You leave Smithy feeling sad. After your trip with Uncle Emig your parents have been giving you more responsibilities so today was your last chance to visit Smithy and try to get them to reveal what you thought you saw at the market. However, you are now convinced that what you saw that day must have just been your eyes playing tricks on you.

You ponder and gaze at the full moon as you make your way back to the keep. You're not sure where exactly your guard is, but you know they are following somewhere close by. As your visits to the smithy have become more frequent they stopped being as blatant with your escort, giving you at least the appearance of going about on your own.

You catch a flicker of shadow at the edge of your vision and you look down from the moon to see that in your pondering you have gone slightly off course and are currently on a side road that is barely used at this time of night. The shadow is a person traveling the opposite direction as you, away from the keep. When they are about three meters away one of your guards steps out from the shadow of a building to intercept them. You hear the sounds of a skuffle to your right and see that your other guard is blocking the path of another person coming out of an alley.

You’re not worried. More than likely these people are just random passersby that your guards are stopping to be extra cautious in the dark rather than because they detected an actual threat. As you’ve practiced many times, you start to go around the person in front of you while your guard stays between you and them.

“Rea, watch out!”

You turn in surprise to see Smithy running up the road. They are pointing to the left of where you were walking.

“Duck!” They shout at you.

You drop to your knees and look to where they were pointing and see a man with a dagger aimed where your heart had just been, but is now headed towards your eye.