𝟸 | 𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚛𝚝𝚢 𝙵𝚎𝚎𝚝 𝚄𝚙

The eastern gate was louder than it should have been.

Arienne heard the commotion before she saw it.

Voices carried over the outer walls in uneven waves, overlapping until individual words became impossible to catch. Raised voices. Frustrated voices. The restless swell of a crowd that had been waiting too long.

With Corina at her side, she rounded the final arch, and the plaza opened before them.

It was already crowded. Haveners stood clustered in tight family groups beneath the watchful eyes of half a dozen Wardens. Children clung to cloaks. Packs, bedrolls, and bundled belongings lay in uneven piles near the walls, dampened by the morning mist.

A man with a braided silver beard stood apart from the rest, hands clasped behind his back while he studied the castle walls. His gaze moved over the stone with the grim practicality of someone measuring a problem by instinct. When Arienne approached, he turned. Corina saw his eyes flick from the princess’s embroidered hem to the parasol in her own hands.

His mouth twitched.

City slickers, that look said.

Corina tightened her grip around the handle.

One of the Wall captains broke away the moment he spotted Arienne.

“Your Highness,” Warden Renaud greeted, stiff with relief and exhaustion both. The fatigue etched across his face suggested the morning had already worn through the better half of his patience. When he reached her side, he lowered his voice. “The elder’s name is Miren. He insists on speaking only to someone capable of making competent decisions, which apparently excludes the rest of us.”

Corina bit the inside of her cheek.

So that explained why they had not handled the situation themselves.

“He asked for the King first,” Renaud muttered. “Then demanded a Frontier Commander. Then informed Lieutenant Carrow that he had not travelled this far to be received by someone’s errand boy.”

He gestured toward a dirt path veering off to the right. “Carrow has gone to cool his head. I thought it best.”

Arienne’s head dipped once, slowly, as if the explanation had settled into place with the rest of what she was seeing.

“I assume Lieutenant Carrow did not receive that well,” she said, though her attention had already begun drifting past Renaud’s shoulder.

The elder in question had cornered one unfortunate long-haired Warden into what was very clearly an involuntary conversation.

The Warden had retreated behind one of the Havener women, apparently deciding to use another human being as a social barricade. The woman stood frozen between them, both hands lifted slightly, her expression caught between peacemaking and a silent plea for someone else to intervene before she became responsible for a murder.

Elder Miren continued pointing at the younger man with increasing intensity.

The Warden endured the lecture with rigid stillness. Every so often, however, his gaze drifted over the woman’s shoulder toward the nearest exit, hollow and distant, like a man quietly reconsidering every choice that had led him to this exact moment.

Renaud made a pained face. “Carrow threatened to grab him by the beard and volley him back outside the gates.”

“Yes,” Arienne said, returning her attention to him. Her expression had begun to resemble his. “That does sound like Carrow. And quite justified.”

Renaud exhaled once through his nose. Some of the tension eased from his shoulders now that the situation no longer rested entirely on him.

“It is all right, Renaud,” Arienne said gently.

She reached out and rested her hand briefly against his armoured forearm, a quiet reassurance before giving it a small pat. “I can speak to him.”

Renaud dipped his head, visibly relieved.

Only then did Arienne turn fully toward the silver-bearded elder beneath the gate arch.

“Elder Miren,” she greeted, her voice carrying the balance she had learned long ago, gentle enough to soothe and firm enough to settle a room when necessary. “It is a pleasure to meet you. I am Princess Arienne of Sylvaris.”

As she spoke, she placed one hand lightly against the folds of her skirts and dipped into a graceful curtsey befitting her position. Polished. Formal. Never theatrical.

Miren returned the gesture with a shallow bow of his head, but his attention did not remain on her for long. His gaze shifted past her shoulder, toward the inner terraces, then farther still, toward the distant pale greenery visible deeper within the city.

The Mireline Gardens.

“Your people will have shelter in the eastern quarter of the Outer Ring,” Arienne continued calmly. “There is an old granary there. Dry, enclosed, and spacious enough for your families until something more suitable can be arranged-”

A disturbance near the gates fractured the conversation.

Several Wardens straightened as someone forced his way through the gathered crowd with the unmistakable momentum of a man already irritated before he arrived.

Polished greaves flashed between bodies. A sharp shoulder clipped past one unfortunate guard. Someone muttered an offended curse.

Then a broad figure emerged from the crowd like a storm cloud sporting the Frontier Sigil.

Cassian.

Corina suppressed a groan.

No matter where the princess went, Cassian had an uncanny ability to materialize the instant Arienne became involved with trouble. Charming in theory. Less charming in practice, since Cassian had long ago abandoned any attempt at proper professional distance around her and instead operated like an overprotective giant barracuda armed with a flashy sword and too many opinions.

He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a fresh cut splitting the skin above his left eyebrow. It had been cleaned in haste and otherwise ignored.

He was still dressed in training gear rather than formal armour. Dark sparring leathers hugged the breadth of his chest and shoulders, reinforced along the forearms, worn from repeated drills and long hours in the recruitment yard. A practice blade hung at his hip in place of ceremonial steel, and one sleeve had been rolled carelessly halfway to his elbow, like he had left in the middle of training and decided correcting himself was less important than arriving angry.

A faded white stripe ran along the neckline of his leathers. Just above it, visible where the collar sat open, the ink marking him as Warden cut three bold lines near his jaw. At his shoulder, a crest told the rest: a slender silver crown framed by sweeping finlike wings, curved around a crescent tide arc, worked in pale thread and tarnished metal.

Royal Sentinel to the House of Aravelle.

More specifically, Arienne’s.

Usually.

Lately, Cassian had been spending more time than usual with the initiates, running their early drills while the permanent commander finalized new Warden selections for the season.

It had made him even less tolerable than normal.

“Your Highness.” Cassian appeared at Arienne’s shoulder, breathless in a way that suggested he had sprinted across half the castle. His gaze swept the courtyard in a single practiced pass: Haveners, Wardens, wagons, the silver-bearded elder standing apart from the others.

Whatever he saw answered at least half his questions.

He stepped into place beside Arienne with effortless familiarity, settling there like he had never been absent at all.

“I received word you were heading for the gates,” he said, still catching the tail end of his breath.

Arienne finally gave him her full attention.

Her gaze moved over him once.

The cut above his eyebrow had stopped bleeding, though only barely. His sleeve remained rolled up from training, and a smear of dust darkened one shoulder where someone, or something, had clearly collided with him on the way here.

In other words, Cassian looked like he had abandoned one crisis halfway through to sprint toward another.

“And yet here I am, managing without you.” She plucked a nonexistent speck of dust from his pauldron. “You are late.”

Her hand lingered just long enough to smooth a crease that already sat flat.

Only then did she lift her eyes to his.

“Again.”

Cassian’s jaw twitched, but he smoothed his expression with the ease of long practice. “My delay was inevitable this time.”

“Incredible. I would absolutely love to hear how.” Her weight shifted onto one leg, locking herself comfortably to prepare for a ridiculous story.

“One of the aspirants attempted to prove initiative by climbing the western watchtower without permission. He slipped halfway up, panicked, refused to come down, and then threatened to jump if anyone laughed at him,” he said while adjusting the toy sword at his hip.

Corina glanced up at the sky. “A future defender of Sylvaris. How reassuring.”

Arienne ducked her head at once, shoulders tightening faintly with the effort of maintaining her poise.

“My point,” Cassian continued dryly, “is that word travels slowly when one is managing a grown man wedged onto a ledge thirty feet up.” Only then did he turn his attention to Renaud, giving him a sideways glance. "What did I miss?”

Renaud straightened instinctively.

As the two men fell into a low exchange regarding numbers, provisions, and arrival times, Arienne turned back to Elder Miren.

“As I was saying,” she continued, clearing her throat lightly, “the granary is yours for as long as needed. Wardens will escort your people there shortly.”

She hesitated, then added more softly, “Your journey must have been difficult. If any of your folk need healing, we can arrange for a physician-”

“We’ve lost no one,” Miren said before she finished.

His jaw held firm after the words, but his eyes moved once toward the gathered Haveners, counting them without seeming to. One family. Then another. The sleeping boy by the wagon wheel. The old woman clutching her shawl closed at her throat.

Only then did he look back at Arienne.

“Yet.”

Arienne’s shoulders eased by a fraction. The tension she had been carrying since arriving at the gates loosened just enough for a quiet breath to leave her.

“That is something worth being grateful for.”

Miren inclined his head. A small concession from a man who did not make them easily.

“How long were you on the road?” she asked.

“Eight days.” His brow twitched briefly. “Closer to six, normally.”

“You lost time.”

“Aye.” He stopped there. His hands, still clasped behind his back, tightened once before settling again. “Weather. Among other things.”

His gaze moved past her for half a breath, not toward the city, but back toward the road beyond the gates. Whatever had happened there remained behind his teeth.

Arienne could have asked.

The questions were there: sharp, practical, already arranging themselves. But road dust still clung to their boots. Shoulders stayed high across the plaza. Hands remained wrapped around packs, cloaks, children. No one looked fully relieved yet.

So she let him keep the rest for now.

“And your people?” she asked.

As the question left her, Arienne’s gaze moved over the gathered Haveners: the women adjusting packs against the wall, the men standing too stiffly beside the wagons, the children pressed close to anyone who looked steady enough to hold on to.

Then she found the boy.

He sat asleep against a wagon wheel, chin dropped to his chest, one hand clenched around the corner of a travel blanket. A young Warden crouched near him with a wrapped heel of bread, speaking softly, though the child did not stir.

“Exhausted,” Miren said. “Hungry. Frightened.”

He did not turn his head.

He did not need to.

His hands were still clasped behind his back, but his grip loosened by a fraction. One thumb dragged slowly over the inside of his palm before his fingers folded together again.

The boy’s hair was darker than his, but the shape of the brow was familiar. So was the stubborn little crease between the eyes, even softened by sleep.

Arienne let her gaze pass on, gentle enough not to linger.

“But alive,” Miren said.

“Yes,” Arienne replied, looking back to him. “And that matters.”

She turned slightly as she spoke, not enough to break the conversation with Miren, but enough for the nearest Warden to understand the words were meant to travel.

“They will have food within the hour,” she said. “Water as well. And a physician will examine anyone who wants one.”

The Warden straightened at once. “Yes, Your Highness.”

The order was given calmly, but it carried through the yard all the same.

Miren looked back at her. For a moment, he simply regarded her: the embroidered hem, the composed expression, the youth of her face against the steadiness of her bearing. He had met enough people in authority to know the difference between those who meant what they said and those who only performed meaning it.

Whatever he found seemed to satisfy him.

But the brief warmth faded almost as quickly as it had come.

Miren’s attention drifted past her again. Deliberate this time. His gaze moved toward the Mireline Gardens, where the Undynes rested among the pale greenery in the midday quiet.

He watched them for a long moment.

“Still,” he said, voice dropping. The firmness in it had been replaced by something quieter and less comfortable. “You should keep your eyes open.”

Arienne’s brows drew together slightly. “For what?”

Miren did not answer immediately.

His attention had already returned to the gardens.

Nearby, Renaud’s report to Cassian had run its course. Cassian glanced back toward the conversation just in time to see the elder staring past Arienne again.

His attention sharpened.

The elder had done it several times now.

Cassian followed the line of Miren’s gaze over Arienne’s shoulder toward the inner terraces of Sylvaris, where pale stone paths wound between stretches of greenery and canal-lined gardens farther within the city.

At first, he could not tell what the man was looking at.

The only movement near the distant tree line came from the Undynes resting there. Several of them were now visibly alert, ears perked, heads raised, watching the commotion at the gates with quiet attention.

Then a hunched figure near the back of the Havener group lurched forward, nearly tripping over her own cloak.

The Wardens tensed.

It was only an old woman, gnarled fingers clutching a wax-sealed letter.

“Someone left us this,” the woman rasped, thrusting it toward Arienne. “Three nights past, when the river fog was thick. Said it was for the princess’s hands only.”

Corina went very still, the parasol forgotten in her hands.

Arienne accepted the letter.

The parchment crackled like dry leaves between her fingers. That was the first thing she noticed as she turned it over.

The second was the wax.

It was old. Not cracked or crumbling with age, but worn in the particular way of something that had travelled for several days before arriving here. The surface had dulled from handling. A mark had been pressed into it, pointed at the top, with a narrow gap through its centre.

The edges were worn, like the stamp that made it was very old.

The silhouette did not match anything in her memory.

This letter had not been written recently. Someone had sealed it before this caravan ever reached Sylvaris.

Which meant someone had anticipated this.

Planned for it.

Known days in advance where these Haveners would end up and who would be standing at the gates when they arrived.

The parchment smelled of damp earth and something sharper, mildew perhaps, or the iron tang of old blood. Arienne turned it over once. Twice. Her thumbnail traced the jagged wax without breaking the seal.

Cassian had gone quiet beside her.

Not tense, exactly. Unmoving. Paying close attention and deliberately choosing not to interrupt her thoughts.

Arienne’s gaze lingered on the black wax seal.

The mark was the same.

Exactly the same.

The same worn edges. The same narrow gap pressed through the centre. She had held one just like it three days ago, slipped beneath her chamber door at the turn of the season.

She had not known who sent it then.

She did not know now.

Two letters.

One unknown voice.

Instinctively, she glanced toward Cassian for his reaction, only to realize he was not studying the letter.

He was studying her face.

“Another one?” Cassian asked.

He stood close enough that his breath stirred the loose strands of her hair. His hand hovered near his sword, though the old woman had already shuffled back into the crowd.

For a moment, Arienne said nothing.

Then she folded the letter carefully along its existing crease and turned slightly toward Corina, extending it without looking away from Cassian.

“Yes,” she said at last.

Corina accepted it immediately, her expression sobering as she slipped it beneath the ordinary kindnesses gathered from the morning market: pastries wrapped in paper, ribbons, herbs, and honey jars still faintly warm from the sun.

As though burying it among gentle things might dull the unease clinging to it.

“Another one,” Arienne said.