Hajin walked the main street of the capital with Juna beside him while the crowd split around them and closed again at their backs.
The carriage had put them down at the edge of the guild district with nowhere to be, so he carried the royal recommendation in one pocket, the gate permit in the other, and enough gold for a small house.
'One thousand gold,' he thought, still unable to make the number sit still in his head, 'three years of scraping copper out of the slums, and now I could live like a noble until winter.'
Juna kept pace on his left with her hands in her pockets, her tail wound loose around one leg, though she had not said a word since the palace gate.
Her ears turned toward every sound in the street, the carts, a shutter, a man calling prices at a stall, none of it worth the attention she was paying it.
He watched her sideways for half a block and found her brows pulled together while she stared at the ground in front of her feet.
