The Briar Hearth had regulars.
Not people who lived there, but people who returned often enough that Mara remembered what they drank before they asked.
Hobb preferred watered ale and complained whenever anyone called it watered ale.
Ser Moryn, who was not actually a knight, insisted everyone call him Ser Moryn anyway.
Nobody did.
Then there was Wat.
Wat drove a cart between Duskendale and several smaller settlements along the road.
He was perhaps forty, though Raymun had learned that age was harder to judge in Westeros.
He had a crooked nose, a missing tooth, and a laugh loud enough to reach the stable.
He always sat in the same chair.
Third table from the hearth.
Back toward the wall.
“Safer,” he’d once explained.
“From what?” Raymun asked.
“People.”
Raymun had looked around the quiet common room.
“There are six people here.”
“Exactly.
Surrounded.”
Wat also bought two Briar Drops whenever he visited.
One for himself.
One supposedly for his daughter.
Raymun suspected both reached Wat.
He never challenged him.
A repeat customer was a repeat customer.
One autumn evening, Wat arrived later than usual.
Raymun noticed immediately.
His cart rolled into the yard after sunset, one wheel squeaking badly.
Garran stepped outside.
“Took your time.”
“Road tried to eat my wheel.”
“Road’s got better taste than I thought.”
Wat climbed down.
“You’ll regret that when I take my considerable business elsewhere.”
“You owe me three pennies.”
“Then clearly I’m trapped.”
Normal.
Comforting.
Raymun carried Wat’s usual ale to his chair.
“Watered?”
Wat asked.
Raymun placed it down.
“Finest water in the Crownlands.”
Wat took a drink.
“Needs more ale.”
“You can’t afford it.”
Wat stared at him.
“You’ve become disrespectful.”
“I’ve been learning from my father.”
Across the room, Garran raised his cup.
“Good boy.”
Later that night, Wat unfolded a scrap of parchment.
“Boy.”
Raymun approached.
Wat pointed to several marks.
“Read that.”
Raymun did.
It was a tally from a warehouse.
Nothing complicated.
“You owe them for six sacks.”
“I told them five.”
“It says six.”
“They loaded five.”
Raymun checked again.
“Six.”
Wat swore.
“Could be a mistake.”
“Could be.”
“Could be thieves.”
“Also possible.”
Wat looked at him.
“You’re supposed to tell me I’m right.”
“Why?”
“I’m older.”
Raymun smiled.
“That doesn’t make you right.”
Wat leaned toward Garran.
“Your son’s becoming unbearable.”
Garran didn’t look up.
“Becoming?”
Raymun liked Wat.
That surprised him sometimes.
On Earth, friendships between a child and a forty-year-old stranger would have seemed unusual.
Here, the inn placed people together.
Raymun knew merchants, carters, craftsmen, farmers, peddlers, guardsmen, servants, and travelers whose names he never learned.
Some returned.
Some didn’t.
Wat returned.
He taught Raymun which stretches of road became nearly impassable after heavy rain.
He knew which stablemasters watered feed.
Which villages charged outsiders too much.
Which bridges could take a heavily loaded cart.
Which shortcuts were not actually shortcuts.
None of those things appeared on maps.
Raymun created another Journal section.
ROAD NOTES
Raymun marked him:
Road conditions — High reliability.
Duskendale gossip — Low reliability.
Stories involving attractive widows — Extremely low reliability.
Raymun had felt particularly proud of that last classification.
Winter approached.
Wat stopped at the Briar Hearth again.
Then left toward Duskendale.
“Next week,” he told Garran.
“Pay what you owe next week.”
“I’ll consider it.”
“You’ll pay.”
Wat climbed onto his cart.
He pointed toward Raymun.
“Save me two sweets.”
“One.”
“Two.”
“Pay your debt.”
Wat looked wounded.
“Merchant blood.”
“I’m an innkeeper’s son.”
“Worse.”
He drove away laughing.
Raymun watched until the cart disappeared.
The next week came.
Wat didn’t.
Raymun barely noticed.
Carters were delayed all the time.
Then another week passed.
Still nothing.
“Probably changed his route,” Garran said.
Raymun nodded.
Another ten days.
A different carter entered one afternoon.
Mara served him stew.
They talked quietly.
Raymun was cleaning a table when Mara suddenly stopped moving.
“What?” Garran asked.
The carter lowered his voice.
Raymun couldn’t hear the next words.
But he saw his father’s face.
Garran looked toward the third table from the hearth.
Wat’s chair.
Empty.
Raymun knew.
Before anyone told him, he knew.
The cart had overturned north of Duskendale.
Bad road.
Heavy load.
Wat had been pinned beneath it.
He lived long enough for someone to find him.
Not long enough to reach a healer.
Raymun stood behind the counter.
“Oh.”
That was all he said.
Mara touched his shoulder.
Raymun shrugged her hand away.
Not angrily.
He simply didn’t want it.
He walked outside.
The stable smelled of hay and horses.
Raymun sat on an overturned bucket.
He had known people who died on Earth.
Older relatives.
A former coworker’s father.
Names in news reports.
Death had always existed.
But Wat had been here.
Last month.
Laughing.
Complaining about ale.
Arguing over warehouse tallies.
Promising to return next week.
There had been no dramatic final words.
No quest.
No warning.
No opportunity for Raymun to use his knowledge.
A cart overturned.
A man died.
That was all.
Raymun opened the System.
Nothing.
No notification.
No hidden quest failed.
No message explaining what he could have done differently.
He almost became angry at it.
Then realized how ridiculous that was.
The System had never promised to protect anyone.
That evening, Raymun found two Briar Drops in the small jar near the counter.
He carried them toward Wat’s table.
Then stopped.
Stupid.
Wat was dead. Read this novel at novelping.com for the best experience.
Leaving sweets for him wouldn’t change that.
Raymun turned away.
“Leave them.”
Garran’s voice.
Raymun looked back.
His father was standing behind the counter.
“For what?”
Garran shrugged.
“Because you want to.”
Raymun looked at the sweets.
He placed them on the table.
One for Wat.
One for his daughter.
Maybe that second one really had reached her.
Raymun hoped so.
The chair remained empty for three days.
On the fourth, a traveler sat in it.
Raymun nearly told him to move.
The words reached his throat.
Then stopped.
It was a chair.
The man had done nothing wrong.
Raymun served him supper.
The world continued.
He hated that a little.
Weeks later, Raymun was updating his road notes.
He reached Wat’s entries.
For several seconds he considered removing them.
Instead, he changed the heading.
WAT — CARTER
Deceased.
Below it remained everything Wat had taught him.
Roads.
Bridges.
Villages.
Stablemasters.
Warnings.
Raymun stared at the words.
Wat was gone.
But something he’d known remained.
It wasn’t immortality.
Raymun wasn’t foolish enough to call it that.
Still— it mattered.
He added one final note.
People are not valuable only because of what they know.
Then:
But what people know should not always die with them.
Raymun closed the Journal.
Winter settled over the Briar Hearth.
Life became smaller.
Firewood.
Stew.
Repairs.
Lessons.
Snow came lightly one morning and melted before noon.
Ellyn demanded they build a snow castle anyway.
There wasn’t enough snow.
She refused to accept this.
Bran arrived.
The three children scraped snow from half the yard until they managed to construct something approximately the size of a cooking pot.
Ellyn planted her wooden dragon on top.
“Our castle.”
Bran stared at it.
“This is terrible.”
“You’re terrible.”
“I could kick it over.”
Ellyn grabbed snow.
“Don’t.”
Bran grinned.
Raymun stepped backward.
“I’m not involved.”
Ellyn threw.
Bran ducked.
The snowball hit Raymun directly in the face.
Silence.
Ellyn’s eyes widened.
Bran began laughing.
Raymun wiped snow from his nose.
“Oh.”
He bent down.
“You’ve made a mistake.”
Ellyn screamed happily and ran.
Raymun chased her.
For the next ten minutes, Wat did not cross his mind.
Later, Raymun would understand that this wasn’t betrayal.
Grief didn’t require misery every moment.
The hearth kept burning.
People ate.
Children laughed.
Travelers came and went.
Some returned.
Some never did.
And slowly, without Raymun noticing exactly when it happened, he began learning one of the hardest truths of his second life.
Keeping the hearth burning did not mean nothing was ever lost.
It meant there was still warmth for whoever remained.