle-bones back at his stall, laughing himself half to death.
"Dog!" the woman spat before storming off.
Another day, another woman that hates his guts.
Henry rubbed his jaw, still grinning, letting the sting settle in.