From the high wall above the gate, Maxwell stood with arms crossed, the wind tugging at his cloak as the three squires rode out beneath him. The portcullis groaned open, the iron teeth rising with the slow rhythm of an old beast waking. Sunlight spilled through in broken shards, catching on the steel of their bridles and the falcon-blue of their cloaks.

  He should have been with them. Every instinct told him that. But this was their road—not his.

  Toby rode in the lead, posture straight, every motion precise. The boy had come far from the half-wild survivor who’d first stood before Sire Ray’s gate. There was steadiness in him now, the kind that came from pain turned into purpose. Maxwell almost smiled. The lad’s strikes had grown sharp, but his eyes sharper still. He’d make a fine knight—so long as his heart didn’t burn him out before his blade did.

  Zak followed next, reins loose, helmet hanging from the saddle, grinning like he was off to a festival instead of an errand. Yet Maxwell knew better. The boy hid nerves behind laughter, doubt behind swagger. Still, he’d found courage the hard way—through failure. That made it real.

  Reece brought up the rear, careful, quiet, always watching. He didn’t have Toby’s fire or Zak’s charm, but what he did have was rarer—patience. When the others stumbled, he steadied them without needing to be told. There was a quiet strength in that kind of loyalty.

  The gate shut behind them with a final clang. Maxwell stayed where he was, hands resting on the cold stone. Pride and worry warred in his chest. They were growing too fast, as all good squires did. And like every teacher before him, he wondered if he’d done enough.

  He looked to the northern road and muttered under his breath, “Don’t make me come after you.”

  Then, with a low sigh that might’ve been a laugh, he turned back toward the yard. Training waited and the next generation would not wait long.

  The afternoon sun lay warm and golden across the yard, the clang of wooden blades echoing through Highmarsh’s training grounds. The younger pages—boys of ten and twelve, faces still soft but eyes full of wanting—followed Maxwell as he paced before the old practice stones. His boots scuffed the earth in slow, measured steps.

  “These,” he said, resting a hand on one of the pillars, “are the true measure of a knight—not by what they strike, but by what they learn failing to strike it.”

  The boys looked at the stones, their faces half awe, half confusion. Each pillar was a monument of labor—marked, dented, some nearly polished smooth by years of attempts.

  “When you’re older,” Maxwell went on, “you’ll come here with your grit. You’ll swing until your arms give out. You’ll curse the stone, the sword, and me. And if you last long enough, you’ll learn something your muscles can’t teach.”

  A few of the lads shifted uneasily. One raised a hand—a small, freckled boy with straw hair sticking out from beneath his hood.

  “Master?” he piped up. “Why’s that one broken?”

  Maxwell frowned, glancing toward the far row. “Broken?”

  The boy pointed. Maxwell followed the gesture—and froze.

  One of the middle pillars stood cleanly split in half. The cut was impossibly smooth. No cracks, no jagged edges. It looked as though the world itself had simply decided the stone should end there. The top half of the stone sat small beside the larger not-so-pear-shaped-anymore stone, and disregarded.

  He stepped closer, hand brushing the surface. The texture was glass-smooth beneath his calloused fingers. He crouched, examining the grain—no hammer marks, no pry, no chisel. A perfect cleave. For a long moment, he said nothing. Then, slowly, a grin began to spread beneath his beard.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” he murmured.

  The boys traded puzzled and worried glances. They’d never seen Maxwell grin before. Maxwell straightened, folding his arms as he looked at the stone again—really looked at it. Pride crept into his chest, quiet and steady, easing something inside him he hadn’t known was wound tight.

  He let out a soft breath, almost a laugh. “Seems the stones still teach when I’m not looking.”

  Turning back to the boys, he found their expectant faces waiting.

  “Master?” the freckled one asked again. “What happened?”

  Maxwell smiled, resting a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “What happened, lad,” he said, voice low and proud, “is that we’ve got ourselves a new knight.”

  And for the first time in weeks, his heart felt lighter.

  ***

  “We’re lost!” Zak declared, loud enough to startle the birds from a nearby copse of trees.

  Reece groaned, leaning over his saddle horn as if the words themselves had weight. “We’re two days in! How are we lost already?”

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  Toby didn’t answer. He sat astride his bay gelding in the middle of the muddy crossroad, squinting at the sun—what little of it filtered through the thin clouds. The ruts of wagon wheels cut deep through the dirt, splitting in three directions. Each looked as abused and uncertain as the next.

  He glanced at the wooden post in the road’s center. It leaned slightly, one arm pointing toward a word that might have once said TinnerField but now resembled “inn—eld” thanks to rot and rain. Another arm, pointing east, bore the half-faded mark of Southbridge. The third—no words at all, just a splintered stub.

  “Well,” Zak said, slapping his reins with mock cheer, “we’ve got two options and one mystery. I say we follow the mystery—that’s where the good stories start.”

  “The good stories,” Reece said dryly, “usually end with someone missing a leg.”

  Toby sighed. “We should’ve reached Windmore by now. Ser Maxwell said follow the river north until we hit the trade road.”

  Zak looked around. “You see a river, Toby? Because unless the frogs learned to fly, I think we missed it somewhere back near the bend.”

  They had. Toby knew it, though he didn’t want to admit it. He took out the rough map Lawrence had given them—more of a sketch than a chart, charcoal lines on coarse parchment. Roads, streams, small keeps, the thicker trade routes branching toward the King’s lands. Somewhere along the last turn, they’d taken a smaller track cutting westward through low meadows.

  “Maybe it loops back?” Reece offered, hopefully.

  Toby frowned, tracing the edge with a gloved finger. “Doesn’t look like it.”

  Zak leaned in, peering over his shoulder. “That line could be a river.”

  “That line,” Toby said, “is where Lawrence’s pen bled.”

  Reece chuckled under his breath. “Comforting.”

  The three sat in silence for a moment, the horses shifting beneath them. The wind smelled faintly of pine and wet earth. In the distance, a flock of crows turned in slow spirals above what looked like a burnt field.

  Now, staring down the three paths, Toby admitted what all three already knew. “We’ll have to backtrack.”

  Zak groaned. “Of course we do.”

  Reece pulled a face. “How far?”

  Toby scanned the tree line. “Back to where we saw the bridge, maybe a league. The one near the stone milestone.”

  Zak looked at the lowering sun. “So, a few hour’s ride—or half the day, if you’re being honest.”

  Toby smirked. “Then we’d better start.”

  They turned the horses, the sound of hooves soft against the damp earth. As they rode, the mood shifted—less frustration, more reflection. Traveling had a way of loosening words, and with Maxwell not there to bark at them, conversation filled the air like birdsong.

  “You ever think,” Zak said idly, “that maybe knights are just glorified messengers? Ride here, talk to this guy, wave a sword if you have to, and then ride back.”

  “Messengers don’t usually get eaten by frogs,” Reece muttered.

  “Or werewolves,” Toby said.

  “Fair point,” Zak said. “Still, if all this is training for knighthood, I’m starting to think Maxwell left out the bit about navigation.”

  “He probably expected us to remember the river,” Reece said.

  “I did remember it,” Zak shot back. “I just didn’t expect it to disappear.”

  “It didn’t disappear,” Toby said, half-laughing despite himself. “We just left it behind.”

  Zak squinted ahead, mock serious. “Ah, a philosophical answer. We left it behind. Profound.”

  Reece chuckled. “Saints help us if we ever have to follow a map across the whole realm.”

  By the time the sun began to dip, the faint rush of water reached them again—the river, wide and steady, flowing south toward the marshlands. Relief washed through Toby’s chest as he caught sight of the bridge they’d crossed days before, its stone arch lit gold by the fading light.

  “See?” Toby said, half smug. “Back on track.”

  Zak exhaled dramatically. “Next time, I’m drawing the map.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Reece said.

  They crossed the bridge and found the proper road this time—broader, rising gently through the hills. Ahead lay a small hamlet clustered around a shrine and a blacksmith’s forge, smoke curling into the clean dusk air. Beyond it, open fields rolled like green waves toward the horizon, where banners marked the next fief’s border.

  Toby slowed his horse, eyes following the distant standard—a rearing horse on crimson. He didn’t know the name, but the sight stirred something quiet in him: awe, perhaps, or the faint thrill of distance. Every mile north carried them closer to the King’s realm, closer to the center of the world he’d only heard about in tavern talk.

  The air itself felt different here: less heavy, less wary. The farmsteads they passed were cleaner, roofs tiled instead of thatched, fences mended instead of leaning.

  Toby had noticed it since yesterday. The closer they’d drawn to the King’s lands, the more the world seemed… deliberate. The roads were broader, lined with stone ditches to keep the rain from pooling. The bridges were no longer creaking timber but shaped stone, mortar smooth beneath the horses’ hooves. Even the people they passed—farmers, merchants, washerwomen by the streams—seemed to move with less fear, less suspicion.

  “Never thought dirt could look expensive,” Zak muttered as they trotted past a stretch of road so well-kept it almost gleamed.

  “I guess that’s what coin buys,” Toby said. “Safety, order.”

  “And good boots,” Reece added, pointing to a passing courier whose saddle alone probably cost more than their three horses combined.

  The man didn’t even glance their way.

  “I wonder what the King’s lands are like,” Reece said softly.

  “Probably paved in gold,” Zak said. “And the squires don’t have to share blankets.”

  Toby smiled faintly. “Gold or not, we’ll see it soon enough.”

  The road curved onward, broad and bright beneath the dying sun. Behind them, the wild lands of Highmarsh faded into haze—the edge of the world they’d come from. Ahead lay the realm of crowns and banners, of courtiers and coin.

  “Come on,” Toby said, nudging his horse forward. “Let’s not lose the right road twice in one day.”

  Zak groaned, but followed. Reece laughed softly, the sound carrying across the fields. For now, at least, the way was clear and the world felt wide again.