The village of Limepost had not seen such excitement in years. By sunset, the green square near the lime kilns was packed shoulder to shoulder with townsfolk. Lanterns hung from poles and windows alike, their warm glow rippling over the water. The air was thick with woodsmoke, laughter, and the unmistakable smell of roasting frog. The meat was rich, fatty, and faintly swamp-sweet.

  The frog had been dragged out that morning by half a dozen of the strongest men in the village, with cheers loud enough to wake the river itself. Its skin had been flayed and salted; its legs spitted on great iron rods. Now, as the bonfire crackled beneath it, the Prince Frog of Limepost sizzled into legend.

  Toby leaned against a barrel, grinning at the sheer spectacle. Children darted between tables, clutching sticks of roasted fish and half-burned bread. The reeve, Jimmy, presided proudly over the proceedings, cup in hand. “Never thought I’d live to see the day a toad bigger than my cart turned into supper!” he declared, to roars of laughter.

  At the center of it all, Sire Kay stood in his falcon-blue cloak, the firelight painting gold along the edges. He raised his cup, and the noise settled to a warm hush.

  “People of Limepost,” Sire Kay began, voice carrying clear. “You’ve faced a fear most would have fled from. You endured. That’s the strength of Highmarsh—that’s what my father built and what we will keep.”

  He paused, letting the words settle, then gestured toward the long table where the squires sat. “But tonight, our thanks go especially to those who faced the beast itself. To Ser Maxwell, whose calm kept us alive—” The villagers clapped, though Maxwell only nodded, face unreadable save for the faintest twitch of a smile. “—to Reece and Toby, whose courage never faltered—” more cheers, more laughter “—and to the man who struck the final blow…”

  Sire Kay turned, voice lifting slightly with deliberate gravity. “Zak of Highmarsh, the Frog Slayer!”

  The crowd erupted. Zak, who’d been quietly chewing a hunk of bread and hoping not to be noticed, froze mid-bite. His face turned the color of the embers.

  “Oh, come on,” he muttered, but the noise swallowed his protest.

  Villagers thumped his back, shouting toasts and raising mugs in his honor. Someone handed him a flower garland, and a gaggle of young women giggled behind their hands as he put it on.

  “Speech!” someone cried. “Speech for the Frog Slayer!”

  Zak stood slowly, glaring at Sire Kay, who only smirked behind his cup.

  “Right,” Zak said, clearing his throat. “My speech is: don’t sit on strange hills.”

  The crowd howled with laughter.

  “And,” he added, grinning now, “if you ever do, make sure your sword’s sharper than your wits—it’ll save you the trouble.”

  More cheers, more cups raised. Zak sat down with exaggerated dignity, trying not to look at the blushing barmaid who had just winked at him.

  “Well,” he muttered to Toby, “maybe this Frog Slayer thing isn’t entirely cursed.”

  Toby chuckled. “Careful, or you’ll start naming your kills. First the frog, next you’ll be chasing squirrels for sport.”

  Sire Kay leaned in, grin sly. “Only if he can count that high.”

  Zak groaned. “You two are terrible.”

  Toby smirked. “Says the man basking in fame and floral accessories.”

  The three of them laughed, and for a rare moment, it felt like old times—no shadow of war, no ghosts of fallen lords. Just squires, full of warmth and noise, alive in a world that still had room for laughter.

  Across the square, Reece appeared—freshly washed, wearing a clean linen shirt that looked borrowed but fit well enough. His hair still stuck up in damp tufts, and he carried himself with exaggerated pride.

  “You have no idea how good it feels to be dry again,” he said, sliding onto the bench beside Toby. “I swear I’ve scrubbed so much I’ve taken half my skin with it. But I can still smell that thing.”

  Toby snorted. “That’s because it’s still cooking.”

  “Lovely,” Reece said, rubbing his nose. “Maybe by next clear moon I’ll be free of it. Or maybe I’ll just live like this forever—Reece the Reeking, companion to the Frog Slayer.”

  Zak lifted his cup in mock solemnity. “Together, we shall terrify every dinner table from here to the riverlands.”

  Sire Kay chuckled. “At least you’ll never go hungry. People will feed you just to keep you away.”

  Even Maxwell cracked a laugh at that. He was standing a little apart from the crowd, talking quietly with the reeve while keeping one eye on his squires. When he caught Toby looking, he raised a hand and called, “Enjoy your feast, lads. I’ve already claimed the tongue steak!”

  Zak made a face. “That’s disgusting.”

  “That’s experience,” Maxwell said, entirely serious. “It’s our delicacy of the south. Best thing you’ll ever eat if you ignore where it came from.”

  “Somehow,” Reece said, “that doesn’t help.”

  “Don’t worry,” Toby added. “He’ll eat the whole thing before dawn, and we’ll have to smell it again at breakfast.”

  Maxwell only smiled. “That’s the privilege of rank, lad.”

  The night went on like that—easy laughter, crackling fire, the scent of roasted frog and ale, and the murmur of the river nearby. The villagers sang songs—old ones that Toby barely knew but hummed along to anyway. Children danced, and Sire Kay laughed freely for the first time since his father’s death.

  Toby watched him, a faint ache stirring in his chest—a sense of purpose. He’d seen what kind of man Sire Ray had been. Now he saw what kind of man his son might become. He knew, with quiet certainty, that he’d follow Sire Kay anywhere—not out of duty alone, but belief.

  Still, when his gaze drifted to the elven blade resting by his seat, its pale metal catching the firelight, he felt that old pull again—a reminder of promises not yet kept. One day, he would find the elves who had taken everything from him. But that day could wait. For now, the fire was warm, his friends were laughing, and Highmarsh still endured.

  Toby raised his cup and joined in the toast.

  “To the Frog Slayer,” he said, smiling.

  Zak groaned. “Don’t you start.”

  But he was smiling too.

  Morning came with knives. Light spilled over the riverlands in soft, forgiving gold, but it landed like a hammer on Toby’s skull. He squinted at it from beneath his hood, riding with his chin tucked and his eyes slitted like a cat in a gale. Beside him, Reece looked only marginally better—pale, jaw set as if the road itself had insulted him. Zak, meanwhile, made small, private suffering noises at irregular intervals, like a door whose hinges had opinions.

  Only Sire Kay looked entirely human. He rode straight-backed and clear-eyed, cloak neat, the falcon pin bright as if it had slept better than the rest of them. Ser Maxwell, of course, was stone with reins.

  “Gently,” Reece whispered to his horse as it picked up to a trot. “Gently, please. We were friends last night.”

  The horse flicked an ear back as if to say that was precisely the problem.

  Zak pulled even with Toby and winced at the sound of his own tack. “Is it possible,” he asked the air, “for a man’s head to be louder on the inside than a drum?”

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  “It is this morning,” Toby said.

  Sire Kay glanced back, lips pressed nearly—nearly—into a smile. “You were warned.”

  Zak groaned. “I was challenged. There’s a difference.”

  “Who challenged you?” Reece asked, voice threadbare.

  Zak considered. “Several people. One barmaid. A very persuasive cousin. The reeve’s cup.”

  “It was a pitcher,” Toby said.

  “Betrayal wears many faces,” Zak replied.

  They crested a damp rise where the road shouldered a willow-fringed ditch. The fields were a patchwork of pale stubble and new shoots, river haze lifting like breath. Birds made far too much noise for men who had made far too much noise the night before.

  Maxwell let them suffer for another hundred paces. Then, conversational as a baker discussing flour, he said, “Get used to it.”

  Three heads turned at once and regretted it.

  “Master,” Reece managed, “respectfully… no.”

  Maxwell’s eyes didn’t leave the road. “Learn your limits or learn to master them. There will be times you ride out after a wake, after a wedding, after a victory that feels like a miracle. The road will not care. The border won’t care. Your body will care very loudly. You can either make it obey, or spend your life apologizing to the sun.”

  Zak rubbed his temples. “The sun is unforgiving.”

  “The sun is punctual,” Maxwell said. “Be more like the sun.”

  Sire Kay’s horse sidled to avoid a puddle. “You could tell them the legend you dangled once, Master.”

  Maxwell made a small, noncommittal sound.

  Toby lifted a brow. “What legend?”

  “Ah,” Sire Kay said, eyes forward, tone perfectly grave. “There exists, at the far, shining edge of competence, a rumor—that those who master their breath and the Physical Art can drink like river barons and wake like monks.”

  Zak sat up straighter despite himself, then winced at the audacity of his own spine. “You can… do that?”

  Maxwell kept his face a mask, but his voice had the faintest ironical heat. “A man who truly understands breath can steady his pulse, ease his blood, quiet his nerves. He cannot conjure wine into water. He can make his body process consequences more efficiently.”

  Reece leaned forward over the pommel. “So… that’s a yes, if we get very good.”

  “If,” Maxwell said, “you get very good. And if you remember the Art is for surviving worse things than a festival.”

  Zak pointed a pained finger. “You just put hope into a sentence and then kicked it.”

  “Correct,” Maxwell said.

  The road narrowed where an alder’s roots had bullied the ditch, forcing them single-file. Reeds hissed on either side. Toby let his horse drop in behind Sire Kay and tried not to dwell on the battlefield echo that sometimes woke in him—the memory of Sire Ray like a forge in human shape, steel carving through certainty. Even through the throbbing fog of last night’s ale, that memory held the exactness of a blade. He adjusted the strap across his shoulder; the elven sword rode light and certain, unnervingly so.

  Zak’s voice cut back through the haze. “When we get home, I’m going to sleep for a week.”

  “You’re going to train,” Maxwell said.

  There was a collective groan.

  “Harder,” Maxwell added.

  Zak flopped forward like a man shot through with arrows. “Why.”

  “Because you’re closer,” Maxwell said.

  Reece made a sound of despair. “Closer to what?”

  “To being worth the meat you eat,” Maxwell said. “You all did well in Limepost. You also got lucky. Luck ends. Skill is repeatable.”

  Sire Kay nodded slightly. “Raise the yard work as you see fit, Master. If we have to ride in armor two hours before breakfast, we will.”

  Zak’s head lifted an inch. “We?”

  Sire Kay didn’t blink. “I said treat me as a squire on the road. The vow stands within the walls.”

  Maxwell gave the briefest, approving grunt. “Good. Then enjoy today’s ride. It is your last easy day for a while.”

  Reece sighed. “Define easy.”

  “Not bleeding,” Maxwell said.

  “Low bar,” Toby murmured.

  “Progress begins with a low bar,” Maxwell said. “Then you lift it.”

  They entered a stretch where the road climbed gently between hedges dotted with dogrose. Limepost lay behind them like a pale memory; ahead, the Highmarsh road gathered itself into something firmer, threaded with cart ruts and boot prints. A farmer at the field’s edge lifted his hat to the white falcon; Sire Kay returned the gesture with the same small, precise motion Sire Ray had used—the kind of grace that ruled by noticing. Toby watched that and filed it away the way he filed everything now: movements, choices, patterns he meant to adopt.

  Zak cleared his throat. “About last night,” he said, “I would like to formally request a policy wherein the title ‘Frog Slayer’ is only used when there are witnesses I wish to impress.”

  “No,” Toby said.

  “Absolutely not,” Reece agreed.

  Sire Kay’s mouth curved. “Duly noted and denied.”

  Zak held a hand to his heart. “Betrayal from all quarters.”

  “You slayed a frog,” Toby said. “You sat on it first.”

  Zak brightened faintly. “That’s a tactical feint.”

  “It was a nap,” Reece said.

  “Semantics,” Zak replied.

  A skylark rose, spiraling, all silver sound in the brightening air. The day warmed toward honesty. Even the hangovers began to retreat, sullen but beatable. Toby rolled his shoulders, feeling the ache of it, and let the breath settle deeper into his belly, the way Maxwell had drilled: in for a count, hold, out longer than in. The world steadied at the edges.

  Maxwell noticed. “Good,” he said, the praise as spare as a winter branch. “Do that until your head stops complaining. Then keep doing it so your legs will.”

  Reece tried to copy him, nearly choked, then managed a rhythm that didn’t look like drowning. “Does it work for… smell?” he asked hopefully. “Because I swear I can still taste the marsh.”

  “It works for your reaction to smell,” Maxwell said. “Which is what matters. You cannot stop a river. You can decide not to drown in it.”

  Zak squinted at him. “That sounded like poetry.”

  “It was an accident,” Maxwell said.

  They crested another rise. In the distance, the faint line of Highmarsh’s outer wall took shape against the light—teeth against the sky, banners at half their spring height. The sight reached Toby like water after salt. He hadn’t realized he was bracing until his chest loosened.

  Sire Kay drew a slow breath. “Home.”

  “Briefly,” Maxwell said. “I’ll see the three of you in the yard tomorrow morning.”

  Zak groaned again, but softer now, more ritual than complaint. “At least tell me there will be breakfast first.”

  “There will be breakfast,” Maxwell said. “And then running until you wish you had never been born.”

  Reece mumbled, “We already feel that way.”

  “Then we’re ahead of schedule,” Maxwell said.

  They let the quiet ride with them a while, hooves thudding a steady, forgiving rhythm. The road widened; the hedges broke into pasture. A pair of children herding geese spotted the falcon cloak and waved furiously until Sire Kay waved back. The geese approved of nothing and said so at length.

  Toby eased his horse alongside Sire Kay’s. “You did well last night, my lord.”

  Sire Kay’s eyes stayed on the road. “So did you.”

  “I meant the speaking,” Toby said. “And the not drinking like a fool.”

  “Someone had to be the example,” Sire Kay said. “Might as well be the one who has to hear complaints in the morning.”

  Zak called forward, wounded. “We didn’t complain. We suffered nobly.”

  “You named the moon unfair,” Reece said.

  “It was very bright,” Zak defended.

  Maxwell drew them back with a look. “Banter is a spice,” he said. “Too much ruins the meal. Save your breath for the gate.”

  They rode the last stretch with that disciplined quiet the yard had beaten into them. When the ditch deepened and the road flattened, the first sentry on the wall called a challenge. Sire Kay raised his hand; the white falcon flashed; the gate crew set their shoulders to the windlass.

  As the leaves above the gate shivered and the portcullis began its slow rise, Maxwell spoke, not loudly, but in a tone that made the words settle like weights.

  “Listen. The work sharpens now. What you did at Limepost is the floor, not the ceiling. We lift the bar. More endurance. More control. Fewer excuses. You want the rumor I mentioned? Earn it. Not for drink—for days when you must call your body to heel and it obeys without question. That is the Art’s plainest miracle.”

  They nodded—even Zak, even Reece through the last tatters of his ache.

  “And lads,” Maxwell added, almost—almost—kind, “enjoy this day off.”

  Zak blinked. “Now, I’m scared.”

  Reece groaned into his scarf. Toby smiled despite himself. Sire Kay leaned forward in the saddle as the shadow of the gate passed over them and the familiar smells of Highmarsh—oats, steel, soap, hay—took them in.

  “Highmarsh endures,” Sire Kay said.

  “Because we make it,” Maxwell replied.

  The portcullis shut behind them, like the sound of a bell tolling—the call to rise, to duty, and to endure.