Chapter 2 Brynn
brYNN
The sound of Rhea's laughter pulls me around the counter, but it's the softer echo beneath it that makes my steps falter.
A delicate sound, like wind chimes barely touched by a breeze.
When I reach the display case, I find my daughter cross-legged on the floor beside a small dark elf girl perched on the stool I keep for tired customers.
The child is pale as winter moonlight, her slate-gray skin almost translucent, with wavy dark hair that catches the lamplight.
She looks fragile in a way that makes my chest squeeze tight—too thin, too quiet, the kind of careful stillness that speaks of illness or exhaustion.
But her eyes are bright with something I recognize: the tentative spark of a child discovering an unexpected friend.
"—and then Mrs. Kelven insisted the purple ink would make her shopping lists more important," Rhea is saying, gesturing wildly with ink-stained fingers. "As if the color of ink could make buying turnips sound grand."
The little girl's laugh comes again, soft but genuine, and I see how it transforms her wan features. For a moment, she looks like what she should be—an eight-year-old child finding joy in absurdity rather than a shadow wrapped in expensive travel clothes.
Movement in my peripheral vision draws my attention to the man stepping out from behind the manuscript shelves.
Tall doesn't begin to cover it—he has to duck slightly to avoid the hanging lamp near the poetry section.
Dark elf, obviously, with that distinctive ashen skin and the kind of aristocratic bone structure that marks him as nobility despite his simple traveling clothes.
But it's his eyes that stop me cold. Violet-like polished amethyst, flecked with silver that catches the light when he turns his head. They're striking enough on their own, but there's something else—something that sends an uncomfortable twist through my stomach, like recognition without memory.
I force my expression into the neutral politeness I've perfected over years of running a shop. Friendly enough to encourage business, distant enough to discourage personal questions.
"Everything all right out here?" I ask, though clearly it is. My daughter looks more animated than she has in weeks, and the dark elf child seems to be emerging from whatever shell she'd wrapped herself in.
The man's attention shifts to me, and I catch the slight tightening around his eyes that suggests he's cataloguing details the way I am. Taking in my practical clothes, my ink-stained apron, the calluses on my hands from hauling crates and binding books.
"Your daughter has been very kind to mine," he says, and his voice carries the cultured accent of someone educated in the great cities. "I'm Ciaran Delyth."
The name means nothing to me, though the formal way he offers it suggests it should. I incline my head politely. "Brynn Corven. And you've already met Rhea, obviously."
"We're from Kyrdonis," the little girl—his daughter—offers quietly, glancing between Rhea and me as if testing the waters of this adult conversation.
"Long way to travel with winter setting in," I observe, moving back toward the counter so I can write down his order. "Passing through to Kantor?"
"Actually, we're staying for the season." Ciaran follows me, his long stride making the shop feel smaller than usual. "I thought..." He pauses, glancing back at his daughter. "The quiet will be good for both of us."
There's weight in those words, the kind that speaks of recent loss or upheaval. I've heard it often enough in my own voice to recognize it in others. I don't press—questions about personal business are the fastest way to lose customers in a town this size.
Instead, I focus on gathering his order. The parchment he's requested is good quality, the kind poets and serious writers prefer. Expensive, but not so much that it screams nobility. The purple ink, though—that's a luxury item, the sort of thing that marks a man as either wealthy or impractical.
"Poet, then?" I ask, wrapping the ink bottles in soft cloth to prevent breakage.
"Among other things." His tone is modest, almost self-deprecating. "Novels, mostly. Poetry when the mood strikes."
I pause in my wrapping. A novelist from Kyrdonis, traveling with a sickly daughter to spend winter in relative isolation. Either he's running from something or toward it, and neither possibility is particularly comforting.
But when I glance up, he's not watching me.
His attention has caught on something in the corner behind the counter—the small stone sculpture I keep there, a delicate carving of an iypin mid-leap.
The craftsmanship is exquisite, each detail of the creature's fur rendered in smooth stone, its expression captured with an artist's eye for both anatomy and spirit.
His mouth curves into the first genuine smile I've seen from him, though there's something wistful in it. "My brother used to carve pieces just like that."
The words hit me like cold water, and I have to concentrate on keeping my hands steady as I continue wrapping his purchases. "Did he?" I manage, proud of how level my voice sounds.
"Mm." Ciaran's fingers hover near the sculpture but don't quite touch, as if he's afraid of disturbing something sacred. "Always had a talent for it, even as children. Could make stone look like it was breathing."
My heart stutters against my ribs, but I only nod. "It's beautiful work."
"We were never particularly close," he continues with a shrug that doesn't quite mask the regret in his voice. "Different temperaments, different paths. Last I heard, he'd gone to Oshta to study with some renowned master sculptor.”
I nod as I tie off the package containing his ink.
Even if I don't particularly like thinking of dark elf sculptors who passed through Eryndral with stories of artistic greatness waiting in the northern cities.
Not when I was fool enough to believe in promises whispered against my ear in the darkness of my small room above this very shop.
"Sculptors," Ciaran says with a dry laugh that pulls me back to the present. "Most insufferable of the Chivdouyu caste, if you ask me. All artistic temperament and grand gestures, no practical sense whatsoever."
The comment is so unexpected, delivered with such casual humor, that I actually laugh before I can stop myself. It's a short sound, more surprise than amusement, but genuine nonetheless.
His smile widens at the sound, transforming his entire face. The aristocratic features soften, and for a moment he looks less like a brooding nobleman and more like a man who remembers how to find joy in simple moments.
"There," he says, as if my laughter has accomplished something important. "I was beginning to think the north had frozen all the warmth out of the people up here."
"Just the smart ones," I reply before I can think better of it. "The rest of us are too stubborn to know when we should give up."
His eyes crinkle with genuine amusement, and I feel an uncomfortable flutter in my chest. This is dangerous territory—the kind of easy banter that can lead places I've sworn never to go again. I turn my attention back to his packages, adding up numbers with more concentration than they require.
"Dad, can we stay a little longer?" His daughter's voice drifts over from where she and Rhea have moved to examine a collection of bound journals. "Rhea was going to show me how she organizes her writing practice."
Ciaran glances at me, a question in his raised eyebrows. "If it's not too much trouble?"
Part of me wants to say yes. Rhea looks happier than she has in weeks, and there's something about the careful way his daughter moves that tugs at my protective instincts.
But the larger part—the part that's learned hard lessons about dark elf men and their casual ability to upend careful lives—knows better.
"I'm afraid I need to close soon," I say, not entirely a lie. "Preparations for Ikuyenda, you understand."
He nods, though I catch the flash of disappointment in his expression. "Of course. Nya, time to go."
The little girl—Nya—turns with reluctance that mirrors Rhea's. "But we were just—"
"I know, sweetheart." His voice gentles when he addresses his daughter, the endearment carrying a warmth that makes my chest tight. "But we need to find shelter for the equu."
As he pays for his supplies, counting out coins with the kind of casual precision that speaks of wealth kept carefully hidden, I find myself studying his hands.
Long-fingered and elegant, marked with the telltale ink stains of a writer.
No calluses from manual labor, but not soft either.
The hands of someone who works with his mind rather than his back.
"Thank you," he says as I hand over his packages. "For the supplies, and for..." He glances toward where Rhea is helping Nya into her heavy cloak. "Kindness isn't always easy to find on the road."
"Eryndral takes care of its own," I reply, then immediately wonder why I phrased it that way. As if I'm claiming them, somehow.
He pauses at the door, one hand on the brass handle. "Perhaps we'll see you before we have to leave again."
It's not quite a question, not quite a statement. An opening, if I want to take it.
"Perhaps," I say, which commits me to nothing at all.
And then they're gone, the brass bell chiming their departure.
Through the front window, I watch them make their way to where a patient equu waits, her breath steaming in the cold air.
Ciaran lifts his daughter carefully, settling her against his chest before mounting, and I'm struck again by how gentle he is with her. How protective.
Rhea appears at my elbow, pressing her face to the glass. "They're nice, aren't they, Mum? Nya knows so much about books, and she's read stories I've never even heard of. And her father writes real novels that people buy in shops."
"Mm," I murmur, still watching as they disappear around the bend in the road.
"Do you think they'll stay for Ikuyenda? Nya's never seen a proper festival celebration. Well, she has, but not like ours. She says the city ones are all fancy and stuffy, with rules about who can do what when."
I turn away from the window, that uncomfortable ache still sitting heavy against my ribs. There was something about Ciaran Delyth that stirred memories I'd rather leave buried. Something in the way he moved, the cadence of his voice, the way he talked about the sculptor and the Chivdouyu.
"We'll see," I tell Rhea, gathering up the day's receipts with hands that want to shake. "Winter's long. Plenty of time for paths to cross again."