K'thriss giggled as he twined his fingers together to keep them from wandering. It wasn't that anything was funny, precisely. More that nothing was? Nothing was funny and as hard as he tried he couldn't stop laughing about it.

There was a splinter on Prophetess Dran's bar. He didn't look at it. He couldn't look at it.

The Dran and Courtier was busy tonight. Busy for Redlarch, at least, busy enough for a hum of conversation to suffuse the main room. K'thriss's companions seemed at home in it - well, Rosie and Donaar did. Walnut was sitting by herself on the opposite side of the room, uncomfortable, one hand in her pocket where she'd stuck that folded slip of paper she thought none of them knew about. Documancy was clearly beyond K'thriss's comprehension. Rosie was talking to a young human man, both of them glancing over at another one sitting two tables away. The men were about the same age, had briefly, awkwardly spoken to each other earlier in the evening. Rosie had been drifting back and forth between them with century-old casualness ever since, nudging and prodding and coaxing. Donaar has inserted himself into a knot of caravan guards and was challenging them all to arm-wrestling contests. "I said I was strong!" he shouted every time he won.

K'thriss had been watching them all evening. His companions. His franchise co-signatories, as Walnut insisted on calling them at least once a day. He made himself keep watching them. It kept his eyes off the splinter. He curled his fingers tighter together, tried to tie them in a knot.

The two young men happened to glance at each other at the same moment, blushed furiously, looked away, looked again. K'thriss was quite sure neither of them noticed Rosie's small, satisfied smile.

There shouldn't even be a splinter. Prophetess Dran took care of this inn like it was her last child. Endless, smoothing care. The idea that there could be a splinter on her bar was unthinkable. Which perhaps meant it wasn't...natural? Perhaps meant it wasn't supposed to be there?

Was there for K'thriss?

He should tell her. She'd fix it, sand it down, varnish over the spot until there was no way to tell what was underneath. Of course, it would be quicker for him to fix it for her. He could take care of it. All he'd have to do would be to pick at it, pick at it until it peeled away like a cuticle and-

Rosie, look at Rosie. Donaar vanquished another irritated challenger. "That was with one hand!" he shouted, spraying some kind of crumbs. Walnut frowned and fretted. The noise of conversation bumped against K'thriss like someone stumbling in the dark, words slipping to him through the mumble.

"All you have to…"

"...I'm saying is…"

"...meat too tough…"

"Right, and…"

"...their mouths…"

He forced down a giggle before too much of it got out. He realized that his finger was picking at the splinter, catching at it, and he jerked his hand away. He clutched at his focus, heavy around his neck, but he could feel Maelith's rune intruding on the peace it should have granted him.

K'thriss stared at Rosie as she smiled at the young men, who were now talking close and quiet to each other. He stared at her face, fixed his eyes on the surface of her, because if he looked any deeper…

The splinter. Stop. Don't think about the splinter. Don't think about peeling it back.

Don't think about what he couldn't stop thinking about, ever since the room deep, deep below Nemizir. Ever since he looked at the root guarded by a mourning minotaur, and saw.

Saw that beneath the surface there were only the worms. Ruby worms, worms made of teeth and mouths and the light of dying stars. He had looked at the root and seen them. Thick below the skin of the root, yes, but not just the root. The walls. The floor. Everything. Ever since Nemizir he couldn't stop seeing them inside everything he looked at. And even when he managed to stare at the surface, to only see the flat and smiling faces of things, he knew that they were there. Everywhere. Inside everything. His friends. The hills. The sky and stars above. He thought of the shards of a forest, of the world, knit together after his friends pulled him out of a hungry place, and he knew that if he had just peered around the broken edges of those shards he would have seen an endless depth of writhing red.

If he picked at the splinter, if he peeled it away, he might pull too hard. It would be so easy for him to peel away a strip of the world and let the worms spill out from behind everything.

A single, perfect drop of blood welled from the tip of K'thriss's finger, shining in the tavern's light like a ruby.

Prophetess Dran had to ask him three times if he wanted a drink. Tears were standing in his eyes, and he was giggling so hard he couldn't hear her.