“Erindor, haul your damned carcass in here!” Commander Harven bellowed from across the yard.
Located over the forge, the commander’s tower office remained warm, permeated by the aroma of oil, chain-mail, and aged parchment. I stepped down the corridor to Harven’s office, every crack in the stone of the corridor seemed to hold a whispered echo of past battles. The faded banners, hanging like tattered ghosts, serving a silent reminder of the border fights that had shaped this place. Dust clung to the corners, and the sconces along the walls burned low. I’d walked down this path a dozen times; each one the same, each one lonelier. Once upon a time, a shield had been hung crookedly on the wall. Before someone had decided to take it down. Now gazing at the wall, I wasn’t sure if that made the place better or worse.
“By the black breath of Tharn, get in here now, boy,” he growled loudly
I took a breath, straightening my back as I walked through the door, and stood at attention.
Harven remained oblivious to my entrance, his fingers dancing a furious rhythm on the scroll, hammering out a beat that resonated like a war drum. Broad-shouldered with a thick middle, his once dark beard, now streaked with gray strands. A long scar cut across one temple and disappeared into his hairline; a souvenir from a campaign he never talked about. Hisarmor hung from hooks behind him, dented and worn, like it had been through too many winters and not enough polish.
“You’ve been assigned to escort Princess Wynessa to Caerthaine,” he said finally.
My brows didn’t move, though something in my chest did.
“Remove that expression from your face,” Harven snapped. “This isn’t a cushioned parade. You’ll pass through Wildervale and several worse places. You keep her alive, understood?”
I nodded in agreement.
Harven leaned over the map spread across the table, the lines of his scar deepening as he scowled. “The southern road’s half-flooded from the autumn storms. Bridge at Deymarch is gone. You won’t be able to take a wagon across, not with the rivers this high.”
He rapped his knuckles against the pass etched in faint ink near Wildervale. “There’s the ridge path, but no one with sense goes that way. Too many stories. Too many bodies. Stick to the lowlands and keep ahead of the cold-season rains. If you time it right, you’ll reach Caerthaine dry.”
He leaned forward, elbows on the desk. “And don’t get attached. She’s not for the likes of you. She has a prince to marry.”
The pause stretched, thick as smoke.
“Understood Sir. I’ll guard her with my life,” I said.
“That’s all you’re here to do,” he muttered, before flicking his fingers at me. “You’re dismissed, Sir Erindor.”
I stepped back, then raised my right fist over my heart, fingers curled tight; the old salute of Elyrien’s royal guard. A vow of silence, service, and steel.
He didn’t reciprocate.
I turned and left without another word.
…
The wind changed when night fell. The courtyard emptied of voices, but not of ghosts, their mournful whispers carried the wind that rustled the withered leaves clinging to the ancient stone walls.
I sat alone on the old stone bench that faced the withering apple tree near the edge of the barracks yard. Its branches stretched out like fingers grasping at the stars. Leaves murmured secrets to the wind, brittle from the end of summer.
A basin of water sat beside me, half full from my earlier training. I dipped my hands into it and rinsed the dirt and sweat from my palms, watching the ripples catch the faint light of the torch.
Everything seemed peaceful when people weren’t looking. That was the danger of stillness; it gave you back your thoughts.
I leaned back and stared up. The sky above the barracks stretched wide, bruised and star-choked, a scatter of quiet fires. My mother used to say each held the memory of a soul. Lights that watched. Lights that remembered.
She believed in stories, but I wasn’t sure if I ever had.
Still, I found myself searching for them anyway.
The scent of mint came unbidden. Simply a memory.
She’d taught me to read storms by the scent of the wind, to tell which herbs numbed pain and which ones called dreams. She never carried a blade, but she didn’t need to. I remembered the way men flinched from her gaze.
I closed my eyes and tried to forget the ache in my shoulder. The day’s training had gone on long. Too long. Tomorrow, I was to ride alongside a princess. I’d never spoken to a girl spun from silk and hopes.
Would she speak in honeyed words and walk as if on glass? Would she scream at the sight of blood? I remained unsure, and I didn’t take the time to speculate.
