Malrec's handwriting is neat and precise, the penmanship indicating his educated background. At least, that’s what he wants me to think.
Miss Edria — it has come to my attention that Lord Nyrius's interest in your forge extends beyond professional matters. As a representative of this region's administrative welfare, I must remind you that Oxwood's internal affairs are precisely that —internal. Any information shared with outside parties, however well-positioned, reflects on the village as a whole. I trust your discretion.
I read it twice. Then I fold it and tuck it into my apron pocket before Finn can ask what it says.
Internal affairs.However well-positioned.The phrasing is careful, but the threat underneath it isn't. Malrec isn't warning me about gossip. He's warning me about what Nyrius might learn. And a man who worries about what a border lord might learn from a blacksmith has things he can't afford to have found.
Nyrius is getting close to something, and Malrec knows it.
I takea different path to the forest that night, cutting north along the creek bed before turning west toward the drop point. Velis notices.
"New route," he says.
"Patrols have shifted." I hand him the bundle. "You should switch yours too."
He counts the blades, nods once. "Already planned for it. We'll rotate three paths. Nothing regular." He looks up from the bundle. "The dark elves are moving on this faster than expected. Word is they want to shut down the western corridor completely before the cold season ends."
"How close are they?"
"Close enough that I'm not using the same man twice on any delivery." He ties off the oilcloth. "You should be careful."
"I'm always careful."
"Be more careful."
I take the coin and go.
The creek path home is longer, colder, the frost already hard on the ground underfoot. I move carefully, listening for thesound of patrol horses, and find nothing but wind and the creak of bare branches.
I think about Malrec's letter the whole way back.
And I think about Nyrius — the way his investigation into Oxwood's records directly threatens whatever Malrec has been running. The closer Nyrius looks, the more dangerous his proximity becomes. Not just for me, with my hidden weapons and my forest meetings. For him.
An elf lord with a personal attachment to a human woman in a village where everything is already political — it's a handle anyone could grab. Malrec, the courts. It hands them something to use.
I push through my front door into the cold dark house and stand in the kitchen for a moment, listening to the quiet.
Whatever last night was, it may already be costing him more than I know.
14
NYRIUS
The meeting is in Denvara, three hours east, in a hall that smells of pine resin and old stone. I sit through the first hour thinking about Edria.
Not productively. Not in the way I'd think through a supply route problem or a ledger discrepancy. Just her—the forge light across her face, the way she'd kissed me back without hesitation and then rebuilt every wall before I'd finished dressing. I'd left without pushing, because pushing would have been the wrong move. But I'd thought about it the entire ride east.
I pull my attention back to the table when Caevar starts talking patrol numbers.
The rebel activity in Ardenmere hasn't slowed. Two more ambushes on eastern roads, one supply depot raided clean. The council wants expanded military presence along the western corridor, which I've been arguing against for three weeks because military presence in desperate villages doesn't create compliance—it creates incidents.
Thalen waits until Caevar finishes before he turns to me.
"There's a rumor circulating," he says, in the tone he uses when he's already decided the rumor is useful to him."About your continued presence in a border village. Oxwood, specifically." He pauses. "And a human woman."
The table quiets in the way tables quiet when someone says the thing everyone was already thinking.
I place the cup aside. "I have an informant in the area."
