Winter was at an end, it still lingered, but only in the corners. The last drifts of snow were thinning to glassy ice, and the wind had lost its teeth. The days stretched, sunlight slipping farther down the walls of the yard where the squires trained. It felt like the world was loosening, drawing breath again.

  Toby felt it too. His shoulders no longer ached every morning, only most mornings. His sword fit better in his grip. His lungs no longer burned after laps around the ward, just hummed with effort. Spring was coming, and with it the promise—or threat—of movement.

  He watched Zak drive his sword into the training post with a focus Toby hadn’t seen before. Gone was the easy grin that used to precede every half-hearted swing. Now Zak’s humor came between rounds, short and sharp, as if to make room for his effort rather than to hide from it. His stance was tighter, his blocks cleaner, his laughter lighter for it.

  “Looks like someone stole your laziness,” Reece muttered, panting beside Toby as they both braced for another drill.

  “Or burned it,” Toby said, grinning. “Zak’s gone and decided to make us all look bad.”

  “About time,” Maxwell barked from across the yard, hearing them both. “Focus, you two! If you’ve breath for jokes, you’ve breath for another round!”

  The four squires moved in unison, wooden blades snapping, feet grinding through thawing mud. The rhythm of practice had become as familiar as heartbeat—swing, step, recover. Sweat steamed in the cold air.

  Zak led their pace now, and nobody complained. His laugh returned when he landed a clean hit on Toby’s shoulder during sparring.

  “Better keep your guard up, farmer,” he teased, eyes bright. “Wouldn’t want to explain that bruise to your pride.”

  Toby grinned despite the sting. “You’re faster.”

  Zak shrugged. “Guess I ran out of excuses.”

  Maxwell passed them, giving Zak a brief nod—the kind that meant noticed, but not done yet.

  Toby caught it and smiled quietly to himself. For all his jokes, Zak had found something real again—a weight that made him lighter.

  The spring equinox came, and the keep came alive. From dawn, the air filled with the smells of roasting meat and baking bread. Barrels of ale were rolled into the courtyards, garlands of evergreen and early blooms hung from the gates. Servants and townsfolk alike worked side by side to set tables across both the inner and outer wards until the place looked less like a fortress and more like a festival ground.

  By noon, the gates of Highmarsh were open to all. Farmers from Graymill, miners from Mossford, and townsfolk from the far reaches of the fief poured in. They ate in shifts, taking turns at the long trestles while others sang or danced or shouted their thanks to the stewards.

  Toby had never seen so much food in one place. Roasted boar, spiced apples, honeyed loaves, wheels of soft white cheese, and stews thick enough to break a spoon. Children ran underfoot, chasing each other with crusts in hand. Old men sat with mugs like treasures.

  Even the squires were given a moment to breathe. Maxwell, for once, allowed them to eat first instead of last. “Don’t get used to it,” he warned, but his tone lacked its usual sting.

  Kay sat beside Toby, sharing out bread to the younger boys. Reece laughed so hard at one of Zak’s jokes that he spilled half his ale. Zak just grinned, unbothered, cheeks red from both drink and pride.

  “Feels strange,” Toby said, watching the merriment. “Like we forgot about everything bad.”

  Zak tore a piece of meat with his teeth and nodded. “That’s the point. Remind the world it’s still turning.”

  Toby smiled. He wanted to believe that. For a few hours, it felt true.

  Kay wiped the foam from his mug with the back of his hand, eyes on the crowded ward. “It’s not just about celebration,” he said, voice quieter than the noise around them. “A feast this large, after winter… it’s a message.”

  Toby frowned, confused. “A message?”

  “That we can afford it,” Kay said. “That Highmarsh is strong. Even after a long cold and empty fields, we still have this much food to share. Every loaf, every roast—it’s proof to every merchant, traveler, and rival lord that my father’s fief doesn’t bend. Not to famine, not to fear.”

  Toby looked around again and saw it differently this time. Not just a feast, but a show of power made visible—whole hogs turning on spits, wheels of cheese stacked like coin, ale flowing as if the barrels would never run dry. The laughter was joy and defiance.

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  His thoughts strayed back to Brindle Hollow. To winters where the snow came early and never seemed to leave, when they’d counted the last handfuls of grain, when his mother had stretched one pot of broth across three nights. Back then, surviving until thaw had been the goal. Here, survival was a statement.

  The realization impressed him—and unsettled him. Sire Ray’s strength wasn’t only in his knights or walls, but in the full bellies of his people. Toby hoped it would be enough. He hoped there wouldn’t be a war to test it.

  As dusk fell, torches were lit in their thousands. The great hall glowed brighter than the sun had all winter. The squires were ushered in with the rest of the knights and household retainers, taking their seats along the lower tables. The hall’s rafters rang with laughter and song.

  At the high table, Sire Ray stood to toast.

  “Winter has tested us,” he said, voice carrying easily through the hall. “But we’ve held fast. And now spring returns, as it always will, to those who endure.”

  The hall answered with a cheer that shook the walls. Toby raised his mug and drank deep, warmth flooding him that had nothing to do with the fire. For a while, everything was simple—the music, the laughter. But then the doors opened.

  A page stumbled in, cloak still frosted, a scroll clutched in both hands. The sound dimmed almost instantly, the hush of attention turning like the wind before a storm. Sire Ray accepted the message, broke the seal, and read. His expression hardened as he went. When he finished, he folded the parchment once, precisely, and set it on the table beside his goblet.

  “The Lord of Amberwood,” he said evenly, “has issued his terms.”

  A murmur rippled through the crowd.

  “He offers peace,” Sire Ray continued, “if we kneel. If we renounce our claim to our own harvest tithes, swear fealty not to the crown but to his house, and allow his banners to fly above our own.”

  The murmurs turned to outrage. Toby could feel the heat rising in the hall—a mixture of anger, disbelief, and pride.

  Sire Ray lifted a hand. “And if we do not,” he said, “then he declares war.”

  The last word that emptied every breath from the room. No one moved at first. Then, slowly, voices began to rise.

  “War?” “After the raids?” “He’s mad!”

  Even the knights looked uncertain. A few slammed fists against the table; others muttered prayers. Sire Ray did not shout. He didn’t need to. His voice cut clean through the noise.

  “We will not bend,” he said simply.

  The cheer that followed this time was not joy. It was iron. The sound of men deciding what they already knew they would do.

  Toby’s stomach tightened. For months, they’d prepared for this possibility—armor cleaned, weapons oiled, scouts sent. But hearing it aloud made it real.

  Zak leaned close, whispering under the din. “So much for spring being peaceful.”

  “Better than being cold,” Reece said, trying for humor, but his eyes were wide.

  Kay sat still, expression unreadable, though Toby saw the small twitch of his jaw. He was thinking—already weighing the lives and names that might soon follow this night.

  The feast ended not with song but with orders. The page who had brought the message was replaced by another—a merchant, weary from travel, who arrived bearing word that mercenary bands two fiefs over had been disbanded after their employer’s quarrel ended.

  “They’re free men now,” the merchant said. “Good fighters. Hungry for coin.”

  Sire Ray stood once more, his decision forming even as the man spoke. “Then we’ll give them both.”

  He turned to his captains. “Ser Sid, you will take command of the recruitment. Ser Maxwell, you’ll accompany him—and take your four squires. You’ll ensure the contracts are fair, the men loyal, and the coin well spent.”

  Maxwell rose at once. “Aye, my lord.”

  Sire Ray’s gaze swept the hall, finding the young faces amid the crowd. “The rest of you—begin readiness drills at dawn. Letters will go to every vassal by morning. No peasant will be forced, but any who stand with us will be honored and well rewarded. Highmarsh will not break.”

  The knights thumped their fists to their chests in unison. The sound rolled like thunder. Toby felt it in his bones that this was no border raid or patrol, but something greater pressing down on them. The kind of war that left maps changed and songs written.

  When they were dismissed, the four squires followed Maxwell into the outer ward. The fires from the feast still burned, but the mood had changed. Where there had been laughter, now there were murmured plans. Men spoke in low tones of sharpening blades, of stores and armor, of home.

  Zak walked beside Toby, quieter than usual. For once, even his grin was gone.

  “Think we’ll see it?” Reece asked, his voice small in the open air.

  “The war?” Zak said. “Oh, we’ll see it. Question is whether it’ll see us back.”

  Toby gave a short, humorless laugh. “Guess training’s about to get real.”

  Maxwell stopped ahead of them, turning back. “That’s one way to put it,” he said, hearing them again. His expression was hard but not unkind. “Get your rest tonight. We ride at first light.”

  “Ride?” Toby blinked.

  “Aye.” Maxwell’s gaze swept the four. “To find ourselves an army.”

  The squires dispersed, each to their quarters. Toby lingered outside the barracks a moment, looking up at the stars that had emerged over the keep. The cold bit at his fingers, but the air smelled faintly of thawing earth—a promise buried under frost.

  He thought of Zak’s new resolve, of Reece’s trembling hope, of Kay’s silent pressure to be more than perfect. And he thought of the elves, distant but not forgotten—the reason he’d taken up his sword in the first place.

  War was coming again, just not the one he’d expected. Still, he would be ready. They all would.