To See If They Glow

To See If They Glow

The MC's footsteps faded across the cobblestone as the sun started to set. The village square went quiet as he strode into Mabel’s Inn.

Rowan turned back to his table.

The evening restock was the same as every evening. He checked his vials and potions against his mental inventory, replaced what was sold, consolidated what wasn't. His hands moved through it without thought, uncorking, checking levels, resealing, repositioning. He had done this enough times that his hands knew the order before he did.

He picked up the last four fireblossom stems from the day's stock. Small, red-orange heads, petals closed now in the evening cool. He turned one over in his fingers. Rarity of exquisite quality: 1:10,000. Potency window: fourteen days from harvest. Pairs with moonleaf for the Spell of Fever Reduction or with coldwater root for the Spells of Paralysis the MC favored before boss encounters. He set the stems down with the others and bound them with twine.

Across the shared post, Brynn was banking her forge. He could hear the familiar sequence without looking. The scrape of the damper plate, the settling shift of coals, the precise set of tools returning to their hooks all became ASMR for his daily grind of selling his wares. He had heard her open and close her forge every day for as long as he could remember.

"He didn't equip it," she said.

Rowan looked up.

She wasn't looking at him. Still moving through her closing routine, wiping down the surface of her table with a cloth, her jaw set. "I spent 13 hours making that sword, and he spent twenty minutes haggling the price. Then, oh boy, he just walked away and put it straight in his inventory." She folded the cloth. "Didn't even equip it."

Rowan opened his mouth to offer the expected response.

What came out instead was a laugh. Short, real, arrived without permission and startling even himself.

Brynn looked at him.

He looked back.

Neither of them returned to what they were doing.

She leaned against her side of the shared post, arms crossed, and the forge behind her held their corner of the village square in a low amber warmth. Rowan stayed on his side, one hand resting on his table among the bundles of herbs.

"He bought three Spells of Paralysis today," Rowan said. "Used two of them on a were-mouse."

Brynn's expression didn't change but something shifted at the corners of it. "A were-mouse?!"

"Outside the East Gate,” he chuckled. “I watched him do it."

She was quiet for a moment. Then, she said, "He came back at midday with a dent in the breastplate I finished last week. Asked me to fix it. I asked him what hit him," she paused. "He ran into a door."

Rowan looked at her.

"A door," she said.

He laughed again, and this time, she did too. It was a short sound, like she hadn't expected to produce it.

The village square was completely empty. The automated torches along the perimeter held their steady but flickering light. Somewhere across the village the inn sign creaked on its bracket in a wind that came and went on a schedule.

"Where did he go today," Brynn asked. "After he left the terrifying were-mouse at the East Gate?"

"Embervale Pass," Rowan answered. The amusement on his face had dropped. "He came back with third degree burns but with a legendary shield called the Shield of Embress."

She looked at her table. A repaired pauldron, two short blades, a belt with a new buckle were waiting there for collection. "I made that shield."

Rowan said nothing.

"Two weeks," she said. "The dragonscale layering alone took four days. I had to retemper the core plate three times to get the heat resistance right." She picked up the cloth again, set it back down. "Did he at least have it equipped?"

Rowan was silent for a few moments. "Have you ever seen Embervale Pass?" he asked.

"No." The word was flat and immediate. She knew his avoidance of answering the question was for her sake. She looked at him. "Have you?"

"No."

She nodded, as though this confirmed something she already knew.

Rowan reached for the fireblossom stems. His hands had moved to them without thinking and he let them, beginning to separate the stems by length, an organizing task that didn't need doing but he suddenly didn’t know what to do with his hands.

"I know fireblossom grows there," he said. "In the rock crevices on the north face. The altitude keeps them small. “Shorter stems, higher oil concentration” according to the compendium. That's why the Spell of Paralysis holds longer when I use Pass-harvested stock instead of Valley-harvested stock." His hands worked through the stems. "The MC brings me Embervale Pass stock sometimes. When he remembers."

"But you've never seen it," Brynn said, not a question. “The Pass, I mean.”

"No." He turned a stem over. "I know what the cut stem looks like. I know what the dried head looks like. I know what it does." He set it down. "But I don't know if it grows in clusters or alone. I don't know if the petals open fully in sunlight or stay half-closed like the Valley-stock does."

Brynn was watching him.

"I don't know if they glow at night," he said. "Some of the compendium entries say they do. Some don't mention it." He looked at the stem in his hand. "I've never been able to check."

The forge ticked behind her in the quiet.

"I'd like to see that," Brynn said. Her voice was even, the words simple.

Rowan looked up at her. "So would I."

She pushed off the post and moved to the edge of her booth, as far as the space allowed, and looked out at the empty square. Rowan stayed at his table, watching her.

"He walked through the east gate this morning," he said. "Just…walked through it. Didn't stop. Didn't look back." He was quiet for a moment. "I've looked at that gate every day."

"Where would you go?" Brynn asked. "If you could."

He turned the question over in his head, like he was trying to catch a dream that no longer existed.

"North," he said finally. "Through the Pass. There's a ridge system in the upper territories. I've seen it on the MC's map when he's spread it on my table.”

Brightening, he turned back to Brynn. “Volcanic rock! The compendium lists three ore deposits up there that don't exist anywhere else in the region. I bet you could make some amazing weapons with that."

She looked at her hands. "I've never worked volcanic ore. I don't know what it does under the hammer. I don't know if it needs a different heat or the same." She closed her hands. "I'd like to find out, though."

"We could go north," Rowan said.

Brynn looked at him.

His hands had kept moving while he talked and suddenly realizing it, he looked down at what he’d made. The fireblossom stems were woven together in a loose circle, the heads arranged outward, the twine from his table threaded through to hold the shape. A wreath, small and careful, sitting in his palms.

He looked at it for a moment.

Then he reached across the shared post and set it gently on Brynn's head as he swept a loose, sweat-matted tuft of hair behind her ear.

She went still. Didn't reach up to remove the wreath or acknowledge the touch. She looked at him with an expression she had never made before.

"We could leave tomorrow," he said. "Before the village wakes. Before he arrives."

Brynn's hand came up slowly and touched the edge of the wreath without taking it off. "North," she said, her voice distant.

"North," he said. "You could find your ore. I could finally visit the Pass."

"To see if they glow," she said quietly.

"See if they glow."

She looked at him for a long moment. The forge held its low burn behind her. The torches held their light.

The village had gone completely silent.

They stood still at the shared post, closer than they'd started the evening, neither having marked the distance closing. The wreath was still in Brynn's hair, slightly tilted now, one fireblossom head resting near her temple. Rowan's hands were still on his side of the post but only just.

She was looking at him. He was looking at her.

He said her name. “Brynn.” Soft, like if he said it louder the magic would crack.

She didn't look away.

The space between them was small. He leaned toward her. She leaned in to him. His eyes moved to hers and stayed there and the distance between their lips grew smaller and…

They both stopped.

Not pulled back. Not startled. Just…stopped. At the same moment, for no reason that belonged to either of them. A stillness that arrived from outside and settled over the moment like a held breath.

Brynn looked down. The wreath was now in her hands. She didn't remember taking it off. She turned it carefully, the woven stems intact, the small red-orange heads still holding their color.

Rowan straightened. He looked at the wreath in her hands. He looked at her.

"Goodnight," he said. The word came out too quiet.

"Goodnight," she replied.

"If we still feel the same tomorrow morning…," she said but couldn’t finish.

"Tomorrow morning," he nodded.

She went inside her house. The door shut.

Rowan stood at his table in the empty village square and looked at the East Gate. Then he turned down his lantern, and their corner went dark except for the low burn still coming from Brynn’s forge.

Dawn came on its timer.

Rowan opened his stall. He laid out his inventory in order: vials by potency, bundles by type, pouches by weight. His hands knew the sequence. He uncorked three vials, checked the levels, and resealed them before placing them in their slots.

Across the shared post, Brynn had just emerged and was lighting her forge. The coals caught, the heat built, their corner of the square warmed the way it did every morning. She set her tools in their order on the table. The repaired pauldron. The two short blades. The belt with the new buckle.

"Good morning," she said.

"Morning," he responded.

She looked at the sky, the beautiful but automated sunrise cycling through its pinks and golds on schedule. "Should be busy today."

"He'll want Spells of Paralysis," Rowan said. "He always does after a legendary drop."

"I've got a commission to finish," she said. "Longsword of Heaven’s Breath. He ordered it twelve days ago."

She turned to her forge. He turned to his table.

A wreath made from fireblossom stems sat at the corner of his inventory between the vials and the bundled stems. He had priced it without thinking (two silver, the standard rate for decorative herb work). He didn't know when he had made it. He didn't know why it was the most carefully made thing on his table.

Across the post, Brynn struck her first hammer blow of the day. The sound rang out across the empty square, and the village woke up around it, the way it did every morning, the way it always had.

The MC will arrive soon.