Spring lay clean over the river and the new watch posts. Barges moved steady under Valeor oars while Hawk crews tallied on a single slate. Orders were short. Work was quiet. The keep breathed easier, like a chest that had stopped wheezing.
A rider came before breakfast with a ribbon-sealed scroll. Dust to his knees, jaw set the way messengers set it when every word has been practiced.
"For Lord Arion Delsar," he said. "By His Majesty's seal."
Arion broke the wax with his thumb, read once, and handed the scroll to Sir Malrec. The legate's brow lifted as he skimmed.
"Midsummer progress," Malrec said. "The king invites you to present your heir."
"Stories travel faster than grain," Arion said.
Lysandra leaned in from two seats down. "They want to weigh him. See if the stories are true."
Nyra's steward cleared his throat. "Court weighs, then binds. Oaths. Marriages. Favors that later become chains."
Eyes went to Aric. He kept his hands still on the table.
"I'll go," he said.
"You'll bow where bowing pays," Arion told him. "And stand where standing pays better. Nothing more."
Malrec dipped his pen. "If His Majesty asks you to show something?"
"Once," Aric said. "Cleanly."
Arion nodded. "We march in a month."
Word ran through the keep faster than the cook's bell. Young recruits looked at Aric as if he were taking them all with him. Old hands checked harness and made lists without being told. In the yard, a boy dropped a bucket and caught a cuff from the quartermaster for forgetting that water weighs the same after good news.
Preparation started that morning.
Malrec set up in the map room and taught like a man sharpening a blade.
"Court fights with questions," he said. "Answer what is asked. Don't answer the part that isn't. Praise has a hook. Find it."
He set small traps and watched Aric step around them.
"If a duke says, 'Your walls are high; are your granaries as full?'"
"As full as river and trade allow," Aric said. "We keep our oaths first."
"If a lady asks whether the stories of your strength are true?"
"Stories make their own bones," Aric said. "Ledgers don't."
"And if a prince laughs and asks whether you fear to show what you can do?"
"I fear wasting the king's time."
Malrec's mouth ticked. "Better."
In the yard, Aric drilled the men harder. He broke the Steelwind Forms into pieces anyone could keep under fear. Cross-Current for footwork that steals a man's aim. Stone-Notch for driving weight down a spear so it sticks. Hook-and-Throw for turning ladders or men the same way. Lysandra ran the left files until they moved like one arm. Valeor sergeants took a row on the right. No one cared which banner corrected them if it made the line hold.
Nyra walked the yard with her cloak pinned back and boots dusty, listening more than talking. At midday she caught Aric by the water trough.
"You'll want a calmer escort than for a siege," she said. "Veterans who keep lips shut and boots clean. I'll see you to the border. Past that, Hawk colors alone."
"Done," Aric said. "Six Valeor boats shadow on the river."
She nodded. "Clothes too. Court looks at cloth before faces. I'll send a tailor who can make you look like you didn't come straight out of a forge."
He almost said no. He shut his mouth and nodded.
Wren chose forty Hawks for the road—twenty pikes, twelve crossbows, eight shields who could move fast. Two wagons held gifts and weight that meant something: a pair of bright-forged blades from the new smithy; a ledger of joint tallies signed by Hawk and Valeor stewards; river charts inked clean by the engineer; bolts of river-bleached linen; jars of honey sealed tight; a small cask of dry salt. Nothing loud. Everything solid.
Serenya sent for Aric the second evening. She rarely asked and never wasted words.
"They'll look," she said. "Choose who stands near you."
"Wren on my right," Aric said. "Malrec when I'm asked. Lysandra—"
"Stays here," Serenya said. "The keep must look steady when you leave."
He accepted that without argument.
She opened a chest he hadn't seen since he was small and put a folded packet in his hand.
"Not a new form," she said. "Old counsel. Your grandfather's notes on how the Steelwind moves in halls where floors are smooth and knives are words. Read. A hall is a field. Don't forget footing."
He read by lamp until letters blurred. Step into power without bumping pride. Let a man finish his sentence while you move him onto ground he doesn't like. When to be seen. When to stand in shadow and let a rumor work for you. It was the Steelwind with chairs.
The tailor arrived on the fourth day—a quick-eyed woman who tapped seams like a drum.
"Hold still," she told Aric. "Don't puff. You already fit."
She cut a coat that folded small and looked like it had been poured on. Nyra approved with a single nod. Lysandra circled him once and grunted. "You can still swing," she said. "Good."
Not all visitors came with needles. A grain buyer from upriver showed a tidy seal and asked for cheap oats "to ease a hard spring." He smiled too much. Wren rubbed his thumb across the wax and asked which knife he'd cut the stamp with.
The man went white and grabbed for his belt. He came up with nothing because Aric's hand had already closed on his wrist and the knife lay on the floor.
"Who sent you?" Aric asked.
"House Keld," the buyer said, swallowing. "They wanted your prices. And your trains. I thought—"
"You thought wrong," Aric said. "Walk home without a belt and without a blade. Tell Keld our tallies aren't for sale and our trains don't run blind."
They let him go. Word would carry that Delsar didn't shout, didn't bleed easy, and didn't take bait.
At the mid-bank drill, Valeor oars beat Hawk crews in a short race through tight water. The losers bought bread. Aric ran the penalty with them and didn't grimace when Nyra handed him the heaviest loaf.
"Court has its own races," she said aside. "Don't run any you didn't set."
"I prefer courses where I know the banks."
"Then widen your river," she said. "And if they ask why Valeor stands with you, say: profit for both, oaths kept. Nothing softer."
"Done."
The royal engineer tried to cram three lectures about stone into one day and finally just set his callused hand on Aric's shoulder. "If anyone asks why your wall holds, say you pay men who listen to walls."
"I'll say it," Aric said.
The young lord from upriver returned for a day's drills with boots finally laced right and better questions. He stood in the front rank long enough to learn where a spear butt bruises the heel of your hand and long enough to stop talking about pike length. He watched the tally board and asked who wrote, how often, and who checked the checker. He left with a copy of the river watch list and two men to teach it. He had cousins counting behind him; Aric liked that this one counted with his hands.
The last week moved fast. The wheelwright greased axles. The quartermaster weighed oats twice and didn't cheat either way. The scribe copied the joint tallies—one for the king, one for the treasurer—and pressed both smooth.
On the final night the hall felt nearer. Arion sat with a map and two sticks of wax. Malrec leaned over the parchment. Nyra's steward ran a last column of numbers and set down his pen. Serenya poured a thin cup and placed her hand on the table's edge.
Arion didn't give speeches. He looked at his son and spoke like a captain.
"You will be calm. You will listen. Keep your hands open until you need them closed. Praise has a price behind it; find it. Threats have weakness under them; look for it. Don't show anything twice. Don't pick up anything you can't carry home."
Aric nodded once. "Yes."
Arion pressed the seals on the folded tallies. "Put these in the right hands yourself."
Serenya slid him a plain old ring. "For your pocket," she said. "Not your finger. If anyone asks, you carry it because your mother told you to."
He took it. He didn't argue.
They slept like men who meant to rise before dawn. In the gray light, the yard filled without noise. Wren stood the escort in two ranks—clean boots, clean edges, no shine that looked like trying. Wagons creaked once as the teamsters leaned traces into motion. The hawk banner climbed the pole. Nyra's blue hung beside it, soft in the early wind.
Lysandra walked the line and checked straps like a sergeant. When she reached Aric, she lifted a brow. "Don't break anyone's hand by accident."
"I'll try."
"Fail if necessary," she said, and grinned without teeth.
They moved out through the gate at sunrise, down past the training square, onto the road that curved along the river. Farmers raised hands from furrowed rows. Children pointed. A boatman on the landing horn gave a short salute, then pretended he hadn't when his mate elbowed him.
The first day was easy miles over ground they knew by shoe leather and wheel rut. At noon a cart from a hill village had snapped an axle in the road bend. Aric put a shoulder under the load while Wren and two men set a spare pin. The carter watched with his mouth open and then remembered himself and bowed without words. Aric set the cart down as if it weighed less than it did and said only, "Watch your pin next time."
The second day ran along villages that had learned to live with tallies and patrols. A father brought a boy to the verge and pushed him forward. The boy held out a wooden hawk he'd carved rough from river willow. Aric took it, turned it once in his fingers, and gave the boy a copper and a nod. The father stood taller after that and the escort stood a little taller too.
They crossed the narrow where road squeezed between river and rock and the watch posts felt close as teeth. Valeor boats ghosted along the current until the border bend. There, Nyra's banner dipped; her crews backed water and held the line as if someone had drawn it with a knife across the river's face.
"From here, you're an heir on your own feet," she called from the prow. "Make the valley look good."
"You made it look good with us," Aric said.
"Keep it that way," she said, and turned the boat with a clean stroke. The blue slipped away with the current and was gone around the bend.
Past that point Hawk colors alone rode the road. Malrec came up beside Aric and handed him a folded sheet.
"Names and faces at court," he said. "What each wants, so far as paper knows. Paper is honest and men are not, so update with your own eyes."
"I will," Aric said.
"Remember," Malrec added, "every hall is a field. You already have the footwork."
They camped in a farmer's meadow with permission and coin. The escort set a quiet ring. Aric walked the circle once, checked the ropes, tested a knot by feel, and looked east where the road cut into low hills. He thought about footing, about weight, about which questions to answer and which to let pass like water past a piling. He would show what needed showing, once, and no more. He would bow where bowing paid and stand where standing paid better. He would put numbers in the right hands and keep his hands from breaking grips he didn't mean to break.
Morning moved them closer. A tollman at an old bridge tried to double the fee when he saw banners. Malrec handed him the royal schedule without raising his voice. The man read, swallowed, and let them pass with the right coins in his palm and his cap in his other hand.
By midday the road widened. More banners rode it. Traders, minor lords, a cart with singers who tried to sell songs about the ridge that got the details wrong and the feeling right. Wren bought one verse anyway and told them to learn the names before they sang them again. They promised. They would forget. Songs are like that.
They reached a wayhouse built where three roads met. The keeper had clean straw and a ledger that balanced; Aric checked it out of habit and paid for the men to sleep under a roof in turns. In the corner a pair of men with Keld colors spoke too softly and looked too hard at the escort. Wren shifted two shields to sit between them and the door and the men in Keld colors discovered other business outside.
Night closed in around low talk and lamp light. The escort kept a tight watch without being ordered to. Aric sat with Malrec and Wren at a corner table while the room ebbed and filled again.
"Tomorrow we meet the king's road," Malrec said quietly. "There will be more eyes. If someone bumps you, they're weighing. If someone smiles without teeth, they're selling. If someone offers help before you ask, they're fishing."
"What if someone offers help after I ask?" Aric said.
"Then pay fair and don't let them think they've bought you," Malrec said.
Wren finished his bread and stood. "I'll look at the horses," he said, which meant he would look at the stable boys' hands and the hayloft and the latch on the far door.
Aric turned the old plain ring over once under the table with his thumb and put it back in his pocket. He slept as if in a barracks and woke before the horn because that was how he had trained himself to live.
They broke camp in good order. The sun climbed. The river bent away. The land opened. New banners took the same road, and some turned to look. The world beyond the ridge came on.