Pāhonoa te oro

The town of Ashford Crossing doesn’t appear on most maps. It’s the kind of place that exists because a road needed somewhere to stop — a handful of buildings around a stone bridge, a mill that still works, and a tavern called The Bent Nail that smells like wet wool and old smoke. You’ve been here two days. Long enough to eat something hot and sleep on something that isn’t ground. It’s late afternoon. The three of you are at a corner table. Dovan is working through a bowl of something gray that h