Crow felt an unexpected wave of relief when he finally told Penelope his real name. It was nice to open up to someone about himself after all those years of secrecy. He had been alone for so long that he never realized what a burden it had been to shoulder everything alone—his past traumas, especially. Even though nothing else had changed besides Penelope’s knowledge of who he was, he felt almost lighter, as if a weight had been lifted.

He smiled at her joke and met her lips when she leaned up to kiss him. “I’m sure my mother would be pleased that you think so,” he said when she told him that his name was fitting. “I’ve always thought so too. It was just safer for me to take on an alias when my reputation began to grow. The knights in the outer villages had a hard time trying to pin me down without a real name. They couldn’t figure out where I was from or who I was related to, and they couldn’t question anyone who knew me, because as far as they were concerned, no one did.” He sighed. “I suppose it doesn’t matter much anymore though. Everyone who knew me as Collin in Myerfall are all long gone by now. The people there don’t usually live past thirty.”

Crow felt a pang of sadness at the thought. Though he chose not to dwell on it, part of him always wondered if he would suffer the same fate as the other peasants in his home village. Taking on the dangerous occupation of being a thief certainly didn’t help his odds. If he really was destined to live a short life like his mother, he only had about nine more years left—and that was only if he wasn’t run through by a sword first. The realization made him shudder.

[i]I left Myerfall,[/i] he reminded himself. [i]I’m nowhere near whatever disease was killing the people back there.[/i] He forced himself to put the worrying thoughts aside. There were more important things to focus on at the moment.

“I’d like that,” he smiled when Penelope asked if she could call him by his real name. “It’ll be nice to hear it again. No one’s called me Collin in almost ten years.” He resumed walking with her down the road. The sun was starting to dip a little lower in the sky, so he wanted to find an inn. “I hope we find a place to stay before nightfall,” he commented absently. “I want to take advantage of sleeping in a real bed while I still can.”