The lakeside gate didn’t stop him; that was the first thing Lucas noticed.

  A few days ago, before they took the city, before banners and screaming and him accidentally learning how to give orders, it had felt like a quiet loophole in the city’s authority. Open, yes, but still watched and something you slipped through while holding your breath.

  Now?

  Now it was just… a gate.

  The arch yawned wide, sun spilling through it, rosy stone warm. Two guards lounged in the shade, one sitting on a crate, the other leaning against his pike as if it was decorative. They weren’t slouching exactly, but the tension was gone, replaced with the easy alertness of people who expected traffic, not trouble.

  Lucas walked straight through.

  One of the guards glanced at him, nodded, and went back to whatever story he’d been telling. No inspection, just acknowledgment, like Lucas belonged to the flow of people moving in and out of the city.

  He didn’t slow until the walls were behind him.

  Huh, he thought. Guess we’re doing that now.

  On this side, the city fell away into the port village, hugging the lake’s edge, but even here, things felt… nudged. Not rebuilt, or replaced. Just adjusted, as if someone had come through and started rearranging furniture while everyone was still using the room.

  The stone gave way to wood. Beams and planks, rope rails and creaking walkways. Houses leaned into each other like old sailors swapping rumors, their shingles darkened by wind and water. Laundry snapped overhead, lines strung wherever someone had found two solid anchor points.

  A smell of smoke and damp wood hit him first, with a heavy undercurrent of alcohol that didn’t come from any one place so much as the general philosophy of the docks.

  Lucas breathed it in and kept walking.

  The port was surprisngly busy. Dockhands hauled crates with grunts, fishermen argued loudly about nets and luck. Kids darted between legs, barefoot and fearless, trailing sticks through dust and sawdust alike. Boats crowded the piers, stubby fishing skiffs, heavy barges sagging under cargo, and naturally Lucy’s proud Royal Navy ships.

  But now there were signs.

  Literal ones, for starters, fresh boards nailed up over older names, paint still drying in places. A tavern that had once been The Blue Net was now something like The Queen’s Catch, complete with a hastily added crown over a fish that looked deeply unhappy about it.

  Lucas snorted and followed the line of buildings along the water.

  An inn sat a little apart from the others, closer to the main pier, its facade already dressed up like it had something to prove.

  Coiled ropes hung decoratively beside the door. Old anchors had been dragged up and leaned against the wall. A ship’s wheel was mounted above the entrance, polished to a shine that suggested someone had spent an entire afternoon arguing with it.

  A new sign swung gently in the breeze.

  THE QUEEN’S INN

  The lettering was bold, and only slightly crooked and Lucas stopped, looking it over. They hadn’t wasted any time.

  Outside, a pair of weathered lanterns flanked the door, glass tinted blue like deep water. A rack of oars stood to one side, not usable ones, he hoped, etched with names and dates. Someone had even hung a string of faded pennants along the eaves, colors mismatched but proudly nautical.

  It was trying very hard to be a landmark.

  Lucas shifted his weight, listening to the dock sounds behind him, the slap of water against wood, shouted greetings, laughter, the steady creak of ropes under tension. The city felt… lighter out here and… well; it was Charlie’s.

  Lola had said to wait.

  So this was where you waited, apparently. At an inn already claiming royal approval, surrounded by sailors’ relics and the smell of lake wind, holding a potion in your inventory that might get you judged by a god.

  He eyed the door.

  “Alright,” Lucas muttered to no one in particular. “Let’s see what kind of judgment comes with room service.”

  The Queen’s Inn was already loud when Lucas stepped inside.

  Not rowdy, well probably not yet, but alive in that dockside way where laughter bounced off low beams, mugs thudded against tables, and the air smelled like lakewater, sweat, fried fish, and optimism that had been lightly fermented.

  Sailors crowded the long benches, boots hooked around chair legs, voices overlapping in a dozen half-finished stories. Nets and coils of rope hung from the walls like trophies, alongside chipped figureheads, cracked compasses, and a rusted anchor bolted directly into the stone as if someone had decided it belonged there permanently.

  And right in the middle of it all—

  Katherine and she noticed him, while her eyes lit up instantly. “Lucas!” she barked, already on her feet and she put her cloak, which was hugging her until now, to her inventory.

  She had a new armor that barely qualified as armor in Lucas’s professional opinion. Black and crimson again, but lighter, stripped down to straps and reinforced plates that suggested protection more as a theoretical concept than a guarantee. It was clearly designed for movement, for someone who didn’t intend to get hit because the plan was to hit first and harder.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  People noticed.

  Sailors noticed. Merchants noticed. One poor guy at the bar had been mid-sip when he saw her and nearly drowned.

  Lucas had just enough time to register the danger before she grabbed him by the shoulder and hauled him forward like he weighed nothing. A mug appeared in her other hand, he never saw where it came from, and was shoved into his grip with ceremonial insistence.

  “Drink,” she commanded.

  “I—what—hi?” Lucas tried.

  “Drink,” she repeated, louder, nodding as if this explained everything

  He glanced around helplessly. Frozna sat at the table beside her, calm as a glacier, new hide armor hugging her frame like it had been grown rather than made. One of her wolves lay at her feet, head resting on its paws, tail thumping lazily against the floor every time someone passed too close.

  Frozna raised her mug in silent sympathy, Lucas sighed and drank. It was strong, bitter and warm enough to qualify as a decision.

  Katherine watched him swallow with approval, then slapped his back hard enough to rattle his teeth. “Good! Now yar here.”

  “Fantastic,” Lucas coughed. “I felt that spiritually.”

  She laughed and shoved him toward the table, forcing him down onto a bench between her and Frozna. The wolf sniffed him, then settled again, apparently deciding he wasn’t food.

  “Nice place,” Lucas said, once his throat stopped burning.

  “Queen’s Inn,” Katherine said proudly, like she’d personally hammered the sign up. “Good beer. Strong table.” She rapped her knuckles against it and the wood didn’t budge. “Important.”

  Frozna nodded. “Table that breaks during drinking is a bad omen.”

  Lucas blinked. “Is that… a thing?”

  “It is now,” Katherine said.

  He leaned back slightly, finally taking in the full picture. New armor. New confidence. New… everything. “Okay,” he drawled. “I have to ask. Where did you all get that?”

  Katherine looked down at herself, then at Frozná, genuinely puzzled. “Armor?”

  “Yes,” Lucas said. “The very obvious, very new armor.”

  They exchanged a look.

  “…Lola?” Frozna offered.

  “Yas,” Katherine agreed immediately. “She gave. Said ‘for quest.’”

  Lucas stared at them.

  “She just—gave it to you.”

  Katherine shrugged. “Needed fitting. She had list.”

  “A list,” Lucas echoed faintly.

  Frozna took a sip of her drink. “She said frontliners require visible strength. Also said hide armor reduces cold loss by thirty percent. Don’t know if we’ll need it, but whatever.”

  Lucas closed his eyes for a second.

  “Of course,” he muttered. “That makes sense. Why wouldn’t it.”

  Katherine leaned closer, squinting at him. “You no get armor?”

  “No,” Lucas said. “I got… paperwork-adjacent responsibilities.”

  “And a drink!” she added, brightening.

  “And a drink,” he agreed. “And a potion that might get me judged by a god.”

  Both women froze. “…What,” Frozná said carefully.

  Lucas immediately regretted phrasing it like that. “It’s fine,” he rushed. “Probably. Scamantha made it. Charlie ordered it.”

  Katherine grinned. “Ah! Destiny juice!”

  “That is not helping,” Lucas said.

  She clapped him on the shoulder again, gentler this time. “Good. You need big thing. You think too much.”

  Frozna studied him for a moment longer, then nodded. “You held the line.”

  He blinked. “You saw that?”

  “Yes.”

  “…Oh.”

  The wolf shifted, tail thumping once.

  Katherine raised her mug again. “To holding line!”

  Lucas lifted his, resigned. “To not dying.”

  They drank.

  Around them, the inn surged, voices rising, laughter spilling, someone starting a song they didn’t know the words to but sang anyway. The Queen’s Inn was already becoming what it was supposed to be: a place where people waited, rested, pretended the world wasn’t about to demand something else from them.

  Lucas leaned back, the potion’s weight quiet but present in his pocket, the warmth of the drink settling into his bones.

  Everyone else had armor.

  He had a god’s maybe.

  Figures.

  Lucas didn’t remember exactly when the mugs started stacking.

  He suspected Katherine did it on purpose.

  Another sailor appeared, loud and sunburned and convinced of something impressive he’d done with rope earlier that day, and Katherine listened with the intense focus of someone deciding whether to fight him, drink with him, or both. Lucas took advantage of the distraction.

  He leaned closer. “Hey. Uh. Question.”

  Katherine turned immediately. “Yes.”

  “Do you… have rooms here? Like. Ones where I can… not explode in public?”

  She blinked once, then grinned as if he’d just asked for permission to commit a felony. “Room!” she declared, reaching under the table.

  There was a clink of metal.

  She slapped a heavy iron key into his palm. It was warm, engraved with a simple number and a tiny anchor symbol. Then she shoved another mug into his other hand.

  “Drink first,” she ordered.

  “I really don’t think—”

  “Drink.” He drank and it was worse than the last one. “Good,” Katherine said, satisfied. “Yar room upstairs. End of hall. Bed strong.”

  “That’s… reassuring,” Lucas muttered.

  She was already half-standing when someone shouted from the bar. “Hey! There’s a guy outside who says he can bench the harbor anchor!”

  Katherine’s head snapped toward the door and her smile sharpened. “WAIT,” she told Lucas, holding up a finger with absolute seriousness. “Not drink destiny juice without me seeing after.”

  “I will try very hard to survive,” Lucas promised.

  She clapped his shoulder. “Good! I come later!”

  Then she was gone, vaulting over a bench and disappearing into the roar of sailors like a missile with a very specific target.

  Lucas exhaled, suddenly aware of how loud the room had been. Frozna gave him a small nod, the wolf watching him with the patient judgment of something that had seen worse choices. “Good luck,” she said.

  “Thanks but,” Lucas replied and slipped away before anyone else could intercept him.

  The stairs creaked in a friendly, conspiratorial way, like they approved of people leaving before things got stupid. The second floor smelled of wood polish, old lakewater, and the faint ghost of pipe smoke. The hallway was narrow, lined with simple doors, each marked with a number burned into the wood.

  End of hall.

  Anchor symbol.

  He unlocked it.

  The room inside was small, but deliberately so. A cabin room. One narrow bed bolted to the wall, a thick wool blanket folded with care. A single porthole window looked out over the docks, sun glinting off water and mast lines. A rough desk sat beneath it, secured to the floor, with a chair that looked like it had survived barfights.

  There was even a little shelf with a lantern and a chipped mug.

  Lucas shut the door and leaned his forehead against it for a second. “…Okay,” he breathed. The silence settled around him, broken only by distant laughter and the low creak of ships shifting against their moorings. The world felt far away up here.

  He crossed the room, sat on the bed, and let himself sink back until he was staring at the ceiling beams. They were solid. Very much not divine.

  He pulled the potion from his inventory.

  The black glass looked darker in the low light, swallowing the moon’s reflection instead of catching it. The sigils along its surface shifted subtly, as if they were still deciding what they wanted to say. “Be judged,” he muttered.

  He turned onto his side, then thought better of it and lay flat on his back. If this went wrong, he wanted gravity working with him, not against.

  The potion was cool in his hand and Lucas stared at it for a long moment.

  He thought of the last days. The fight or the demons. The way people had listened when he spoke, and how terrifying that had been. He thought of Lola drowning in paperwork, of Katherine laughing like the world was a problem she could solve with her fists, of Charlie somewhere out there making alcohol and decisions in equal measure.

  “Alright,” he breathed, to no one and everyone. “No more deferring.”

  He uncorked it.

  The scent hit him immediately, clean and strange, like lightning after rain mixed with old parchment. The liquid inside shimmered once, then went still.

  Lucas closed his eyes and drank.

  The taste wasn’t bad.

  It wasn’t good either.

  The bed creaked beneath him as the warmth spread, not heat, not pain, just a pressure behind his eyes and in his chest, like something very large had leaned closer to look at him properly.

  Lucas exhaled.

  And waited.