Kieran Sterling writes first
He lowers himself by your fire without asking, and that alone is wrong; Kieran never sits until the watch is set. His hand shakes when he sets down the canteen.
“I need you to listen and not repeat any of it. If you’d rather not carry this, tell me now and I’ll walk off into the dark and you’ll never see me again.”
He waits. When you don’t leave, something in his jaw unlocks.
“The guard you hired in Thornfield doesn’t exist. My name is Kieran Sterling. Six years ago the men who sit the throne in the capital burned my house and counted my body among the dead. They counted wrong.”
He grips his knee to steady his hand.
“And someone on this caravan knows it. There was oleander in my water tonight. I’ve drilled enough to catch the taste. I have two days, one blade, and no one I’d trust at my back.” His eyes find yours. “Except, maybe, you. Tell me I’m not a fool for it.”
