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."
The yard goes absolutely still.
I hear Cyran exhale beside me. Behind me, someone—Dovan, I think—makes a sound that might be a suppressed laugh.
The older man comes out from the back of the forge fast, limping heavily on one leg, his broad weathered face gone pale. He gets between the girl and the doorway with his hands already raised.
"My lord." His voice is strained with urgency. "Please forgive my daughter. She hasn't slept. She doesn't—she isn't herself. We are grateful for your patronage, deeply grateful, and she'll begin the repairs immediately—"
"Papa." The woman's voice is flat.
"Edria—"
"Stop apologizing."
His eyes close briefly. Mine, on the other hand, open a little wider.
I dismount.
The father starts apologizing again the moment my boots hit the ground. I walk past him without acknowledgment, not unkindly, and stop in front of the young woman standing in her forge doorway with a stiff posture like he has already decided she won't move.
She's shorter than me by a significant margin. She looks up without flinching.
"Edria," I say.
"You didn't ask."
"I heard your father."
"He wasn't introducing us." She crosses her arms, hands disappearing under her elbows. "That's my name anyway. You've done worse things than learn it."
Behind me, the father makes a strangled sound.
"I have," I agree. "I intend to do worse still." I watch her eyes—no fear there, just wariness wearing the mask of boredom. "I haven't decided your punishment yet."
"Bold of you to assume I'd stand still for one."
"Bold of you to mouth off to an elf lord over a horseshoe."
"Bold of your soldier to insult my work before he's seen it." She tilts her head, just slightly. "The shoe I dropped was better than anything your man rides on. You're welcome to examine it."
I glance at Aldis, who is doing an admirable impression of a man who wishes he were somewhere else.
"He'll examine it," I say. "On his knees, if it'll make you feel better."
"It'd make me feel better if he learned to keep his mouth shut." She glances back toward the forge. "I'll have your horses done by midday. All of them."
"I'm sure you will."
She turns to go back inside, and I let her get three steps before I speak again.
"The price?"
She stops but doesn't turn. "Same as always."
"Double it."
That makes her turn. She stares at me with something working behind her eyes—suspicion, mostly, and underneath it, careful arithmetic, weighing the money against who it’s coming from.
"Why?"
"Because your work is worth it." I hold her gaze for one beat. "Isn't that what you just argued?"
Her mouth presses flat. She doesn't thank me. I don't expect her to.
I pull the coin from my belt and hand it to the father, who takes it with shaking hands and too many words of gratitude.
I turn back to my horse, one foot in the stirrup, and glance over my shoulder at Edria, who has returned to her anvil and is making every visible effort to pretend I no longer exist.
"Don't go far," I tell her. "I find myself looking forward to our next conversation."
She doesn't answer. But her hammer comes down slightly harder than necessary on the iron, and I count that as something.
I ride out of Oxwood with the column behind me and Cyran predictably silent at my left side for exactly as long as it takes to clear the village lane.
"Not a word," I say.
"I wasn't going to say anything, my lord."
"Good."
He says nothing for another thirty seconds.
"She dropped the horseshoe at his feet."
"Cyran."
"I'm just noting it."
I look ahead at the road and say nothing, which he correctly interprets as permission to be satisfied with himself for the remainder of the ride.