After the screeching of the Rift, the mundane noise of the town of Weisburg felt completely alien.
A week had passed, spent entirely within the four walls of a small room on the second floor of the Mountain Stream Inn. I sat by the window, watching dust motes drift through a shaft of sunlight. My left arm was bound tightly to my chest. A dull, exhausting pain still throbbed in my shoulder, but at least the swelling had begun to subside.
My right arm looked terrible. The chitinous plates were cracked, the metal had tarnished, and shredded cables frayed out from the joints. I tried to reach for it with my left hand to scrape the rust off the hinges, but my fingers beneath the bandages only twitched helplessly.
The door creaked open. Kaelen walked in, carrying hot food: a bowl of chicken broth, a hunk of bread, and a mug of some herbal infusion.
"Trying to initiate self-repair again?" Kaelen set the tray down on a small table, pushing my oil can out of the way. "I told you: no messing with the iron until the bones knit back together. Eat while it’s hot."
I followed him with my eyes in silence. Over the past week, Kaelen had transformed from a standard partner into some kind of caretaker. He changed my dressings, ordered my meals, and even bartered with the local laundry. I couldn't make sense of it in my head.
"This is stupid," I rasped. "You're wasting a ton of energy and coin on a half-corpse. I'm completely useless to you right now. I can't protect you, and I can't help you with anything. You're just dragging dead weight around."
Kaelen chuckled, pulling up a chair.
"You saved my hide back in the Rift, remember? Consider it paying back a debt. Or just accept the fact that sometimes people help each other out simply because they have a heart."
I didn't argue and picked up the spoon. My arm refused to cooperate; the spoon felt like it weighed a ton. Kaelen watched in silence as I picked at the food, but then his expression turned serious, and he looked away toward the window.
"Listen, Iron..." All the usual playfulness completely vanished from his voice. "In a week, I have to leave."
I froze, the spoon halfway to my mouth.
"Where to?"
"South. I have some... unfinished business. Let's just say I need to deal with certain people."
"I understand," I said, keeping my voice as flat as possible. "I'll manage."
"No, you won't," Kaelen cut in. "At least, not right now. So listen carefully. I've paid for this room two months in advance. The innkeeper is an old acquaintance of mine; he'll bring you food three times a day. I also found a blacksmith on the next street over. Grim old bastard, but he knows his mechanics. I left him a deposit and a list of materials you'll need to repair the Centurion."
I frowned.
"Kaelen, why? Why all of this? We barely know each other. What's your angle? What do you even get out of this?"
Kaelen stood up abruptly, walked to the window, and leaned his hands against the sill.
"An angle? A profit?" He let out a bitter laugh. "Do you seriously think I'd just leave a guy stranded when he doesn't even give a damn about his own life?"
He turned around to face me.
"I don't need a profit. I just need to be able to look into a mirror without spitting at it. Conscience is an expensive and inconvenient thing to carry around. Unfortunately for me, I still have one."
I stared at him.
"So," Kaelen continued, "I have one request for you. Or a condition, if you want to look at it that way. You stay in this town for a few months."
"That's too long. Dornh—"
"Dornheim isn't going anywhere!" Kaelen snapped. "But you will. If you hit the road tomorrow, you'll die in the first ditch from sepsis or catch a knife from the first bandit you cross. You need to let your nerves recover. You need to stop flinching at every shadow. You have to get back to full strength, understand?"
After a brief silence, I spoke.
"Fine. I'll stay."
Kaelen visibly relaxed. The sly smile crept back onto his face.
"Excellent. I knew you were a reasonable guy, even if you are a bore."
He walked over and awkwardly patted my right shoulder.
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