Chapter 18 – The Road Upriver

I returned to the loft as dusk gathered in the eaves.

The ledger waited where I had left it, the iron seal beside it like a question I could not yet answer.

I unwrapped the slip Hart had given me. A single name, rendered in a shaky hand: Dren Sallo. No title, no sigil, only the bare assertion that he existed.

Somewhere upriver, a man who had learned how to move goods unseen.

And now he would learn my name in turn.

I folded the slip carefully and set it atop the ledger.

The shadows stretched longer across the floor, creeping toward the place where the last of the candle's light pooled in a trembling circle.

I did not light a second wick.

Instead, I sat with the ledger open and my pen ready, recording every detail I could recall: Hart's voice, the cold behind his eyes, the brittle smell of old dyes and spoiled grain.

It was a habit I had begun without thinking, but now I understood why it mattered.

The world was changing around me, and if I did not write it down, there would come a day when I no longer trusted my own memory.

I paused, quill lifted above the page.

If they mean to erase me, let them know I kept my own account.

When at last the candle guttered and died, I closed the ledger.

For a moment, I simply sat in the darkness, listening to the faint groan of the timbers.

Then I rose and gathered what I would need for the journey upriver.

---

Before dawn, I slipped from the loft and locked the door behind me.

The streets were still, the snow glazed to a crust that cracked beneath each careful step.

I did not look back.

Three names remained.

I would not wait for them to find me first.

---

The river road began at the old toll arch where the guild once posted their collectors.

The arch still stood, though the windows had been boarded and the iron bell removed. A faint scrape of iron hinges sounded overhead—someone shifting behind a shutter.

I paused beneath the arch, lifting my eyes to the place where watchers might have crouched unseen.

Nothing.

The wind carried only the smell of river ice and old soot.

---

I walked for nearly an hour, passing long stretches of crumbling warehouses and sheds shuttered against the cold.

Once, I glimpsed a figure standing at the edge of a timber yard—a tall man in a dark coat, face hidden by a scarf.

When I turned to look, he had vanished into the rows of stacked beams.

I did not follow.

---

By midday, I reached the place Hart had described: a low building of unpainted boards, set back from the track by a yard of trampled snow.

No sign marked the lintel.

A single lantern burned behind the shutter.

I stepped closer, testing the packed drifts for any track of a second visitor. Only the imprint of boots—broad-soled, with a worn edge at the heel.

Old shoes, or the same pair worn too long.

I knocked twice, then waited.

Nothing.

I lifted my hand to knock again.

This time, a voice called from within, thin and measured.

"Speak."

"My name is Ren Arcanon," I said.

Silence.

"I'm not with the guild."

More silence.

Then the door cracked open, and a narrow face appeared—sharp cheekbones, close-cropped beard, eyes pale as river ice.

He regarded me without any sign of curiosity.

"You've come a long way," he said.

"I was told you know how to move what others cannot."

He did not answer.

Instead, he reached out one thin hand, palm up.

I drew the iron seal from my coat and set it across his fingers.

His thumb brushed the copper chasing, as though testing whether the mark was real.

When he looked up again, his expression had not changed, but something in the set of his shoulders eased.

"Come in," he said at last.

---

Inside, the air was warmer, though it held the stale damp of a place sealed against too many winters.

Shelves lined the walls, crowded with bundles wrapped in oilcloth and sealed with plain wax. No guild markings, no merchant sigils—just a meticulous anonymity that told its own story.

Sallo shut the door behind me and gestured to a narrow bench along the wall.

"Sit," he said.

I did.

He set the seal on the table between us, then pulled a chair across the floor with a slow scrape.

"Who sent you?"

"Hart."

"Still breathing, then?"

"For now."

Sallo's mouth twitched, though no smile followed.

"And what is it you think you want from me?"

"Passage," I said. "For goods that don't belong on any guild ledger."

He regarded me a long moment, as though waiting for the usual lies to follow.

When none came, he inclined his head, just slightly.

"You understand the cost."

"I understand more than most."

---

A faint creak sounded overhead—wood shifting, or something more deliberate.

Sallo's eyes flicked upward, then returned to mine.

"You were followed," he said.

"No."

"Then watched."

"Perhaps."

He tapped the seal once with a forefinger.

"This is no small thing you carry."

"I'm aware."

"You're certain you want this."

"I'm certain I have no other road."

---

He rose and crossed to a shelf near the far wall, rummaging through a stack of ledgers bound in coarse twine.

When he returned, he set a small iron token on the table—a square with a circle cut through the center.

"Show this when you come to the lock," he said. "They'll open the gate."

"And if they refuse?"

"They won't."

I took the token. It felt oddly warm despite the chill of the room.

Sallo's gaze did not waver.

"If you fail," he said, "they'll bury you in a ditch and say it was your own greed that killed you."

"Then I'll have no complaint," I said evenly.

He nodded, as though this, too, was an acceptable answer.

---

When I stepped back into the day, the wind had risen.

Snow skirled across the yard, erasing the tracks of any who had come before.

I slipped the token into my coat and started back down the road.

Three names crossed.

Three doors opened.

And still, the watchers waited.