The Map Only I Can Read

The animals rode quietly in the back of the wagon, sheltered beneath the canvas cover. The hen cage fit snug between the feed sacks, and the rabbits had their own smaller pen padded with straw. It was the first time Ren had seen everything he needed—everything they needed—gathered in one place.

He stepped back, hands on his hips, sweat cooling on his brow. The sun had shifted now, casting long shadows that stretched like silent fingers across the cobbled streets of Ironpeak. The noise of the main market had faded behind him. Fewer carts, fewer calls. The city was beginning to quiet.

It struck him then, how different quiet could feel. In the Wasteland, silence meant caution—something hunting, or something broken. Here, it was simply the end of a day, the sigh of a city exhaling.

Ren didn't ride. Not yet. Instead, he walked beside Becca, reins in one hand, the other occasionally brushing her side to reassure her—or perhaps to steady himself. She matched his pace with steady hooves and quiet grace, as if she understood that this wasn't just about moving goods. It was a beginning.

They turned down a narrow alley, heading toward a vendor Ren remembered passing earlier. But the moment he stepped under the shadowed archway, something changed.

The air shifted. Cooler. Still.

He paused.

This part of the city wasn't unfamiliar, but it felt… wrong. Or perhaps too right. Intentional stillness, like the hush before a verdict. The kind of silence cities never had—unless something unseen demanded it.

That's when he saw it.

Wedged between two stone buildings, where just hours ago there had been only a blank wall, stood a narrow wooden shop. Slanted, uneven, weathered. No sign above the door. No light from within. Just the faint scent of dry parchment and old firewood.

Ren blinked. Then stepped inside.

Dust motes drifted in the slanted amber light. Shelves lined with scrolls, maps, strange relics half-swallowed by age. A single oil lamp flickered above the counter, casting shadows that clung to the walls like smoke.

An old woman sat behind the desk. Her eyes were milky with age, but sharp. Like she saw past him. Through him.

"You're not from here," she said.

Ren didn't hesitate. "Neither are you. Am I right?"

She smiled—soft, but knowing. "You ask the right questions. That's rare these days."

He stepped forward, gaze scanning the cluttered shelves. "I'm not looking for answers. Just a direction."

"Same thing, some would argue," she said, then gestured to a wooden crate beside her. "Maps. Most of them false. Some of them forgotten. One or two… not meant to be found."

Ren crouched and rifled through them. Most were brittle, dull. The same drawn lines he'd seen a dozen times before. Some showed kingdoms long fallen, others with strange sigils burned into corners—warnings, maybe, or blessings. Then his fingers brushed one wrapped in cloth and tied with silver thread.

He pulled it free.

The moment he touched it, he knew.

It pulsed beneath his fingers. Slow. Rhythmic. Like a heartbeat trapped in parchment.

A flicker of recognition passed through him.

This sensation… it wasn't new.

He'd felt it once before, back in the Wasteland—when he found that sealed scroll half-buried in the rubbler near the old tower. At the time, it hadn't made sense.

Just an odd warmth, strange symbols he couldn't read.

Now he wondered if that scroll had been part of this all along.

A piece of something bigger. Waiting for the rest to arrive.

Unfurling it, he saw not a flat rendering of roads and rivers—but something alive. Veins of soft light pulsed through mountains, curled around cities, and led to places unlabeled by any mapmaker's hand. Dormant ruins. Forgotten shrines. Threads of mana drawn like ley lines across the skin of the world.

"This is…" Ren's voice trailed.

"Something that doesn't belong here," the woman finished. "Or perhaps… belongs only to someone like you."

He looked at her, guarded. "What do you want for it?"

"Three gold."

He raised an eyebrow. "That's steep. Not enchanted. Not bonded. Two."

She studied him for a long moment, then nodded once. "Two. Fair."

"You've touched a part of it before," she slid the coins across the counter. "That's why it responded. You carry its memory."

That woman said, as if answering a thought Ren had not spoken.

But she didn't hand it to him immediately. Instead, she placed a hand over the map, her voice lowering, tone shifting from merchant to something older. Wiser.

"Wanderer," she said, "this doesn't just show the way. It shows what refuses to be seen. What was hidden for a reason—or left behind on purpose. Some doors should not be opened. Some places… remember being forgotten."

Her words settled into the corners of the shop like dust—quiet, but impossible to ignore. For a second, Ren thought he saw movement in the shadows behind her. Shapes on the wall that didn't belong. But when he blinked, they were gone.

Ren didn't answer. His fingers closed over the wrapped map. It was warm now. Not with magic—but with weight. With meaning.

"I'll be careful," he said.

She chuckled again, dry as parchment. "No, you won't. But you'll go anyway. That's the difference."

He turned to leave, but paused at the door.

"Who are you?" he asked softly, glancing back.

But the shop was empty.

No woman.

No lamp.

No shelves.

Just cold stone and an old, boarded room. Dustless.

As if it hadn't been touched in years.

Ren stepped outside, blinking against the sun. Becca stood patiently at the corner, reins hanging loose, waiting like she knew.

He looked down at the cloth-wrapped map in his hand.

It didn't make sense.

The old man at the tavern.

Now this.

Threads weaving through a story Ren hadn't agreed to tell—but one he was now undeniably part of.

He slipped the map inside his coat and pressed it to his chest. It felt alive. Not dangerous, not yet—but significant. Like the first page of a book long sealed shut.

"Why me?" he thought.

There was no answer.

Only the hush of the alley. The stillness of a city that didn't notice it had shifted.

A wind stirred behind him, light and dry. The kind that carried stories with it.

It brushed past his ear like a whisper, teasing something he hadn't quite remembered—a word, a promise, a warning. Something left unsaid.

Ren stepped forward.

And the world felt... just slightly different.