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“Aye, but it’s hard to get a decent grip. He’s always bloody covered in silk.” Salem speaks to the mage, but looks to Dawsyn, eyes sparkling, lips curving upward. “Miss Dawsyn… love…” he says to her. The man, balding, hulking and rough, takes a hat from his head and grips it tightly in his fists before him, seeming unsure of what more he should say. He smiles gently at her, eyes welling, and Dawsyn cannot help but smile in return.

“Dawsyn! Finally, a woman of mercy! Please spare me from these compassionless, heartless–”

“Esra, you show all too much of your thighs for this time of morning,” Dawsyn interrupts, stepping over the debris of splintered wood to Esra’s sprawled form.

Esra looks down, and indeed, his dress has ridden up into his lap, his black, muscled legs revealed. “Oh,” he says, unabashed. “Not quite the show I was aiming to provide.”

“It was entertaining enough.” Dawsyn smirks, holding a hand out to him.

“No, leave me here, Dawsyn, dear. Your sympathy is all I need to heal my broken arse. Though I fear it may not ever be the same.”

“With a pretty face like yours, one needn’t be concerned by the state of their arse.”

“Ah, poetry,” Esra murmurs, his eyes closing in a drunken stupor. “It has always been my vice.” And with that, the man begins to snore, his legs bent at an angle that begs discomfort.

Feeling inexplicably lighter, Dawsyn stands, turning to Salem who waits by the bar. “Should we leave him here?”

“He weighs a tonne, lass. Best to let him sleep it off.”

The pair smile at one another, and there is much that she wishes to say, but Baltisse clashes bottles and glasses from behind the bar and the words remain unsaid. Instead, Dawsyn contents herself with looking over his face and arms, happy to see no marks worth noting. He is well, just as Baltisse said he would be.

Baltisse groans. “Salem, did you let that imbecile drink my wine?”

“I’ve neverleteither o’ yeh drinkanythin’.But alas, the two of yeh tend to do as yeh please, even if it means puttin’ an honest workin’ man out of business.”

Baltisse only rolls her eyes, and Salem turns back to Dawsyn. “Have yeh eaten, lass? I could fix yeh somethin’? Yer the only one who waits to be asked.”

Dawsyn sighs contentedly as Salem walks away to the store cupboards beyond the bar, not waiting to hear her answer.

It is evening before Esra awakens, and in the time before it, neither Dawsyn nor Baltisse do anything to prepare for their journey. Instead, they linger, bothering Salem, lounging in his dining room.

Eventually Dawsyn rises to light a fire, and then again to follow Salem out to his vegetable patch. She helps him chop wood, till the soil, feed his chickens and listens to him spin tales about Esra’s many, many exploits over the years. Dawsyn laughs. It feels odd to laugh. It thaws her, somehow. Releases the vice on her lungs, makes breathing easier. She buries the burden of the coming days and turns her body away from the mountain, basking in the warmth of Salem, of the inn instead.

“The bloody git nearly got himself killed at least a thousand times. Once he came runnin’ and screamin’ up the path, hollerin’ out to all an’ sunder. Behind him came two guards, both with their swords drawn. It were a sight. Esra flouncin’ away in his skirts, with those two soldiers barely keepin’ pace. He’d lit one o’ the pubs on fire, yeh see, back in the Mecca. Tipped over a whiskey barrel. Knocked out the knees o’ a man with a holy book and a candle. Stopped his preachin’ right quick.”

Dawsyn laughs again and Salem seems to delight in it, but his smile fades some as her laughter ebbs. He looks past her, over her shoulder, to the mountain, looming all too close.

“It was Ryon who saved his sorry arse that time,” he continues, voice careful, quiet.

Dawsyn’s pitchfork hovers for a moment before carrying on turning over the soil. She shoves it into the soft earth again, a little harder than before.

“He came out and those two guards stopped in their tracks, what with a big behemoth comin’ toward ’em.” Salem smiles sadly. “He told ’em he’d pay for the damages personally, but that Esra weren’t goin’ nowhere. Told ’em Esra was his simple-minded brother, and that he would ensure it wouldn’t happen again.” He barks a rough laugh then stops quickly, making Dawsyn look up. “He was a good man.”

Dawsyn gives a heavy breath. “He wasn’t a man at all, Salem.” She makes her tone gentle, for his sake, but her eyes are anything but. “Not all that good, either.”

Salem seems stunned. “How can yeh say that, lass?” he breathes. “I thought… I thought yeh… the two of yeh looked so–”

“He made a deal with Alvira to kill me, and he didn’t even have the gumption to confess once he’d decided against the idea,” Dawsyn says, all in one breath. “Whether he changed his mind before or after I fucked him, we will never know.” With that, she throws the pitchfork prongs into the soil and turns her back on the inn, on Salem, and beholds the mountain, its slope climbing into the clouds and all the way to the Ledge. “It matters little,” she says, as much to herself as to him. “I didn’t like him for his goodness. I liked him for his honesty.” She sighs. “I made a mistake trusting him. And it almost killed me.”

“Aye,” Salem agrees. “But he ain’t here to defend his actions, Miss Dawsyn. And I know that boy. He woulda died regrettin’ his mistakes, just as yeh live regrettin’ yers.”

“It does not matter,” Dawsyn repeats, despite the ache in her chest, despite the emptiness that gnaws and gnaws endlessly in her gut, no matter how she fights to subdue it. “We are all bad and good, are we not? The fools are the ones who try to separate the two.”

“Aye,” Salem says again. “But some o’ us were born fools, lass. No hope fer me, I’m afraid. Yeh won’t convince me that it ain’t mostly good yer made up of.” He wipes his nose. “Same as that half-man.” Salem grins, eyes wet, and Dawsyn almost gives in at the sight of the man beginning to cry. She almost folds to the pressure of keeping her grief silent. Almost lets the name wash through her mind.

Salem had known Ryon for years more than Dawsyn. He’d forged a friendship more tried and tested than hers. And it is not for her to tell him whether his friend was good or not.

She wants to take back the words and let the man remember the hybrid in a way that brings him peace – an impossible feat. So, instead she takes Salem’s muddied hand in hers. She waits until he can meet her eye before she says, “I owe you my life, Salem. If it were not for you, Terrsaw would have watched me hang. Thank you.”