An hour before sunrise, a new message appeared before him.
Esteban sat on a flat stone at the edge of a narrow ravine, two miles from Olmo, staring at his left palm, which was wrapped in cloth. He hadn't slept. He hadn't eaten. The cloth had turned into a stiff, black mass of dried blood, and beneath it, slow, painful throbs pulsed as though there were a second heart in his palm that refused to stop beating.
A few steps away, Rico slept curled up in his blanket, his head resting on his bag and his mouth slightly open. He had only fallen asleep when exhaustion finally overcame him, after spending half the night rewrapping the wound and asking in a low voice, "Does it hurt?"
Every time, Esteban had answered, "A little."
That wasn't true.
Suddenly, thin blue letters materialized in the air between his eyes and the ravine, glowing faintly like an ember beneath the ashes.
[Inventory]
He froze.
He didn't look around. He already knew what he would find: Rico asleep, the ravine silent, and dawn still some time away. No one else could see it. The writing was visible only to him, just as it had been on previous nights, as though it existed for his eyes alone.
The word pulsed.
Slowly, without knowing what he was doing, he raised his right hand and pressed his finger against the air where the letters hovered.
It opened.
There was no sound. It unfolded like a window opening beneath the surface of water. Small blue circles spread outward, followed by a transparent rectangular panel about the size of a book, suspended in midair. Two options appeared on its surface:
[Upgrades] [Weapons]
Beneath them, in smaller letters, was something he couldn't understand.
He took a breath and pressed the first option.
The two choices disappeared, replaced by a single line in the center of the panel, standing alone as though it contained everything he possessed.
[Healing Upgrade × 1]
[Heals a single wound.]
He didn't move.
There was nothing about the wound throbbing in his palm that made him hesitate. Something else did. A question he knew he would never find the answer to.
Who had given him this? And why now? Had this upgrade been born the moment his wooden weapon pierced a man's heart?
He didn't want to think about it.
He glanced at the sleeping figure beside him, then back at the writing.
He pressed it.
Heat came first.
It wasn't the heat of fire. It came from within, from the flesh itself, seeping from the bones of his palm into his fingers. The tension that had gripped his entire arm began to loosen. He felt something close up, the edges of the wound draw together, and the throbbing pain gradually fade before disappearing as though it had never existed.
Within seconds, the pain in his palm was gone.
With trembling fingers, he unwound the cloth.
The skin beneath was pink and clean, without a hole, a scar, or the slightest mark. It was the palm of a man who had never held a sword. He turned his hand beneath the gray morning light, curled it into a fist, then spread his fingers.
Every finger moved with an unnatural ease, as though nothing had ever happened.
From the stone against his chest came a single heartbeat, brief and warm, like a satisfied sigh.
He didn't feel relieved.
Instead, he felt something heavier.
He suspected the heat had come at a price. That the gift that had healed his hand hadn't been given freely, and that it had been born in the very moment the light left a man's eyes.
He couldn't stop himself from wondering:
How many good things in this world were built upon things we couldn't see?
"Esteban?"
He turned sharply.
Rico had sat up inside his blanket, rubbing his eyes. Then he stopped.
He stared at Esteban's open hand, at the bloodstained cloth on the ground, and then back at the hand.
"What..."
"I don't know."
"How...?"
He rose onto his knees, seized Esteban's wrist with both hands, and turned his palm beneath the light of dawn. His fingers were cold and trembling.
"There was a hole. I saw it. I saw the sword come out the other side. This hand..."
"I can't explain it."
"Can't, or won't?"
"Can't."
Rico continued staring at him for a long moment. Something strange had settled across his face, a mixture of astonishment, fear, and a third thing Esteban couldn't bring himself to look at directly.
Something that resembled caution.
"All right." Rico slowly released his wrist. "I won't ask. But I'll tell you something. Every time I think I'm starting to understand you, you do something that makes absolutely no sense."
"Same here."
"That's not reassuring."
"I know."
When Rico returned to sleep, or pretended to, Esteban raised his eyes to the panel still hanging before him.
It had returned to its two original options.
He pressed the second.
[Weapons]
A short list appeared, as though someone were taking inventory of the harvest from a poor season.
[Straight Sword]
[Short Spear]
[Dagger]
[Axe]
[Wooden Shield]
[Bow — Incomplete]
They were all things he had made. Things he understood, or had begun to understand, through nights spent around fire and iron and the difficult days on the road.
He hadn't known that something was keeping track of them.
He ran his finger down the list and pressed the first option.
[Straight Sword]
The panel trembled slightly. Then all the letters began to shake, their color shifting from blue to dark red.
A short message appeared above them.
[ERROR]
[You aren't holding anything. You must hold an object for it to transform into the weapon you desire.]
He stared at the message for a long time.
Then, slowly, he began to laugh.
It wasn't real laughter. It was a trembling breath escaping his chest in small bursts, almost soundless, like a man who had grown tired of everything and had finally found something simple enough to understand.
He already knew this. He had known it throughout the past several months, even if he had never said it to himself.
Nothing came from nothing.
His ability wasn't magic. It was transformation.
He needed a piece of wood just as a blacksmith needed raw iron. And he needed understanding just as much as he needed a steady hand.
He wiped his face with his healed palm and dismissed the panel with a single thought.
For three days, they watched the castle from the hill opposite the stone bridge.
It was a small, gray fortress perched on an isolated rock in the middle of a deep valley. The only way to reach it was across an old, narrow stone bridge without any railings. Men wearing black coats guarded the fortress, changing shifts every six hours.
Rico used a small piece of charcoal to draw a detailed map of their movements on a piece of leather. He marked where they entered, when they left, and where they stood at night.
On the first day, he couldn't stop talking. He gave every guard a ridiculous nickname, commenting on each one as though he were introducing a cast of characters.
"Crooked Nose."
"The One Who Sleeps Standing Up."
And "The Miserable One," who stopped at the edge every hour to stare down into the valley as though calculating how far he would fall.
But on the second day, Rico spoke less.
By the third, he was drawing in silence, his eyes darting between the leather and the castle with the speed of someone terrified that a single mistake might cost someone else their life.
Neither of them saw the seventh star.
But on the evening of the third day, just as the sun was setting, a man appeared on the castle's highest balcony. From that distance, he was no larger than a finger, walking slowly across the stone.
They couldn't see his face.
Yet every guard stopped at the exact same moment and turned toward him, as though they were sunflowers turning toward the sun.
"Him," Rico whispered.
Esteban didn't answer. He pressed down on a patch of grass beneath his hand until it tore apart.
On the second day, Rico had noticed something.
"Look."
He was lying on his stomach beside Esteban among the rocks, pointing toward a guard standing a hundred paces away.
"His left hand."
"What about it?"
"A tattoo. A little star on the back of his hand."
He paused.
"That other one has one, too. So does the third. All of them. Even the men in the caravan that arrived yesterday."
"Everyone who serves the stars?"
"No one gets in without the tattoo."
Rico tilted his head.
"That's how you recognize your own people."
A brief silence followed.
"Then we won't get in."
"You don't understand."
Rico smiled, a small, weary smile.
"Thieves like me learn these things quickly. From a distance, no one checks the tattoo closely. A star drawn in charcoal is enough."
"I won't draw one."
"Why not?"
"I won't lie with my hand."
"You..."
Rico stopped, then looked at Esteban's clean left palm.
"That could have been a decent disguise. Your hand was pierced, wrapped up, and hidden. Now you don't even have the bandage."
"I know."
"And you still refuse to draw a star?"
"I refuse."
"That's madness."
Rico raised his voice slightly before lowering it again.
"We're walking into the stronghold of a man who shows no mercy to anyone who doesn't belong. And you're clinging to some moral principle about the color of ink?"
"It's not about the ink."
"Then what is it about?"
Esteban didn't answer immediately.
He looked at his open palm, clean and free of any trace of what he had done with it the day before.
It was a hand that now knew how to kill. Get faster updates on g.com.
"I don't want to put the name of the people who took my family on my skin."
"It's ink!"
"I know."
"It'll wash off!"
"I know."
"Esteban."
For the first time, Rico's voice trembled, stripped of all its usual humor.
"I'm not trying to argue with you. I'm trying to keep us alive. You refuse to lie about anything, while I keep lying every day just to survive. And I don't understand how a man like you can walk through this world."
Esteban said nothing.
He knew Rico was right.
He also knew that he was right.
He just didn't understand how both of them could be right at the same time.
Finally, Rico lowered his head and wiped his face with his sleeve.
"Fine."
His voice was quiet.
"I'll draw mine. And I'll go in with you anyway."
They sat in silence on the rock, each watching the castle from a different angle. Night had begun to descend, and torches were being lit one after another along its walls, like beads strung on a necklace.
"Esteban."
"Yeah?"
"Your hand."
Rico didn't look at him.
"When you figure out what happened to it... will you tell me?"
Esteban thought for a moment.
"If I figure it out."
"That's enough."
"And if I don't?"
"Then we'll figure it out together."
Rico shrugged.
"No one understands anything alone in this world. That's what I've learned from stealing."
They stole two black coats from a roadside storage shed.
Rico found a piece of charcoal and drew a star on the back of his hand. It was ugly, but from a distance, it would pass.
Esteban put on his coat but left his left hand bare, concealing it inside his sleeve.
"If anyone looks at your hand..."
"We'll see."
"That's a terrible plan."
"I know."
On the fourth night, they joined a supply caravan heading for the castle, blending in with the servants carrying crates across the stone bridge.
The valley beneath them was a bottomless black void. Wind howled between the rocks, sounding like the wailing of a man somewhere impossibly far away.
Every footstep on the stone echoed inside Esteban's head.
His left hand throbbed inside his sleeve as though it knew it was exposed.
He could feel the guards' eyes passing over him, over his shoulders, his coat, his neck. Every second, he expected someone to call out.
"You. Show me your hand."
Rico was three steps ahead of him, carrying a crate on his shoulder. He pushed it forward with his tattooed hand as though proudly displaying it.
Esteban could see sweat running down Rico's neck despite the cold.
The first guard passed.
He didn't turn around.
The second glanced at the crates, not the faces.
The third walked by while yawning.
Then they reached the gate.
It stood wide open, revealing a stone passageway warmed by torchlight.
Halfway across the bridge, one of the guards suddenly stopped and coughed.
The entire caravan came to a halt.
Esteban heard Rico's footsteps falter ahead of him and saw his shoulders rise in a small, involuntary movement.
The guard stared at the crates. Then he raised his head and looked down the long line of servants and cargo, his eyes moving from one face to the next as though counting them.
Esteban fixed his gaze on the back of the man in front of him.
He didn't look the guard in the eyes.
He didn't breathe.
His left hand remained clenched inside his sleeve, trembling.
Three seconds.
Four.
Five.
Then the guard gestured with his hand, and the caravan began moving again.
Neither of them was asked a single question.
And of everything that had happened that night, that was what unsettled Esteban the most.
In this world, doors that opened this easily were never opened without a reason.