The rogue camp slowly began to feel less like a foreign place and more like… a strange version of home.
By the third day, no one stared quite as long. The whispers hadn't vanished, but they'd softened. And some even nodded at me in passing. That was something.
I didn't stay idle.
Every morning, I woke early with the smell of ash and pine still clinging to the sky. Garrick said it was how my grandmother always started her days—with movement, with purpose. So I did too.
At first, I stuck close to Maelra, who had unofficially taken me under her wing. She wasn't warm, but she didn't scowl at me either, which felt like a blessing in this camp.
"You've got working hands, girl," she said one morning, slapping a lump of dough onto the flat stones by the fire. "Might as well use them."
