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She glanced back at the mural—the painted Warden, the great tree alive and shining—and forced the image from her mind. Whatever darkness lingered beyond the square could wait a little longer. For now, she needed something that reminded her the world was still worth saving, cracked and imperfect as it was.

Chapter 20

The Sincerity of Shells

The festival taking place in the Lower District held a different kind of excitement—louder, rougher, but no less joyful. Stalls leaned into one another like drunken neighbors, their signs hand-painted or scrawled on scraps of wood.

Here, the air smelled of fried bread and smoke, laughter echoing off the stone buildings. Entertainment here leaned toward the physical: archery games, arm-wrestling tournaments, stone throwing, and of course, the pebblet races.

An Elder, long gone now, had once raised pebblets and loved them so dearly they’d insisted the races become a permanent part of Hearthroot. By the time Wren was old enough to attend Hearthroot, they were already a beloved tradition.

A crooked banner stretched between two leaning posts near the entrance, proudly displaying Daisy—last year’s champion—mid-waddle. A flower crown perched triumphantly on her stone shell.

Orzen stopped dead.

“Wait,” he said slowly. “It’s turtles? You’re not serious.” Wren bit back a grin as his expression shifted from curiosity to disbelief.

“They’re not turtles, Orzen,” she said, folding her arms across her chest. “They’re pebblets. Rock tortoises. And yes, I’m very serious. It’s adorable.”

He stared a moment longer, mouth slightly open like he couldn’t process the concept, before she laughed and tugged him toward the benches where the crowd was already gathering. The raceway stretched down the grass—ropes marking the edges, chalk lines dividing lanes—as if lanes mattered in a race like this.

The place hadn’t changed. Her father used to sit with her on these same benches, both debating which moss-shelled creature would come in last. She could almost hear his laugh in the crowd’s—a reminder that not all memories were lost to the pain.

At the far end of the track, trainers crouched beside their racers’ shells, murmuring encouragement and adjusting ribbons with their names scrawled across them. To keep the pebblets on course, a colorful bounty of produce waited at the finish line. Sometimes it worked. More often, the pebblets had their own ideas about where they wanted to go.

Orzen followed her with the weary resignation of a man who’d accepted his fate. She pulled him to a bench near the front. The joyous chatter was infectious. She caught his eye, and he huffed a laugh, settling beside her.

Once the racers were in place, a tall man in a pebblet-themed gloamguise bellowed, “On your marks—and go!”

The owners released the shells. Nothing happened.

One named Thunder—a pebblet with rough, dark coloring across his scales—took a single, hesitant step forward, then promptly stopped to nibble some grass. The crowd cheered like he’d already won. Wren clapped, laughter bubbling up as the other racers blinked around slowly, as if barely realizing where they were.

“You’re really excited about this,” Orzen said, disbelief threading through his voice.

“Of course I am. Look at them.”

She grinned as Biscuit—the pebblet in the center—curled into the grass like it was settling in for a nap. Two more began a glacial crawl down the track, nudging each other like moss-covered marbles on a mission.

She turned to catch Orzen’s reaction—but he wasn’t paying attention to the race at all. Behind his gloamguise, his eyes were focused on her, quiet and intent, as if she’d done something remarkable instead of getting far too excited over a silly race at a festival.

“What?” she asked, shifting on the bench and adjusting her mask. “Am I too old to enjoy this?”

“No,” he said quickly, almost startled. “You keep surprising me. I don’t think I’ve met anyone quite like you before.”

She wasn’t sure how to take that so instead, she pretended to focus on the track. Daisy ambled sideways into Gravel’s lane and bumped right into him as if she hadn’t even noticed he existed.

“Everyone here’s a little unusual,” Orzen said, finally, an air of amusement to his words.

“I choose to take that as a compliment,” she countered.

“It was meant as one.” He shrugged and the smile beneath the shadow of his mask was genuine. “Unusual people are more interesting.”

She studied him for a moment, trying to decide what that meant. Being considered unusual in Thistlehold certainly wasn’t a compliment. But coming from him, it sounded true.

She knew little of his past, beyond the scraps he’d given her. With every new piece, it was harder to think of him simply…leaving. He didn’t seem like the sort of man who stayed anywhere for long. All the more reason to not let herself get attached. Unfortunately, once she started caring about someone, it was impossible for her to not want to know more about them.

She’d memorized Jessa’s favorite folktales because she’d asked to hear them so often, knowing it would bring Jessa joy to tell them. Brunna’s secret desire was to forge both tools and jewelry—like the horn caps she’d been gifted—because a woman’s got to tell the world she can be both strong and beautiful at the same time. Those little details made Wren love them all the more.