Arthur had barely caught a full night's sleep — "sleep" being a generous word for four hours of twitching and dreaming about spreadsheets turning into wolves — when a messenger arrived before breakfast. A real messenger, coat muddy, horse steaming in the cold, face like a man who'd slept on a rock and then regretted it.
The knock at the manor was the kind that made the whole house quiet. It was one of those knocks that says: "I have paper that will ruin everyone's day, probably including yours."
Evelynn opened the door and took the letter with a hand that trembled not from the cold but from something sharper. She read it once, her face folding like cloth. Arthur was slurping his soup — bad soup, but warm — when she walked back in.
"Craymore demands triple the taxes," she said, and the sound of her voice was smaller than it should've been.
Arthur choked on the spoon. Soup went down the wrong pipe. He hacked and flailed and probably looked like something caught in a very tragic play.
"Triple?" he spluttered. "He can't— we don't even collect enough as-is. There's— there's no way."
Evelynn sat across from him and put the letter on the table like the thing had teeth. "He sent an envoy. He claims border instability. He claims we cannot be trusted to pay, and so he will take matters into his own hands if we don't comply."
Arthur tried to imagine "taking matters into his own hands." He pictured Viscount Craymore strolling through the village like a man taking free samples at a market, only less polite.
"Send them away," Arthur blurted. "Tell Craymore to— to shove it. We can't pay triple. We need the food for the people."
Evelynn's hand covered his. "Arthur, you must be careful. Craymore holds rank and men. He—" she stopped, eyes lost for a beat, "he wants the manor for reasons beyond taxes."
Arthur's spoon clinked against the bowl while he processed this. "Reasons like… marriage? Murder? Kidnapping my mother? All of the above?"
Evelynn didn't smile. "He has designs."
The word sat like cold on his skin.
They needed options. Not bravado or fantasy. Options: money, bargaining, leverage, allies. He thought of Seraphine (the merchant girl who arrived later, with money in sleeves and a glare that said "I know how to get things") and Aeloria (the elf — not yet involved — but professionals of magic), and of course the deep, stubborn miners south in the dwarven halls who might trade for ore.
He also thought of Leon, because Leon had been unnervingly competent for a teenage hunter and because Leon's eyes had a way of saying "I will do anything." That included making Arthur feel like a commander, which was weird and slightly nauseating.
But before Arthur could summon courage or formulate some plan, the envoy arrived at the gates: two riders in fancy tabards, one of them with the bear-flag of Craymore stitched on. They looked like they expected kowtows, and they got them.
The man who dismounted — a portly fellow who seemed to enjoy his coat — introduced himself with chuckly politeness. "Representing Viscount Halden Craymore, of course. A pragmatic man, very concerned for the kingdom's wellbeing."
He smiled in a way that did not reach his small, calculating eyes.
Arthur swallowed, suddenly small in his chair.
The envoy made small talk like a man who feeds knives to the conversation. He praised the manor's flowers (while eyeing Evelynn), he commented on the soldiers (noting their low numbers with a shrug), and then, like someone flicking a switch, he set the letter on the table and recited the demand.
"Triple. Or we will be enforced to take funds, goods, and possibly personal guarantees from Lord Grayfall's household."
Evelynn's fingers tightened around the paper. Lily slipped a small hand into Arthur's sleeve and squeezed so hard it hurt.
Arthur realized he could either bluster (which would have consequences) or think. Thinking was his survival language.
"Why triple?" he asked, calmly as he could.
"Border security is costly," the envoy said, as if quoting a proverb. "It is prudent to match expenditure to risk. Grayfall's proximity to the ridge makes it a… strategic concern."
Translation: We want your stuff and your lady.
Arthur's jaw clenched. He could have stormed out with a speech — something about honor and legacy and—no. That would've been dumb. And likely to get Evelynn married to a man she didn't desire. He thought of Lily's face and imagined the horror of a man like Craymore being in their home.
"No," he said finally. "We cannot pay that. Grayfall's stores are needed to keep people fed."
The envoy smiled a smile only a small man could make. "You must understand that refusal is… complicated."
"What does that mean?" Arthur demanded, feeling braver only because panic was a good anesthetic for fear.
"We will send a small detachment to oversee payment," the envoy said. "And until things are settled, we will be— how to say— ensuring the Viscount's interests."
The words 'ensure his interests' had the ring of a threat.
Arthur wanted to argue, said something like "We'll hire mercenaries, garrison the village, start tax evasion programs"—but the words fell short. He needed an angle, a lever.
"Give me three days," he said instead, which sounded like a bargain and not a surrender. "Let me organize. If I can produce accounts and show you where the funds could be found, you will—?"
The envoy's eyes narrowed. "Three days. Fine. But understand: Viscount Craymore is not a patient man."
And with that they left, the envoy's boots clacking like a countdown.
As their riders faded down the lane, Arthur felt the echo of every stare. People would talk. People would panic. People would look at their baron and decide whether he was weak or worthy.
He hoped for worthy. He suspected weakness.
Ella's Awkward Visit
The next morning, before any more threats showed up, a small knock announced something less menacing: a girl. Civil. Simple. Smiling in the way of people who hadn't been schooled to hide their feelings.
Ella came with a basket. He knew it was Ella before she spoke; the villagers had already whispered her name since the wolf fight. She wore an apron with flour dust, and when she smiled, it was like sunrise creeping under a curtain.
"Good morning, my lord," she said, fumbling with her words like they were new coins.
Arthur's brain betrayed him. "Morning. You—you brought bread?" He realized how small that sounded. Too small.
"Yes," Ella said, cheeks reddening. "I wanted to bring something. The village… we… we are grateful."
Lily instantly latched onto Ella like a sibling. "You made buns! They're good— you should sell them. You should—" Lily was babbling like a small stream.
Arthur tried not to stare because his mouth was an idiot and he might drool. "They smell great."
They sat awkwardly in the small parlor where sunlight found every dust mote like it was a stage light.
"You don't look like a baron who sleeps much," Ella said casually, sliding into a chair. "You look tired."
Thanks. He stifled a laugh that sounded like a hiccup. "I'm fantastic, really— champion level tired."
Ella looked at him like she was deciding if he was lying or not. "You did well. You saved us."
Arthur wanted to deflect which he did by trivializing. "Oh, Leon did the hero stuff. I just made bad decisions and good guesses."
Ella's eyes were small moons of curiosity. "Your guesses were good. The pits and logs… I thought it was clever."
He felt like a fraud. Like some carnival magician who'd only wangled a trick once.
Lily, sensing that Arthur might be floundering romantically, poked his arm. "You should ask Ella— I mean, if you want— to teach you how to bake."
Arthur choked on his dignity. "What? No, you— we—" He made a poor attempt to look noble, succeeded only in looking flustered.
Ella laughed lightly. It was a sound the manor did not hear enough. "I'll teach you. But you should try not to faint in the kitchen."
He didn't faint there and then, though his cheeks burned like a chimney. So that was a victory.
Yet even in the softness of bread and shy smiles, the manor creaked with worry. Craymore's demand was a drumbeat beneath the day, and Arthur could hear it even in Ella's laugh. He wanted to protect this simple warmth before the world turned it into currency.
While bread cooled and talk circled like polite swallows, Leon dragged Arthur outside to the training yard. The men had been drilling, grumbling, counting, and some had taken to making half-serious bets on who might faint first under the viscount's possible pressure — which was cruel but also oddly human.
"Just do this," Leon said bluntly, handing Arthur a practice pole. "Stand like this, weight on your front foot, pivot when they move around you. It's balance. You can learn."
Arthur's brain hated the idea of learning to fight — it was loud, physical, messy — but there was a quiet logic to it, like circuits and levers in a new form.
He tried and clumsily missed the pivot. Leon tutted and corrected him. "Relax your shoulders. Move from the hip. Not your arms alone."
Arthur followed, more by stubbornness than talent. He stumbled less, which felt like winning a small war. The men watching offered small nods, and that made his stomach warm in a weird way.
"You're improving," Leon said, and Arthur had to work to not take the praise like a spoonful of pride that might be poison.
But as they trained, Arthur felt the old familiar sting of inadequacy: Leon's ease, the soldiers' steady strength, and his own mind which could plan jigsaws but couldn't swing a sword without looking ridiculous. He was useful — strategy, traps, thinking — but when the viscount rode in with men and power, thoughts and traps might not be enough.
At the same time… the fact he could train, the fact Leon would take orders, that Ella would bake him bread, those things added up to something that almost felt like hope. It was faint, half-glued together with panic, but it was there.
A Bad Sense at Sundown
Sundown came and the sky was pink and lying. Arthur sat on the manor wall, elbow on his knee, watching the village lights pop on like fireflies. He should have been able to enjoy the peace.
Instead he felt the twinge again — the little prick of sense he had felt first near the ruins. It was subtle, like something pressing its face against a window to see inside. He shrugged it off as nerves, but it didn't leave.
In the distance, where the Grayfall forest thins and the ruins sleep in half-ruined silence, something shifted.
A sound, like stone grinding like teeth. Or maybe the wind. Or maybe nothing.
Arthur frowned. He was hardly attuned to magic or mana. He had no right. He had calculators, not spells. And still, the wrongness rolled up like a bad smell. He could not explain why the hair on his arms prickled.
He thought of Aldren's letter he hadn't read properly yet — the last message locked away in a drawer in the manor basement that might explain everything — betrayal, ruins, and why a viscount would want the land badly enough to threaten them.
He kept thinking of Lily's small trusting face and Evelynn's tired hands. He kept thinking of Ella's smile and Leon's fierce eyes and how very unheroic he felt in the middle of all this.
Maybe hope was just a small, fragile thing — like a single flame in a storm — but it was better than nothing.
He closed his eyes and tried, for a short while, to breathe. In. Out. Not die. In. Out. Don't panic. In. Out.
The world didn't stop being heavy, but for now the noise was manageable.
He whispered to no one and maybe himself, "We'll get through this. Somehow."
He didn't know how.
But he had to believe it.
And if he were honest — which he was because hiding was exhausting — he also admitted: he wanted, weirdly, to be worth something to those people who'd come to rely on him. Even if it started with making pits and baking bread.
He stood up. The night settled. The ruins made a tiny, toothlike creak. Arthur swallowed and walked back inside.
Tomorrow would be worse, but he decided, stubbornly, that he would meet it anyway.