They gave him one meal and one night.
That was the deal.
Rin didn't smile once the whole evening. She just handed him a crust of bread and pointed to the far side of the fire. Lumen barely said anything, only nodded once and kept sharpening a broken piece of wood into something vaguely sword-shaped.
Gilger, though, had no complaints.
He ate like someone who hadn't tasted warmth in a year. Then fell asleep wrapped in his own coat, head resting on his pack like a pillow stolen from a better life.
By morning, he was still there.
Still breathing.
Still grinning.
"Didn't rob you in your sleep," he pointed out. "That's gotta earn me another day, yeah?"
"No," Rin said flatly.
"Yes," Lumen said at the same time.
She turned. "Why?"
"He's fast," Lumen replied, not looking back. "Could be useful."
"Also charming," Gilger added, waving at her.
She threw a pebble at his head. He ducked.
They kept moving.
The frost grew thinner. The trees less dense. For a week, the three of them traveled together — and something strange happened.
It didn't feel temporary anymore.
Gilger never stopped talking. He had a thousand stories — all lies, all colorful. He claimed he once outran a wolf on stilts, convinced a noble he was blind just to steal his shoes, and once slept in a noble's coffin "because it was softer than the floor."
"You're making that up," Rin muttered.
"Absolutely," he grinned. "But I'm very convincing."
By the fourth day, he'd tried pranking both of them.
He tied Rin's scabbard shut. She noticed immediately and kicked him into a snowbank.
He swapped Lumen's thread pouch with a bundle of leaves.
Lumen just blinked at him and pointed behind a rock. "Yours is missing too."
Gilger checked.
It was.
He never figured out how.
"You're terrifying," Gilger muttered later that night, watching Lumen from across the fire. "It's the quiet ones. You hide all your murder behind those dark eyes and mysterious mask—"
Then Lumen took the mask off to clean it.
Gilger stopped.
"…Damn," he said after a pause. "Okay. You've got a face."
Lumen looked up. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Gilger scratched his jaw. "Just didn't expect you to look so… normal. Thought maybe there'd be scars. Or a third eye. Or—"
Rin cut in. "Say anything rude and I'll remove your face."
Gilger raised both hands. "Hey, I'm not judging! Just surprised. Kinda handsome. In a haunted scarecrow sort of way."
Lumen blinked. "Thanks?"
"Also weirdly familiar…" Gilger frowned, staring. Then shrugged it off. "Probably just the mask. Seen too many nobles wear one before a whipping."
Lumen didn't answer that.
Because something in his chest tightened. And he didn't know why.
They trained every morning.
Rin, precise and brutal, drilled both of them with endless footwork and blocks.
Lumen refined the thread — using it to trip, pull, tie, or catch. He no longer needed to think. The lines responded faster now. Sharper.
Gilger? He never revealed his sigil.
But sometimes, things just worked for him — footsteps landing just right, snow falling where Rin would slip, objects flying off shelves into his hands.
When they asked, he just winked.
"Let's say my power is… chaotic luck with a sense of humor."
By the seventh night, something had shifted.
They laughed more often. Ate without side-eyes. Slept without guarding their weapons.
And somewhere, between footsteps and frostbite, they started walking together.
Not out of convenience.
But choice.
And as the stars blinked overhead, Lumen looked around at the other two — Rin sharpening her blade, Gilger trying to roast a mushroom by holding it too close to the fire — and felt, for the first time in a long while, like he wasn't alone in the world.
Not entirely.
Just three pieces of a story not yet written.
And a road that would only get darker from here.