I still for just a moment, tongs in hand, before I go back to work.
2
NYRIUS
The storm breaks three hours before dawn and doesn't apologize for the damage it leaves behind.
I ride at the front of the column with water still dripping from my hood, the forest path churned to mud beneath the horses' hooves. The trees here grow dense and wild, the kind of overgrowth that swallows roads if nobody tends them. Nobody tends them. That's the problem with the border territories—neglect compounds until it becomes indistinguishable from intention.
Cyran pulls alongside me, his bronze features unreadable beneath the wet. "Dovan's horse is throwing a shoe. Two others are close."
"How close?"
"Another league and we're walking them."
I scan the tree line ahead. The village is marked on my maps as Oxwood—small, border-adjacent, the sort of settlement that exists in the margins of every territory I govern. "There's a forge in the village ahead."
Cyran nods once and drops back to pass the order.
Behind me, I hear Aldis before I see him push his horse forward—young, loudmouthed, and convinced that rank makes him interesting. He's been a guard for eight months and complains like he's earned the right.
"We're stopping in a human village?" The curl in his voice is audible over the rain. "For horseshoes?"
"Unless you'd prefer to carry your horse the rest of the way."
He goes quiet. Good.
The corruption I've been turning over in my mind all morning has nothing to do with Aldis, and everything to do with the reports sitting in my saddlebag. Three villages along the eastern border showing identical taxation patterns—fees levied twice, labor quotas that exceed what the land can sustain, records that don't match the actual collection figures. Someone is skimming. Someone with enough access to do it cleanly and enough cover to do it repeatedly.
I haven't decided yet who.
Oxwood comes into view through the tree line—a cluster of low buildings, muddy lanes, a mill wheel turning slowly above a grey creek. The kind of place that looks like it's been tired for a generation.
The effect of our arrival is immediate. A woman gathering water from the well straightens and backs toward her door without turning around. Two men unloading a cart stop moving entirely, watching us with the stillness of people deciding whether to run. A boy—young, reed-thin—peers from behind a fence post before someone yanks him back by the collar.
I've seen this in every border village. I've stopped finding it remarkable, which is its own problem.
The forge sits on the main lane, its chimney already breathing smoke into the damp morning. We ride up in a loose group, and I signal the men to hold at the perimeter of the yard.
Aldis doesn't wait.
He swings down from his horse and approaches the forge entrance with a swagger that suggests he expects doors to open ahead of him. Inside, a young woman is working the bellows—auburn hair braided back, burn-scarred hands, shoulders set with the kind of focus that blocks out everything that isn't iron and fire. She doesn't look up immediately, which I find interesting.
"You there." Aldis plants himself in the doorway. "We need horseshoe repairs. Several."
She pulls a length of iron from the coals, examines it, sets it back. "I can see that. Leave the horses and come back at midday."
"We're not leaving our horses in a—" He gestures at the forge, at the village, at everything around him with one dismissive hand. "This."
She looks at him then. Hazel eyes sharp enough to take inventory.
"The workmanship out here is barely worth the metal," he continues. "I'd sooner have them go unshod than trust border village iron."
She sets down her tongs.
Then she picks up the nearest finished horseshoe from the rack beside her, walks to the doorway, and drops it directly at Aldis's feet. The clang of it against the stone carries across the yard.
"Then you're welcome to find someone else." Her eyes move past him, straight to me. "And you can tell your lord that if his soldiers rode better, they wouldn't crack shoes in a storm."
