Skuggi waited until the last refugee had eaten before he spoke.

  "When we reach the next settlement, you decide what happens next."

  A woman with burn scars across her forearms stopped chewing. The boy who'd been trailing behind the group for three days went still. No one looked at Skuggi directly. They looked at each other instead, passing something unspoken between them in glances and the way shoulders curved inward.

  The burned woman swallowed. "You're cutting us loose."

  "I'm giving you a choice."

  "Choice." She barked a laugh. Bits of dried meat clung to her teeth. "Sure. We can pick which gutter to die in."

  An older man, the one who walked with a stick he'd carved from an oak branch, shifted his weight. The stick pressed into the dirt. "Cities don't take refugees. Not ones like us."

  Skuggi studied the surrounding faces. Dirt under fingernails. Clothes that had been mended so many times the original fabric was difficult to distinguish from the patches. The boy's feet were wrapped in cloth instead of proper boots. They certainly had their shares of misfortunes.

  "What happens in cities?" Skuggi asked.

  "They look at us," the burned woman said. "They see we've got nothing to trade, no guild marks, no family names. Then they decide we're worth less than the dogs that run through the streets."

  The old man nodded. "Saw it happen in one of the cities of the Tenth Guild close by to Ratissima. Guards rounded up anyone without proof of residence and threw them past the walls. Some of them... some of them were children."

  A younger man, maybe twenty, picked at the seam of his shirt. "I tried to get work in three different towns. They asked what I could do. I told them I could farm, could mend fences, could haul stone. Every single one told me to move along before they called someone to make me move along."

  Skuggi watched the way their bodies arranged themselves. Curved spines. Arms crossed over chests. The boy had pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms around them.

  "So you want to stay with me."

  "We don't want to die in a ditch," the burned woman said. "If that's what staying with you prevents, then yes."

  Skuggi had expected this. Not the exact words, but the weight behind them. These people had been discarded before. They expected it again.

  "Then we keep moving. I need to learn how this world works anyway."

  The old man's eyebrows lifted. "You talk like you're not from here."

  "I'm not."

  "Where are you from?"

  Skuggi looked at the fire between them. Orange light caught on the edges of rocks arranged in a circle. "Nowhere that matters anymore."

  Over the next days, Skuggi found himself watching Freia.

  She walked at the edge of the group, always. Not quite separate, but not fully among them either. Her hair hung loose, darker than the others, and she kept her hands visible at all times, palms out when she reached for anything shared.

  The burned woman had called her blue blood. The villagers had used the term too, spat it like a curse before they threw stones.

  Skuggi didn't know what it meant. He knew only that Freia moved differently than the others. Quieter. More deliberate. Like someone who'd learned to make themselves smaller than they were.

  On the third day of travel, he picked berries from a thicket and brought them to her.

  She stared at his outstretched hand. Her eyes were gray, the kind of gray that looked different depending on the light.

  "For you," Skuggi said.

  "Why?"

  "You didn't eat much yesterday."

  Her jaw worked. She glanced past him, toward where the others had started setting up for the night. When she looked back, her expression hadn't changed.

  "I ate enough."

  "You gave half your portion to the boy."

  "He's still growing."

  Skuggi kept his hand extended. Three berries sat in his palm, dark and ripe. "So take these."

  She did, finally. Her fingers didn't touch his skin. She ate one berry immediately, chewed it thoroughly, swallowed.

  "Thank you."

  He'd expected more. Questions, maybe… Suspicion more than anything. But she just ate the second berry and walked away, the third still cupped in her hand.

  The next evening, he brought her a piece of cooked rabbit. She took it the same way. No questions. No gratitude beyond two words so far…

  By the fifth day, he realized he ate less than the others. His body didn't demand food the same way theirs did. He could go a full day without eating and feel nothing except a distant, background awareness that he should probably eat something eventually. The others got shaky without regular meals. Their movements slowed. The boy complained his stomach hurt.

  Skuggi didn't get shaky. Didn't slow down. Whatever had been done to him in the lab, it had changed how his body worked compared to a former human. Did they really mean to make him a weapon that would never rest… what else were they hiding…

  So he gave Freia what he didn't need. She never asked why. Never questioned it.

  But she started staying closer when they walked.

  On the eighth day, Skuggi stopped the group an hour before sunset.

  "We need to talk."

  The burned woman set down the bundle she'd been carrying. "About what?"

  "About who you are. What you can do. If we're traveling together long-term, I need to know what I'm working with."

  The old man leaned on his stick. "You want us to prove we're useful."

  "I want to know your names, referring to you as old with the stick wouldnt not be fun after a few times would it?," Skuggi said. "And yes. What you're good at. We're going to need those things if we plan to survive more than a few weeks, I cant keep on watch the whole day."

  The younger man who'd talked about farming crossed his arms. "And if we're not good at anything?"

  "Then you're still a body that can carry supplies and keep watch."

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  No one spoke for a moment. The wind pushed through the surrounding trees, sending leaves skittering across the ground.

  "Sit," Skuggi said. "Everyone who wants to stay, sit."

  They did. Slowly. The burned woman first, then the old man, then the others one by one. Thirteen people in total, including Freia. They formed a rough circle in the dirt, bodies angled toward the center but not quite trusting enough to sit close to one another.

  Skuggi sat last. "I'll start. My name is Skuggi. I'm good enough at fighting, and analysing if the burdens i carry are worthy. I'm learning the rest as I go."

  The burned woman went next. "Call me Hilde. I can cook, I can sew, I know which plants will kill you and which ones won't."

  The old man shifted his stick from one hand to the other. "Egil. I've been a woodworker for forty years. I can build shelters, carve tools, read weather patterns."

  The younger man uncrossed his arms. "Torsten. I can farm. I can hunt if someone gives me a bow. I'm strong enough to haul whatever needs hauling."

  They went around the circle. A woman named Yrsa who knew how to treat wounds and set broken bones. A teenage girl named Signi who could barely read and write, rare enough that Egil whistled low when she said it. A man named Bjorn who'd worked in a tannery before it burned down.

  The boy was named Kalf. He said he could run fast and climb trees. No one laughed at him.

  When it came to Freia, she looked at her hands for a long moment before speaking.

  "Freia. I was taught to read people. I know when someone's or might be lying. I learned b when someone's about to do something violent but beyond that i only know about matters like history or languages."

  Hilde's eyes narrowed. "That's a gift?"

  "That's survival."

  "Blue bloods have gifts," Hilde said. "Real ones. Not just good instincts."

  Freia's expression didn't change. "Then I guess I'm not a superb blue blood."

  The air between them pulled taut. Skuggi watched Hilde's hands, watched the way her fingers curled slightly. Watched Freia's spine straighten.

  "Doesn't matter what she is," Skuggi said. "It matters what she can do. If she can tell when someone's lying, that's useful."

  Hilde held Freia's gaze for three more seconds before looking away.

  They finished the circle. By the time the last person spoke, the sun had dropped below the treeline and shadows stretched long across the ground.

  Skuggi stood. "We move at first light. Egil, you're responsible for finding us a safe location to shelter each night. Hilde, you handle food preparation. Torsten, you and Bjorn take first watch rotation."

  He didn't ask if they agreed. He just walked to the edge of the clearing and sat with his back against a tree.

  Freia followed him. She didn't sit close, just within speaking distance.

  "You're putting yourself in charge."

  "Someone has to."

  "They might not like it."

  Skuggi looked at her. At the way she kept her hands visible, even now. At the careful space she maintained between herself and everyone else.

  "Do you like it?"

  She considered this. The last light caught in her eyes, turned them almost silver.

  "I think you'll keep us alive longer than we'd manage on our own."

  "That's not an answer."

  "It's the only one that matters."

  She walked away then, back toward the others. Skuggi watched her go and realized he still didn't know what blue blood meant.

  The next few days a group of travelers asked to be joining their caravan as they needed to reach somewhere safe and Skuggi looked reliable so they would pay him for getting them to the next village. Skuggi looked at Freia and she nodded.

  Skuggi did the same thing he had done with his group, about opening up. Once it started, the attention shifted forward. A young man, maybe nineteen, with skin a few shades lighter than most of the group. He had broad shoulders and hands that looked like they'd done work, but his face hadn't hardened the way the older refugees' had.

  "Aionel." He planted both palms on his knees, leaning in. "I'm good with people. I can talk us out of trouble if we run into it, and I can keep morale up when things get bad. I'll take first watch tonight. Someone needs to, and I don't sleep much anyway."

  Hilde examined him the way she might examine a cut of meat at market. "You always this eager?"

  "I'm alive," Aionel said. "That's worth being eager about."

  A few people nodded. The boy, Kalf, sat up straighter, like Aionel's words had given him permission to do the same.

  A woman with gray streaks in her hair raised her hand next. She had the kind of posture that came from years of standing in one place doing repetitive work.

  "Materlyn. I've worked in castle kitchens and great halls for twenty years. I know how to cook for large groups, how to stretch supplies, how to clean and organize a camp. If you need someone to manage the practical side of things, I can do that."

  Skuggi filed that away. Practical. The kind of person who wouldn't complain about the work that needed doing.

  A man across the circle caught Skuggi's attention by waving both hands in broad, angular motions. His mouth stayed closed. He pointed at himself, then made a series of gestures… fingers moving in patterns Skuggi couldn't decode.

  People stared. The man's face didn't change. He kept gesturing, faster now, frustration creeping into the sharpness of his movements.

  "He can't talk," Egil said quietly.

  The man stopped. He looked at the ground, then picked up a stick and started scratching in the dirt.

  JURGEN. HUNTER. GOOD WITH BOW AND TRACKING. LET ME PROVE IT.

  The letters were rough but readable. Signe Jurgen′s companion leaned forward to read them aloud for those who couldn't.

  Jurgen set down the stick and met Skuggi's eyes. His expression held a challenge. Give me a chance.

  Skuggi nodded. "We'll need hunters. You'll get your chance."

  Jurgen's shoulders dropped half an inch. Relief, maybe. Or just the release of held breath.

  But Skuggi's mind was already working. Sign language. A way to communicate without sound. In the lab, they'd used hand signals during stealth exercises, simple things… stop, go, danger. But a full language, one that could convey complex ideas...

  He looked at Jurgen's hands. At the way his fingers had moved, precise and quick.

  "Can you teach me?" Skuggi asked.

  Jurgen blinked. His eyebrows lifted.

  Skuggi pointed at his own hands, then at Jurgen. "Your signs. I want to learn them."

  The others were watching now. Hilde frowned. "Why would you need that?"

  "Hunting," Skuggi said. "Ambushes. Anything where noise gets you killed. If Jurgen and I can talk without speaking, we have an advantage."

  Jurgen's face split into a grin. He nodded hard, then gestured again, a quick, enthusiastic series of movements that Skuggi assumed meant yes or I'll teach you or something close to that.

  "Good," Skuggi said. "We'll start tomorrow."

  “???????? ??? ???????... ?????? ???? ?? ???????? ?? ?????? ?? ??? ?? ?????????...”

  “Monsters are mirrors... showing only the darkness we refuse to see in ourselves...”

  How was it??