Chapter Three
Erindor
The sun hung low over the southern training yard, casting the stone walls of the barracks in copper and fire.
Bells tolled faintly from the temple towers, a deep, mournful sound that seemed to carry the weight of centuries beyond the courtyard walls.
Crows circled above in the bruised twilight, their dark silhouettes looping lazily as if they were waiting for the moment when they could swoop down and claim whatever remained, hungry for the promise of a feast yet to come.
Dust rose with every strike, painting the air with the smell of sweat, steel, and scorched leather.
I rolled my shoulders and shifted my grip on the practice blade, my fingers wrapped firmly around the worn leather. Across from me, Sir Crowen grinned the way a dog might when it believes it has cornered something smaller.
“Ready to lose, commoner?” he sneered, tossing his sword in a flashy spin that made the gathered onlookers murmur.
I didn’t answer. His fingers drummed a restless rhythm against the handle. A slight, cheeky grin tugged at my lips. My silence annoyed him. It always did.
Crowen fought like a peacock; all flourish and no weight behind his wings. Yet, I knew his sort. He fought to be seen. Each strike, each parry angled toward the balcony where nobles gathered to sip and judge.
I fought to end things.
He lunged first, as expected. The motion happened with speed, aiming for the shoulder, intended and daring. I stepped aside. My blade flicked upward, catching his mid-thrust and twisting him off balance.
Still no applause. Only the hush of those waiting for one of us to bleed.
“You fight like an ill-nourished inchworm,” Crowen spat between breaths. “It’s not surprising that a woman’s never called out your name in pleasure.”
Laughter rippled through the onlookers—all squires, stable hands, one or two drunk veterans leaning against the fence.
The urge to retort flared and died. I’d learned young that silence is a blade of its own.
He advanced again, chest puffed out, pressing harder this time, sweat glistening on his brow. I allowed him to feel like he was driving me to my place. Let him believe he was in control. I watched as his movements grew bolder.
Then I turned. Stepped into his swing. And with a clean movement, one born not of pride but precision, knocked the blade from his hand.
It clattered onto the dirt before us.
Gasps and surprised chuckles reached my ears.
I met his eyes. “Losing to an inchworm must sting.”
His face darkened. He attacked without thinking, but I had already shifted. My foot swept low, catching his ankle. He stumbled and fell to the ground with a resounding thud. I stopped short of planting my blade in his throat.
The commander’s voice cut through the moment like a hammer on stone. “Enough! Stand down.”
Crowen seethed. I bowed, small and sharp, then returned the blade to the rack. I’ll leave them to their whispers. To their wonder.
As I passed the weapons rack, I sensed a mutter behind me.
Another snorted. “He’s too quiet. Even the commander flinches when he walks in.”
They weren’t wrong. I was quiet. And that silence unsettled people more than violence. It made them imagine things that weren’t there. Or worse, things that were.
“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.
His armor 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.
It was apparent to me that I was meant to guard her, and I had never failed a post. So, that would have to be enough.
…
By the time dawn broke, I was already at the stables.
A dull gray-violet defined the sky, and the air held the burden of an approaching storm, though clouds hadn’t gathered.
Horses shifted in their stalls, snorting into the cold, while leather creaked beneath my hands as I tightened Flora’s girth strap.
Boots scuffed against stone behind me. They sounded like light and careful steps. I turned.
It was Princess Wynessa and her personal lady.
She looked delicate, not in the noble sense of ornament and poise, but like someone still learning how to stand up in a world that had pressed too hard.
Her cloak snagged briefly on the stirrup as she passed.
She waved off the guard who moved to help and tugged it free herself, though her hands trembled.
Her hair caught the early light, a glint of copper and gold.
Her posture was straight, too straight, the kind of stiffness that came from trying not to fold.
Her eyes swept the yard as if she expected someone to call her out for being here.
I moved closer toward her; she hardly reached my shoulder, and I wasn’t a large person by any measure.
A solid foot separated us, enough to make her look like she’d drown in a borrowed saddle.
She looked at me. I held her gaze long enough to nod.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “For…coming.” She cleared her throat. “On this journey. I mean.”
A pause.
“I’m Wynessa, by the way,” she added quickly, like she’d only just remembered how introductions worked. “But…I suppose you knew that.”
I gave a low grunt in acknowledgment. Little could be voiced.
She and her lady stepped back a few paces, just out of arm’s reach, their voices lowering to a whisper. They probably thought I couldn’t hear.
Wynessa turned toward the other woman beside her; Jasira, if I remembered correctly. Dark curls pinned back in a twist of green silk. She had a grounded look about her, with strong arms and a solid posture. Not a guard, but someone who’d learned how to protect things, anyway.
“I think he hates me,” the Princess murmured.
Jasira huffed. “He doesn’t hate you. He looks like he was sculpted by someone who’s never laughed.”
Wynessa gave a quiet, breathless laugh.
I looked away, pretending not to have heard.
She turned her attention from Jasira and stepped closer to a nearby stable hand who was no older than fifteen, with hay in his hair and a saddle strap clutched in his calloused hands. I’d seen him once or twice around the barracks but never bothered to learn his name.
“Good morning, Talen,” she said gently. “Thank you for readying the horse.”
The boy blinked, wide-eyed. “Y-you’re welcome, Princess,” he stammered, his cheeks going crimson.
Wynessa smiled like she meant it. “This one’s yours, isn’t it?” She reached to pet the nose of the chestnut gelding. “He’s beautiful.”
Talen nodded mutely.
I clenched my jaw. Of course, she knew his name. Of course, she asked after the horse as if it mattered. She had no idea what the road ahead held, and she was wasting her attention on stables and pleasantries.
Then, to my horror, she added, “I’ve never really ridden before. Do you have any advice?”
Talen’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. “Oh, uh, don’t—don’t grip too tight with your knees. Let the horse move under you.”
“Like dancing?” she suggested, with a hopeful tilt.
“Sort of?” he stuttered, clearly overwhelmed by her questions.
I turned away, biting back a sigh.
She was going to die.
Not by my hand. But by the road. She’d fall from the saddle before we cleared the foothills, twist her ankle on a rock, and offer honey to a bandit. She seemed the type of girl that smiled at a wolf and expected it to wag its tail.
And I was bound to her. Responsible for that smile. For those fragile and foolish questions.
I wanted to resent her. I told myself I did.
But deep beneath the irritation, something else stirred. Not pity. Not admiration. Just the uncomfortable sense that softness like hers wasn’t meant to last, and if it died out here, I’d have to carry the ashes.
How was I going to manage this task?