Chapter 19: Sunlight and Scars

The last thing I remember was the troll’s voice saying, “Nah. Now we’re partners.” And then the pain started breathing again. Not sharp like a blade, not clean like a bolt. No, this pain rolled slow and heavy, like smoke dragging across the ribs. It seeped into the cracks of me, wrapped around my bones, and settled in like it planned to stay a while. The potion had dulled it for a minute, just long enough for me to remember what moving felt like. Now it wore off like a broken promise, leaving behind nothing but bruises and regrets.

Murk tried to help. I think. I remember his voice cussing under his breath, trying to wedge himself under my arm, complaining about how many bricks I must’ve swallowed growing up. Said I was built like a stone barn. I think I laughed. Might’ve just groaned.

We stumbled through tunnels that smelled like old cheese and rat piss, half-drag, half-walk, his little legs moving like pistons while I leaned on him like a collapsing house. The world kept slipping sideways. Pipes turned into trees. Sewer moss looked like campfire smoke. I saw the face of a girl I used to know back in my unit, and called her “Lieutenant” before I realized it was just a rusted pipe with a shadow on it.

I asked him once if we were dead. He said no. Said if we were dead, the stairs wouldn’t hurt so much. And gods, did they hurt.

After that, everything went red and soft and wrong. I think we made it to the Anchor. I think I remember the door. The smell of stale beer and failed dreams. Somebody shouting my name. The clatter of dice. A chair scraping back fast.

Then black.

No dreams. Just the weight of silence pressing on me like dirt over a grave.

When I came to again, it was in pieces. First the light, sharp as a knife under the eyelids. Then the bed, too soft, too still. My body throbbed like someone had wired it to a forge. The ache was everywhere: shoulders, ribs, thighs. Even my hair hurt.

I was lying flat in my smallclothes and a scratchy blanket, bandaged like a mummy and dry-mouthed like I’d swallowed half the Dune Sea. The kind of dry that made your tongue stick to your teeth. The kind of pain that told you you were still alive, whether you wanted to be or not.

And then there was the smell.

Pipe smoke.

Warm, bitter, earthy and oddly familiar. Like burnt cedar and some kind of dried leaf that probably wasn’t legal in this district. I didn’t need to look to know who it was, but I did anyway.

There, slouched in my one decent chair like it owed him rent, was Murk Stonestitch. Grinning around the stem of his pipe like the cat who’d licked the cream and then kicked the cow for good measure. He gave me a wink.

“Glad yer back, Tallface. I was startin’ to think I’d have to pay rent on this chair.”

Then he slipped off like a shadow with a limp, still puffing that cursed pipe. The door clicked behind him. A minute later, the door slammed back open. Penny flew in like she’d been shot out of a crossbow, eyes wild, hair undone, voice trembling.

“Oh gods, Lena, you’re awake! Don’t you ever do that again.”

I tried to smile. Might’ve just bared my teeth.

“Not my best idea,” I croaked. “But I’ve had worse. I think.”

She dropped down beside the bed and gripped my wrist like she was making sure I hadn’t turned to dust.

“You stumbled in here two nights ago, barely breathing. Murk, I thinks that was his name, was dragging you like a sack of onions. Collapsed right on the floor in front of the bar. Some of the local rats thought about looting you, but that little pygmy troll pulled a blade and looked like he wanted them to try.”

“Braver than he looks,” I said, or meant to. It came out more like a cough.

“Not brave,” she said. “Mad. But he stood guard until Kathy and some of the others helped carry you up here. I came as soon as I heard and brought a healer with me. He didn’t think you’d make it through the night. But…”

“But I did,” I finished. “Hill giant blood, thanks to my mother. Heals fast. Tough to kill.”

I sat up, groaning as every muscle protested. Penny slipped a flask into my hand. My flask. I checked my coat across the room. The other flask was still in it. Which meant…

“Damned thief,” I muttered, popping the top and taking a swig. The burn told me I was still alive, and maybe still stupid.

Penny gave a tired laugh.

“He said you'd want that. Said you’d need it before you asked.”

“Course he did,” I muttered. “Little bastard’s got instincts.”

And for the first time in two days, I felt something close to solid again.

I had a flask in my hand, a scar across my ribs, and a new partner who smoked like a chimney and picked pockets like he was born with a dagger in his teeth. The streets hadn’t killed me yet. But they were getting bolder. And I wasn’t done with them. Not by a long shot.

The door slammed open, again, like it had a grudge. Kathy strode in carrying a chipped bowl of stew, a half bottle of whiskey tucked under one arm, and a dented pitcher of water balanced against her hip like a baby she didn’t plan on raising. Her boots clunked heavy on the old floorboards and her scar caught the morning light like a knife-edge.

“Brought supplies,” she said, setting the stew down on the table with a clatter. “Whiskey’s for cleansing your wounds. Water’s for drinking.” She gave me a look over her shoulder, dry as salt. “But you strike me as the type to do that in reverse.”

I tried to grin. Didn’t quite land.

She didn’t stay long, said she had to open up the bar and chase out the last of the gamblers who thought rent included a place to die. But she lingered at the foot of the bed just long enough to let the real reason leak through. Penny stood beside her, hands wringing like she was trying to strangle a ghost. She didn’t say anything, but her eyes did. Big, wet things full of too much hope. They both had that look. The kind of look people wear when they already know the answer but still need to hear it so they can start hating it properly.

I shifted up in bed with a wince, pulling the blanket tighter around my ribs. The sun crept through the warped shutters like a thief, dust catching the light in lazy curls. I hated how nice it looked.

“I don’t have anything,” I said, voice rough as broken stone. “No trail. No clues. Just a gang full of bodies and a face I won’t forget anytime soon.”

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Kathy’s jaw twitched. Penny looked down like she could dig an answer out of the floorboards if she stared hard enough.

“Fessy’s still out there,” Penny whispered. “She’s… she has to be.”

“She might be,” I said. “But if she is, she’s deep in something foul. I saw the kind of people we’re dealing with. They don’t take prisoners out of kindness.”

The room went quiet. Even the city outside seemed to hush, like Graywatch itself was listening in. Kathy didn’t speak. Her scar had gone a shade darker, like it remembered something. Or maybe it just shared the pain.

I could feel the air go heavy. They both needed something I couldn’t give. Hope. So I gave them silence.

After a few seconds that felt like hours, Kathy picked up the pitcher and poured a little water into the stew bowl like it would do anything. Then she nodded, just once, and turned to leave. Penny hesitated, then followed, her shoulders hunched like they’d been carrying grief a lot longer than either of them wanted to admit.

Once the door closed, I did exactly what Kathy predicted I would.

I dipped a rag into the water, cleaned up just enough to feel alive again, and uncorked the bottle. Dwarfhammer whiskey. The kind of drink that came with warnings etched into the glass and stories that never ended well. It slithered down the throat like molten regret, and it burned like it wanted to pick a fight with everything inside me.

I drank anyway.

Outside the window, the docks were quiet, ships resting in their berths like fat gray beasts. The sun was actually shining. Honest-to-gods sunlight. Clear sky. No smog. No drizzle. No clouds hanging low like a threat. One day a year, maybe. I didn’t trust it. I never did. Sunlight in Graywatch always meant someone was about to bleed.

****

The morning dragged like a bad memory. I sat there in bed, the bowl of stew growing cold on the side table, congealing into something that looked more like remorse than food. The bottle, though? That was another story. The half bottle was gone too fast, but I had a backup. I always had a backup. I reached into the drawer, felt past the odds and ends and the broken things I never quite threw away, and pulled out the spare.

I uncorked it like it might have answers inside. It didn’t. Just fire and forgetting.

The ghosts came in after that, like they always do when the sun’s too bright and your defenses are down. They didn’t knock. They never did. They just showed up, took their seats on the edge of the bed and around the room, watching me with hollow eyes and quiet judgment. Every one of them was a face I’d sent into the dark, or led there. Some of them I killed. Some of them died because I wasn’t fast enough, smart enough, strong enough. Didn’t matter. They were mine.

I blamed it on the sunlight. Gods-damned sunlight. It poured through the window like it owned the place. I didn’t trust it. I never had. In Graywatch, light was always a lie, just another trick played by a city built on shadows.

I was halfway through the spare bottle when I smelled the smoke.

Not from the city, not from the docks or a funeral pyre. This smoke was sweeter. Familiar. Pipeweed laced with something a little too spicy to be legal. I turned my head away from the window with a groan and there he was. Perched in my chair like a smug little gargoyle, all three feet of him soaking in the moment.

Murk. The damn pygmy troll. Grinning like he just swallowed someone’s secrets and was still chewing.

“Well,” he said, puffing slow, “you plannin’ on sitting here all day feeling sorry for yourself or you gonna do something halfway useful with that oversized skeleton of yours?”

I scowled. Or tried to. It came out more like a wince.

“Drinking is productive,” I muttered. “I’m building a bridge between disappointment and unconsciousness.”

He snorted. “A damn fine architect, then.”

I took another swig, slower this time. My ribs still ached and my arm felt like it had wrestled a mule and lost. “If I wanted a partner, I wouldn’t pick you.”

“Lucky for me, then,” he said, crossing one little leg over the other, “you don’t get to choose. Last two bad guys said you’re stuck with me.”

“That was a joke,” I said flatly. “The kind you tell before someone wakes up bleeding in a sewer.”

Murk puffed, his eyes narrowing just enough to let me know he wasn’t going anywhere. “Maybe. But I’m still here, Tallface. And you got the stink of unfinished business all over you.”

I sighed and stared at the bottle like it might offer a better conversation. “You don’t even know what I’m doing.”

“No,” he said, “but neither do you.”

That stung. Mostly because it was true.

“I’m… looking for someone,” I muttered. “I find people. I… fix things, I think… I don’t know. Sometimes I make them worse first. But I try. That count for anything?”

He cocked his head, chewing on the stem of his pipe. “So you’re a soft-shoe merc.”

“A what now?”

He leaned back, tapping the ashes into a ceramic ashtray shaped like a skull. Of course it was.

“There’s two kinds of mercenaries,” he said, like he was starting a bedtime story for degenerates. “You got your hobnail types. Big boots, big swords, big noise. They stomp around, sell their blade to whoever pays best, cut problems in half if they’re lucky, into quarters if they’re drunk. Then there’s your soft-shoes.”

I raised an eyebrow. “And what? They dance?”

“They don’t stomp,” he said. “They sneak. They ask questions. They go into places they shouldn’t, and they don’t always leave through the same door. They take jobs nobody else wants, ‘cause they solve ‘em sideways.”

“You know a lot about them.”

He just grinned and tapped his long nose. “Met a few. Got paid by fewer. And lived to talk about it once or twice.”

“How long you been around, Murk?”

He stood, brushing invisible dust off his coat. “Long enough to know what kind of help you need, and what kind of help you’ll refuse.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You offering help now?”

“No,” he said, heading for the door. “I’m offering partnership.”

“Same thing.”

“Nah. Partners stick. Helpers run.”

I opened my mouth, but he was already there, one hand on the knob, smoke trailing behind him like a rumor. He looked back over his shoulder, those sharp little eyes glittering.

“You’re gonna need me, Lena Blackthorn. Maybe not today. But soon. And when that happens, try not to be too proud to admit it.”

Then he vanished through the door, leaving me with my whiskey, my ghosts, and the sinking feeling that for once, I might need help, and gods help me… he might be right.

****

After Murk left, I gave the bottle one last hard stare and took another swallow, because ghosts don’t walk themselves, and I figured it was time to give mine some air. My whole body protested as I swung my legs off the bed. The potion had done what it could, but it hadn’t been a miracle. Every movement screamed like a betrayed lover, bitter and raw.

Getting dressed was an act of pure stubbornness. Not pride, not vanity, just sheer will. The kind they don’t write about in songs because it doesn’t look pretty. My ribs crackled with each breath and my shoulder burned like a brand, but I gritted my teeth and pulled on my leather pants. The thick wool shirt came next, scratchy and stiff, but the moment I fastened the last button, I started to feel like a person again. Not a broken one. Not entirely, anyway.

I sat on the edge of the bed and reached for my boots. That’s when I noticed them, really noticed them. Heavy black leather, scarred from years of marching. Soles lined with hobnails that had seen blood, snow, ash, and worse. Soldier’s boots. Standard issue. The kind made for stomping, not slipping quietly through shadows.

I stared at them a long moment, holding one in my hands. Then I heard Murk’s voice echo in my head, the smug little bastard.

Soft-shoe merc.

I muttered a curse and laced the boots up anyway. They were what I had. Maybe shopping for something quieter was in my future, but not today. Today I had just enough strength for movement, not decisions. The coat came last, slung over my shoulders like a promise and a dare.

I was halfway to the door before something deep in me pulled me up short. A twinge in the ribs. A twist in my gut. The kind of ache that didn't come from bruises, but from instincts. The kind that says You’re leaving something behind. Something important.

I turned around, walked back to the dresser, the only real piece of furniture in the room besides the creaking bed and the chair Murk kept stealing, and knelt. The bottom drawer stuck like it always did. I had to jimmy it with a grunt and a curse, but it slid open just enough for me to reach inside.

There it was. A plain wooden box. Nondescript to most. Sacred to me.

I cracked it open, slow, like I was afraid it might bite. Inside, nestled in oiled cloth, was my shoulder rig and the Smith-Weston hand crossbow the unit gave me when I walked off the line for good. It still held the scars of every mission we didn’t talk about. Two spare clips sat next to it, nestled like silent sentinels. I hadn’t touched it in weeks. Not because I didn’t need it, but because I didn’t want to remember the hands that gave it to me.

Killing wasn’t going to be my first answer. Not anymore. But after waking up in a sewer half-dead and still missing answers, I figured a little insurance didn’t hurt. I strapped the holster over my shirt. The leather kissed my shoulder with a whisper and settled into place like an old friend. The crossbow slid into the sheath with a soft shhk and I felt the balance return. Not peace. Not safety. Just readiness.

I took one last breath, pulled the cork again, and let the whiskey sear its way down. Then I opened the door and stepped out, ghosts at my back, fire in my ribs, and Graywatch waiting outside like a loaded die.