Ondine didn’t do holidays. Not properly, anyway.

She’d been in towns where the streets sparkled with lanterns and ribbons, where children ran wild with sticky fingers and the taverns brimmed with warmth and song. She liked the drinking part well enough, and the brawling that often came after. But gifts? Decorations? Traditions? That was for people with homes, with people to gather around fires and talk about “the year gone by.” Ondine’s idea of marking the end of a year was waking up in a new town, bruised, broke, and hungover, with the taste of roasted meat and victory still on her tongue.

So when she trudged into Neued—a city known more for its trade posts than its cheer—she didn’t expect anything more than a warm hearth and strong ale.

Which she found, thankfully, in the Muddy Lantern tavern, nestled between a leather shop and a dye merchant’s stall that stank of indigo. The Muddy Lantern was exactly her kind of place: noisy, crowded, a little ugly. The fireplace was always roaring, and the barkeep knew how to pour heavy. Ondine had spent the last few nights here, gambling, drinking, throwing a punch or two when warranted. A quiet sort of celebration, in her own way.

Then, one evening, it happened.

She returned from the bathhouse, hair damp, muscles relaxed, to find a small, neatly wrapped parcel sitting atop her table near the hearth. Brown paper, tied with a red ribbon. No name. No seal. Just sitting there. Waiting.

Ondine frowned.

She looked around the tavern. No one was paying her any special attention. The regulars were deep into their cups. The bard was tuning a stringed instrument. The barmaid, Rilla, caught her eye and shrugged when Ondine pointed to the package.

“Someone said it was yours,” Rilla said. “Didn’t see who left it.”

That set Ondine’s hackles up. She was many things—loud, bold, reckless—but not trusting. And an unmarked gift, during the year’s end of all times? That smelled like either a trap… or a joke.

She turned the package over in her hands. It was light. Didn’t rattle. Wrapped with care, though. She gave it a shake, just to be sure. No sound. Still, something about it made her uneasy. Suspicion prickled down her spine.

She sat, pulled the parcel close, and studied it like it might sprout legs and bolt. Part of her wanted to chuck it in the fire. Another part was… curious.

No one gave Ondine gifts. Not unless it was a reward for a job or a drink bought after a good fight. She didn’t do the soft parts of life—no birthdays, no sweethearts, no family dinners. The idea that someone had thought of her—thought enough to wrap something in red ribbon—felt foreign. Almost unsettling.

After a long minute, she slid a dagger from her belt and sliced the ribbon.

Inside was a small wooden box. Smooth, carved with a swirling pattern she didn’t recognize. It wasn’t expensive wood, but it had clearly been sanded and polished with care. She opened it.

Inside, nestled in a bit of soft linen, was a pair of leather-wrapped hand wraps—fighting wraps, the kind she used when brawling bare-knuckled in town squares and underground rings. But these were different. Worn, but not used. Well-crafted, reinforced along the knuckles, with faint embroidery in thread the color of fire.

Ondine stared.

It wasn’t a weapon. It wasn’t poison. It was… thoughtful.

Still suspicious as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs, she stood and marched to the bar.

“Who brought that to my table?” she asked Rilla.

The barmaid glanced around, lowered her voice. “Big fellow. Dark skin, short beard. Wore a hunter’s cloak. Didn’t give a name.”

Ondine’s brow furrowed. That description was vague, sure, but familiar. She turned it over in her mind as she walked back to the table.

Then it hit her.

Two weeks ago, in a little port town south of here, she’d helped a trader fend off some back-alley thieves. He hadn’t asked for help—she just hated watching cowards swarm a man who couldn’t throw a punch. She stepped in, fists flying, and left three of them groaning in the gutter. The man had offered coin. She refused. Walked off without a word.

Apparently, he remembered.

She looked at the wraps again. She hadn’t thought of that moment since it happened. Just another night, another bruise, another story for the road. But someone had seen her—really seen her—and left this.

Not a bribe. Not a trap. Just thanks.

She snorted softly. Smirked. Tied the wraps around her hands.

“Guess some people do gifts after all,” she muttered, raising her mug to the fire. “Weird.”

And for once, she didn’t mind the warmth in her chest that had nothing to do with the drink.