Boots Drying by the Hearth
October 20, 2026
The boots go by the fire first. Before the stew, before the coat, before she's even sat down.
Hadna stands them on the hearthstones with the toes angled in and pushes a twist of straw down each throat to keep the shape. Mud has dried on the left one in a pale crust, and a crumb of it drops onto the coals and hisses. The leather has gone stiff and dark to the ankle. Nine days of the Tharavos road, most of them wet.
Her socks go over the mantel. One has a hole at the heel she's been meaning to deal with since the ford. The wool starts to steam almost at once, and the smell is sheep and smoke and something she'd rather not name.
Honey comes next. Hadna leans her against the stones with more care than the boots got, neck tilted away from the heat, a hand's width of air between the varnish and the fire. A lute can't be hurried dry. Wood moves. She learned that the winter a seam opened along the belly and a whole month of playing went flat in one night.
So Honey sits back from the warmth and takes her time. The boots take theirs.
Hadna lowers herself onto the bench. Her heel has a blister the size of a coin, and she presses it with her thumb, winces, and does it again. The floorboards are cold through her feet and the fire is hot on her shins, and for a moment her body can't decide which one to believe.
Someone brings a bowl. Barley, a few carrots, grease on top. She eats it with the spoon in her fist like a child, one elbow on her knee, and she doesn't taste any of it until the third mouthful. Then she tastes all of it.
Across the room a man is arguing quietly with a dog. Rain ticks against the shutter. The straw in the right boot has begun to darken as the damp comes out of the leather, and a thin line of steam lifts off the left one, straight up, then bends toward the chimney.
Whispers of the Wyrm, Book One of The Bard and the Blade Saga.