Nyrius
Ipull four men from the eastern patrol and reassign them to the Oxwood perimeter before breakfast.
Cyran watches me write the orders without commenting, which means he's waiting until I've committed to paper before he argues. He knows me well enough to pick his moments.
"Tightest coverage on the northern creek path and the mill lane after dark," I tell the patrol captain. "I want a face with every name that moves through those routes between the second and fifth hours."
"Yes, my lord."
"Quietly. No confrontations unless there's active threat to a village resident."
"Understood."
He goes. I fold the remaining orders and reach for the ledger copies Cyran laid out this morning. Three weeks of financial records from the regional magistrate's office, cross-referenced against the trade manifests from the western corridor's last quarter.
The numbers take an hour to reveal themselves properly. When they do, I sit back and look at the ceiling for a moment.
Malrec isn't just padding tax collection.
He's drawing income from the smuggling routes directly—a percentage skimmed from every shipment that moves through the western corridor, laundered through a series of supply contracts paid to companies that don't appear in any legitimate merchant registry.
Clean on the surface. The kind of arrangement that takes years to build and requires connections in both the criminal trade and the administrative record offices.
He's been running this since before I took governance of the region.
I set the ledger down and think about every village inspection report I've signed off on in the last decade. Every summary prepared by regional administrators. Every discrepancy I accepted as normal variance.
Cyran appears in the tent entrance. "The patrol reassignments went through."
"Good." I don't look up from the ledger. "Come look at this."
He crosses the tent and studies the figures I've marked. His expression doesn't change, but I know him well enough to read the stillness that means he's recalibrating everything.
"He's on both sides of it," Cyran says.
"Taxing the villages into desperation and then profiting from the desperation." I close the ledger. "The rebellion he's supposed to be suppressing is partially funded by his own operation."
A pause. "That's not incompetence."
"No." I push back from the table. "It's deliberate destabilization. Keep the villages poor enough to supply rebels, keep the unrest alive enough to justify his authority, collect from both ends." I stand. "He doesn't want order. He wants the instability that makes him necessary."
Cyran is quiet for a moment. Then: "How long have you been building this?"
"Since we first got here."
"Because of the ledgers." His eyes find mine. "Or because of her."
I go to the tent entrance and look out at the camp. "Both started the same day."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only honest one I have." I turn back. "The ledgers are real regardless of why I started looking. The evidence stands without her."
"I know." He crosses his arms. "I'm asking something different.
" He waits until I face him fully. "Are you prepared for what comes after you move against Malrec?
The political exposure, the council's questions, Thalen looking for every angle?
" He lets that sit for a moment. "Are you prepared for those questions to include her? "
"I don't have an answer for you,” I say.
"That's the first time in thirty years I've heard you say that."
"Then mark it down." I pick up my coat. "I'm going to check on her injuries."
He doesn't follow, which means he's decided to let me go without further argument. I appreciate it more than I'd say out loud.
The forge is busy when I arrive — two farmers collecting finished work, Edria’s father moving slowly between the stock shelves. Edria is at the anvil, and she looks up when my shadow crosses the threshold.
She's moving carefully. Not dramatically, not asking for notice — just the slight adjustment in how she turns her torso, the way she keeps her left arm closer to her body. The bandage is gone from her head, but there's bruising above her left ear that her braid doesn't fully cover.
She finishes with the farmers before she comes to me.
"You didn't have to come by," she says.
"I wanted to see how the head was."
She touches the bruise briefly, a reflex. "Sore. Nothing permanent." She glances toward her father, who has settled onto his stool with his back to us. "Come outside."
We go to the back yard. The morning is cold and grey, a thin frost still on the coal pile's oilcloth. She leans against the stock wall with her arms loose at her sides, which is different from how she usually stands with me — no crossed arms, no forward lean ready to push back.
"I've been thinking about what you said," she starts. "At camp. About not trying to control—"
"You don't need to—"
"I do." She sighs and glances down. "I've been pushing back against everyone who tries to tell me what to do for so long that I stopped checking whether the pushback actually fits the person.
" She shrugs. "You pulled me out of the underbrush.
You sat with me while I slept. You bandaged my head.
" Her jaw moves slightly. "That's not control.
I know the difference. I just—" She stops. "I'm not used to it."
I wait.
"I was still shaken yesterday morning," she says. "More than I let on." Her voice stays level, but it's a different kind of level than usual—not armor, just honesty wearing a quiet face. "I kept thinking about what would have happened if you hadn't been in the forest."
"I had patrols watching the routes."
"I know. Finn told me." She almost smiles. "He was very pleased with himself for telling you about the creek path."
"He was trying to help you."
"He was." Her eyes study the frost on the ground. "Thank you. For coming after me. For caring whether I came home." She glances up again, briefly. "I don't say that to people often."
I look her over — the bruise above her ear, the careful way she's holding herself, the complete absence of performance in her face right now. She means every word, and she's uncomfortable with all of them, and she said them anyway.
"You're welcome," I say. Nothing added to it.
She nods once, pushing off the wall. "Your head's not bleeding, so I don't owe you any bandages." She moves back toward the forge door. "But you can stay for tea if you want. Papa made it this morning, which means it's strong enough to dissolve iron."
I follow her inside.