The Woman Who Walked From Fire

She arrived without introduction, as though she had always known where the door would be.

That night, the air carried the faint scent of smoke before anyone saw her. White boots dusted in ash. A red cane tapping slow and steady against the tavern floor. Two great hounds moved beside her, silent and obedient, their eyes watching everything and everyone.

No one asked where she came from.

No one asked what burned.

There was a calm about her that did not belong to someone who had fled. She did not look shaken. She did not look relieved. She carried herself like a woman who had already made peace with what she left behind.

Some swore they saw the glow of fire still flickering in her shadow. Others claimed they heard the distant crackle of timber and glass when she passed by. But when they turned to the windows, the night was quiet and still.

She took a place along the wall, set the red cane at her side, and removed her gloves with the slow patience of someone who had nowhere else to be.

And from that moment on, she was simply part of the Tavern.

No one knows whose house it was.

No one knows why it burned.

And she has never spoken a word about it.

But every so often, when the fire in the hearth burns just a little too hot, she will glance toward the flames for a second too long — not with regret, not with fear…

Just recognition.