Kay turned back to Macro and Quinn. “Think carefully. No strange riders. No smoke on the horizon. No word from your border posts? Nothing?”

  Macro swallowed. “Nothing, my lord. We patrol twice daily. If the elves were massing, we’d have seen them. If there was a fight like the one you describe, there’d be bodies, refugees, something. We’ve seen… nothing out of the ordinary.”

  Kay drew a breath and let it out slowly. Emptiness where certainty should be. The road behind him felt longer all at once—all the boots, all the horse feed, all the coin measured out to bring this weight to bear. Wasted? Or caught in someone else’s move?

  “Very well,” he said. “Then we don’t force our way into another man’s land on a rumor.”

  Sire Klod made a disbelieving sound. “You mean to turn back.”

  “For now,” Kay said. “Until I know which way the truth runs. If Sire Hudson wants to play games, I’d rather catch him in the lie than give him a story to tell the crown about how we marched on him without cause.”

  Sire George nodded once, grudging but approving. “Better to waste a few days than hang for someone else’s mischief.”

  Sire Gordon’s jaw eased. “Agreed.”

  Kay looked again at the Amberwood knights. “If anything stirs in the south—anything—you send word to Highmarsh at once. To me, not Sire Hudson. Remember the old southern charter. We hold the line together or we lose it one at a time.”

  Macro bowed his head. “You’ll have it, my lord.”

  Quinn hesitated. “And if this… message you received… was meant to draw you out?”

  “Then I’ll find who sent it,” Kay said. “And ask them why they wanted four fiefs standing in someone else’s field.”

  He saluted with the white flag, turned his horse, and rode back to the waiting banners.

  They crossed back over the stone by late afternoon. The sun had begun its slow slide, turning the fields to sheets of dull gold. Dust hung in the air behind the column like a low ghost.

  By the time Grasshorn’s patchwork roofs appeared again, Kay’s shoulders felt as if someone had hung stones from them.

  Ser Hamish was waiting on the green, just as he had been, hand on his sword hilt as if he’d never moved.

  “My lord,” he called as they approached, surprise plain in his tone. “You move quicker than rumor.”

  “We found something different than rumor,” Kay said, reining in. “Or nothing at all. I’m not yet sure which is worse.”

  Hamish’s brows drew together. “No elves?”

  “No attack anyone will admit to,” Kay said. “And no sign they’re lying.”

  Hamish spat into the dust. “Sire Hudson’s hands smell of this, if you’ll pardon me saying.”

  “So I’ve been told,” Kay said. “Now I need to prove it, or prove that we’ve all been played by someone further south.”

  He turned in the saddle, lifting his voice so it carried to Dylan. “Ser Dylan. Have the men make camp here. Same ground as last night. I want proper watches, low fires, no one drifting into the village to drink themselves stupid.”

  Dylan nodded. “Aye, my lord.”

  “And tell them this isn’t for long,” Kay added. “Two days at most. Then we march again—one direction or another.”

  Dylan’s mouth twitched. “They’ll complain anyway.”

  “They always do,” Sid said dryly from the other side. “It’s how you know they’re alive.”

  Kay gestured to one of the younger pages hovering near the baggage train. “You. What’s your name?”

  “Pip, my lord,” the boy said, eyes too big for his face.

  “Pip. Find a fresh horse. You’re riding to Highmarsh. You will deliver a letter to Lawrence and you don’t stop for anything but breathers and water. He’ll have questions. Answer them the best you can. If you don’t know, you say you don’t know. Understood?”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Yes, my lord.” Pip swallowed hard, but straightened.

  Kay glanced over to Hamish, who was one step ahead already, ordering a page to fetch a scribe.

  “Thank you, Ser Hamish,” Kay said.

  Hamish gave a slight bow. “You already remind me of your father.”

  Kay smiled, but it didn’t touch his eyes. It was a poor reminder that he could do his best and sometimes that wasn’t enough.

  Soon enough the scribe came along. Kay dictated the words plainly, leaving nothing between the lines. Then he pulled a falcon seal from a saddle bag on Beryl, giving him a friendly pat on the flank. Beryl snorted as if to say it had been my pleasure.

  The scribe melted wax onto the letter then stamped it, and returned both.

  Kay handed the letter to the page. “Don’t stop for anyone.”

  Pip bowed as he took the letter. “I won’t fail you, Sire.”

  “I know,” Kay said, and meant it. Boys like that kept the world moving more than banners did.

  Pip ran, already shouting for a mount.

  Kay turned to Sid. “I want you in the next meeting.”

  Sid’s white brows rose. “Thought you had enough old bones at your table.”

  “Old bones know where the cracks in the ground run,” Kay said. “Sire Klod’s actions worry me, Sire Gordon sees further than his own fields, and Sire George hates being made a fool of. I need you to remind me when I start thinking with my pride instead of my head.”

  Sid’s smile was small and tired and real. “Glad to see you know the difference, my lord. I’ll be there.”

  Hamish cleared his throat. “I’ve only five rooms spare in the keep,” he said. “It’s not much, but it’s dry.”

  Kay nodded. “That’s more than enough. We can give the sires the option. I’ll take one—saints know I need the rest and the time to think. The men can sleep under the stars; they’ve had worse and I feel like that time is close again.”

  He watched as the column began to spill into ordered chaos—tents going up, fires coaxed from kindling, horses watered and rubbed down. Vincent’s sellswords peeled off in a tight knot, already arguing over dice. Graves’ bowmen moved with quiet efficiency and kept watch in rotations.

  The sun slid lower, painting the thatch with amber. Grasshorn smelled of woodsmoke and river silt and the faint, sour tang of old fear.

  Waste of time, whispered one part of him.

  No, answered another, the part that had learned to listen to his father’s silences. Better a wasted march than a wrong one.

  He exhaled, feeling the day settle on him like a cloak that hadn’t quite dried.

  Somewhere to the south, Toby and the others would be moving through reeds and shadow, hunting the truth where steel could not reach. If anyone could find the shape of the elves’ plans, it would be them—Toby with that relentless farmer’s stubbornness sharpened into a blade, Reece with his careful eyes and earnest courage, Zak with his ridiculous inner strength that somehow kept landing them all on their feet.

  Come back soon, he thought, watching the sky edge toward evening. Bring me something solid to put under all of this.

  Kay turned his horse toward Hamish’s crooked hall, Sid falling in beside him. Behind them, the camp took shape—four fiefs’ worth of strength waiting on answers that hadn’t yet learned to arrive.

  “My lord,” Hamish said, hesitant. One hand rose to scratch at his beard, a familiar tell the old knight had something to say but was weighing how much trouble it would cause.

  “What is it?” Kay asked. “If it’s about rations, Dylan has it handled.”

  Hamish snorted softly. “Not rations. It’s Sire Klod.”

  Kay’s jaw tightened before he could stop it. “I’ve noticed.”

  “Aye,” Hamish said. “Hard not to, the way he glares at you like you’ve stolen his best mare.” He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “You should know—Sire Klod and Sire Hudson have history. Their fathers all the more.”

  Kay blinked. “I thought Sire Hudson mostly warred with us.”

  “Not that one,” Hamish said. “Sire Hudson’s father. Ugly business, years back. You weren’t born yet, but I was in my prime then. Sire Hudson’s father raided Yellowhill’s borders near every spring. Cattle theft. Burned sheds. Claimed it was bandits or elves, depending on who he was lying to.” Hamish’s mouth pressed thin. “Sire Klod’s father lost kin to it. A cousin, if memory serves. Might as well have been a brother.”

  Kay absorbed that in silence.

  “Sire Klod blames Sire Hudson’s line for setting half the southern marches against each other,” Hamish continued. “Blames Sire Ray, too, though less loudly. Sire Ray kept the peace by being the bigger wolf. Sire Klod never liked being kept in line.”

  “And now he thinks I’m weaker,” Kay said quietly.

  Hamish’s eyes softened. “He thinks you’re young. And that young men cling too quick to pride.” He shook his head. “But it isn’t just you. Sire Klod’s anger’s an old wound. You just happen to be standing nearest at present.”

  Kay exhaled, the truth of it landing like a stone sliding into place. “Good to know.”

  Hamish touched two fingers to his brow. “Stand straight with him. Don’t bite unless he bites first. And if he does bite…” The old knight shrugged. “Well. Bite better.”

  Kay let out a huff that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Thank you, Ser Hamish.”

  “Goes both ways, my lord.” Hamish stepped back, nodding toward the hall where the lords waited. “Mind your temper. And theirs. Saints know Sire Klod’s temper has a will of its own.”

  Kay squared his shoulders and started toward the door, the old knight’s warning settling into the back of his mind like a well-placed stone in a wall—something to brace against when the shouting came.