The night before Arlen left, Greyfall didn't sleep.
The adults pretended they did. Doors closed, lamps dimmed, voices dropped. But windows stayed cracked for listening, and shadows moved behind shutters.
The Greyfall house glowed warm in the dark. Lian had insisted on a proper send-off meal: stew thick with the last of the winter-dried meat, fresh bread, even a bit of honey scraped from a jar she'd been saving.
Arlen ate like a man trying to pretend the food was just food and not goodbye.
"This isn't a funeral," Corin said gruffly, tearing his bread. "You can all stop looking like I've died."
"You're the one clenching your jaw so hard your teeth will crack," Lian said, not looking up.
He forced his mouth to relax. "I'm proud of you," he added, as if the words tasted strange. "You know that."
Arlen's spoon paused. "I know."
Mira, perched on a stool between Al and Lian, kicked her heels. "Will they give you a dragon?" she asked, eyes wide. "Your tester man had dragons on his sleeves."
Arlen chuckled. "No dragons for novices. Maybe a mean old donkey if I'm lucky."
Lian flicked a crumb at him. "No talk of donkeys. You will show proper respect to Elder Liang and his mountain. And remember you have a mother who will cross half the world to drag you back by your ear if you get yourself killed doing something stupid."
"Yes, Mother," Arlen said, grinning. But there was a tightness around his eyes that hadn't been there a month ago.
Al ate quietly, listening. The stew was hot and rich, familiar. He found himself counting bowls—one, two, three, four—and then thinking stupidly, Tomorrow night one will be empty.
After, when Mira had been coaxed to bed with promises of stories when Arlen wrote back, and Lian had gone to put away dishes with hands that shook only a little, Corin nodded toward the door.
"You boys," he said, "walk with me."
The air outside was cold enough to make Al's breath smoke. The stars were hard and bright. Ash, disturbed by the day's footfalls, still lingered in the air, a faint taste on the tongue.
Corin led them up toward the Memorial Ridge without speaking. His boots crunched on the brittle grass; Al and Arlen trailed slightly behind, like they had as small children following a giant.
At the crest, he stopped among the old stones.
The markers loomed, carved with eroded names. Some Leaned, some cracked, some half-buried in ash. The moon turned their edges silver.
Corin folded his arms, looking over the village. Greyfall's scattered lamps flickered below, reflections winking on the slow river.
"I've buried friends up here," he said at last. "Men braver than me. Smarter than me. Men who stood where they were told, lifted what they were told, until something from the north or south or gods-know-where cut them in half."
Arlen's jaw tightened. "I won't—"
"You might," Corin said sharply. "Listen. Both of you." He turned, the lamplight from below catching the scar on his forearm, a pale rope. "There's no such thing as safe in Sula. No such thing as a path that doesn't cut your feet. You understand?"
Al nodded. Arlen said nothing.
"When I was your age," Corin went on, "I thought the only choices were 'coward' or 'hero.' Stay in the village and be nothing, or go out and be a blade." He looked back toward the palisade, the recently patched section by the sluice. "Turns out there's a thousand ways to be a fool in between."
He sighed, breath fogging.
"Arlen." He put a hand on his older son's shoulder. "You have something I never did. Real talent. A chance to learn somewhere that isn't just another muddy trench. I'm afraid for you. But if I made you stay, if I nailed your feet here, I'd be killing you slowly instead. So you go. You write. You come back when you can stand on those peaks Qingshan talked about and tell your old man what the world looks like from there."
Arlen swallowed hard. "I will."
Corin's grip tightened, then shifted to the back of his neck in a brief, fierce pull. He let go, turned to Al.
"And you," he said quietly, "are too smart for your own good."
Al blinked. "That sounds like an insult."
"It's both," Corin said. "You see things. Paths. Weak points. If you weren't my son, I'd be slightly afraid of you." His mouth twitched. Then his face sobered again. "I've watched Bren shout at you and Toren bloody your nose and Selene throw you extra work. You kept going. That matters."
He looked him in the eye. "I won't lie to you. When I first realized Arlen might get taken by someone like that elder, and you might not, I…hurt for you. For what people would say. For how small Greyfall would feel."
Al's chest ached. "I'll be fine. I like numbers."
"Shut up and let me be sentimental," Corin said, half-gruff, half-smiling. "You're not staying in Greyfall forever. People like you don't. Whether it's with Liang's sort, or a guild, or some mad priest's order, you'll find a road out. What I care about is that you don't spend that road trying to be your brother."
He jerked his head toward Arlen. "You two look at the same fight and see different things. That's good. We need both. Just—" He exhaled. "Don't break yourself just because some tester with a crystal couldn't put a neat label next to your name."
Al's throat tightened. "I saw the way you looked at me," he said, the words spilling faster than he meant. "When they said 'logistics and scribbling.' Like…like I'd been weighed and written off."
Corin winced. "I looked at you and saw my own fear. Not you." He scrubbed a hand over his face. "My father was a farmer. His choice was which field to die in. Mine was which lord. Maybe yours can be bigger. I don't…know how to help you with that. But sitting here in ash and pretending there isn't a world feels wronger, the older I get."
He put a hand on each of their shoulders, squeezed.
"World's tearing at Sula from every side," he said. "If you two can find ways to push back—him with blades, you with plans—" He shook his head. "Just…remember where you came from. That's what I'm asking. Don't forget this ridge. Don't forget these stones."
Arlen nodded, eyes bright. Al swallowed hard and said, "We won't."
Corin grunted. "Good. Now. Before I say anything else that sounds wise and makes me want to throw myself down the ridge, go to bed. Dawn comes fast."
They walked back in a silence that wasn't empty.
Al didn't sleep much.
He dozed and jerked awake, mind full of images: Arlen in shining foreign armor, Arlen falling with a spear through his chest, Arlen looking back from a mountain path while Al was still counting barrels in Greyfall. Each dream left a sour taste.
At some point before dawn, he gave up. He dressed quietly, pulled on his old boots, and slipped outside.
Greyfall was wrapped in cold blue. The sky was just beginning to pale in the east. A few hearths smoked. The air had that particular stillness it only ever had before sunup and after death.
Down near the gate, horses stamped. Elder Liang's small party was awake: Jian the assessor tightening straps, a Hanyue guard checking a sword-belt, a Beastkin guide yawning.
Arlen was there with his pack already on, talking with Lian in low, urgent tones. Al didn't listen. That was theirs.
He found Ressa sitting on the well's crumbling rim, knees drawn up, arms around them. Her breath steamed.
"You're up early," he said.
She shrugged, not looking at him. "Couldn't sleep. The tanner snores. You?"
"Same," Al said. "Our house snores in shifts."
That got a snort.
He leaned against the well, hands in his pockets.
"So," Ressa said after a moment, eyes still on the road. "Your brother goes up the mountain to become a dragon puncher." She nudged his ankle with her toes. "What do you do?"
"Selene wants to talk to me about a clerk's apprenticeship in Brindleford," Al said. "Counting crates, managing ledgers for caravans. Might get to travel between here and there."
"That's not nothing," Ressa said.
"No," Al said. "It's just not…mountains and legends."
She turned her head, finally meeting his eyes. "You think everyone who leaves on a fancy horse comes back as a legend?"
He thought of Daran's scarred face, of Bren's limp, of old Marik's burned hands. "No."
"I'd take not-dying-over-glory any day," Ressa said. "You go to Brindleford, learn how the world moves. Maybe later you join some guild and end up bossing idiots like Toren around from behind a desk."
"That's an oddly specific dream," Al said.
She smiled briefly. "Or, you know, you could use those pattern-seeing eyes to do something interesting. Doesn't have to be scribing cakes and grain tallies forever."
"Cakes deserve careful tallying," Al said. "They're important."
Ressa rolled her eyes. "Idiot." Her smile faded. "Just…don't decide you're small because other people can't see far enough. They're all looking for straight swords. Maybe you're a hook."
"A hook?" he said, half-laughing. "That's not very flattering."
"A hook pulls things out when they're stuck," she said. "A straight sword just gets stuck deeper."
He stilled. "That's…actually not bad."
"Of course it's not bad. I'm brilliant." She glanced away quickly. "Also, if you get yourself killed because you decided to play at Arlen's game from the wrong seat, I'll be very annoyed, and I'll have to come haunt you."
"I'll…keep that in mind," he said softly.
Down by the gate, Lian hugged Arlen one last time, fingers white around his shoulders. Corin gripped his son's arm, foreheads touching for a breath. Mira clung to his leg until he knelt to pry her loose gently, promising letters and gifts and stories of mountains taller than Greyreach's keep.
Elder Liang waited a few steps away, giving them the space, posture calm. Father Edran stood near the shrine's marker-stone by the gate, hands resting on his staff.
When Arlen finally turned toward the road, pack on his back, cloak pinned at the shoulder, his eyes found Al and Ressa.
"You coming down?" he called.
"Of course," Al said.
They walked to the gate together. The mud there still bore faint scars from the raid—hoof-prints, gouges where Bren's shield line had braced.
Arlen looked at Ressa. "You'll keep him from falling in wells?"
"No promises," she said. "He might trip himself."
Arlen laughed. Then he faced Al.
For a second, neither knew what to say.
"You sure about this?" Arlen asked quietly. "About me going?"
"If you stay because of me," Al said, "I'll be angry. And Mother will probably kill us both."
Arlen huffed. "True."
"Besides," Al continued, heart pounding, "you'll need someone down here who can read the reports about which army you're about to run into, right? If we both run off to swing swords in different directions, we'll just die apart instead of together."
"That's…comforting," Arlen said dryly.
Al managed a crooked smile. "You chase peaks. I'll figure out how not to let the ground collapse under them."
Arlen's eyes softened. "You always did talk funny."
He stepped forward and hugged Al hard enough to squeeze the air out of him. For a moment, Al was eight again, clinging to his brother's shirt after Bren's first brutal drills, promising they'd both be knights someday.
Arlen pulled back, hands on his shoulders. "When I come back," he said, "I expect you to have some fancy guild badge and a tower full of maps. I want to be impressed."
"When you come back," Al said, "I expect you to be able to beat Bren without limping after. I want Selene to sigh and say you're not as clever as your little brother."
"That's cruel," Arlen said, grinning.
"Motivating," Al corrected.
Elder Liang cleared his throat gently. "The road does not shorten while we talk."
Arlen exhaled, turned. "Elder. I'm ready."
Liang nodded once. "We will go by Greyreach first, then east. There will be time to regret your choice before we start hurting you properly."
Arlen laughed, nervously.
Liang's gaze brushed Al one last time. "Remember what I said," he murmured. "Rivers do not apologize for not being mountains. They carve their own paths."
Then he swung into the saddle with the easy motion of someone who had done so a thousand times. Jian and the others mounted up. Arlen climbed onto the pack horse they'd assigned him, movements a little stiff with healing, but solid.
The small caravan clattered out through Greyfall's gate.
Al watched until their forms blurred into the morning mist, until Arlen's silhouette was just another bobbing shape on the road, until the ash-laced wind swallowed the sound of hooves.
Edran came to stand beside him.
"Painful thing," the priest said quietly. "Watching threads stretch."
"Is it always like this?" Al asked. "People leaving. Threads pulling away."
"If we're lucky," Edran said. "It means they are not being cut."
They stood in silence a moment longer.
Then Selene's voice floated across the square. "Al Greyfall! When you are done brooding at the gate, I have three crates of old manifests that need sorting if you're serious about that Brindleford apprenticeship."
Ressa elbowed him. "See? Your fate calls. In the form of dusty ledgers."
Al almost said, Let me stay here a little more, but he didn't.
He took one last look at the road where Arlen had vanished, fixed it in his mind like an entry in a ledger, then turned away.
"I'm coming," he called. His back still ached. His chest hurt worse. But his feet moved.
As he crossed the square, he glanced at Edran. "When I go to Brindleford…will you…"
"Bless you?" Edran chuckled. "I will. And I'll remind you that Logos does not care if you hold a spear or a pen. It cares what you do with them."
"What if I don't leave right away?" Al asked. "What if I need…time. To learn more here first."
Edran's eyes twinkled. "Then take it. Rivers do not rush the mountain's pace. They erode it, slowly. From below."
Selene was waiting at the Scriptorium door, arms crossed, a faint smile betraying her usual sternness.
"Well?" she said. "Do you want to see more of the world than a village ridge and a dragon sect's backside?"
"Yes," Al said.
"Good," she replied. "Then start by learning how many sacks of grain a place like Brindleford burns through in a winter. You can't play at grand strategy if you don't know how many mouths you're feeding."
He hesitated at the threshold, glancing back once more: at the gate, the shrine, the training yard, the inn, the ridge.
Threads everywhere.
One step at a time, he thought. First, learn the flows in front of you. The bigger ones can wait.
He stepped inside.
Behind him, ash drifted down from the ridge in a faint, steady fall. From the right height, it might have looked like mist or snow. From Greyfall, it was just the air they breathed.
Al inhaled it, coughed, and reached for the first stack of ledgers Selene shoved into his arms.
The world was wide, and he was small. For now.
But he had eyes. He had numbers. He had threads.
It would do to start.