Three mornings later, Maren sent me into Brookhaven with warm bread under one arm and a borrowed adze under the other, which was her way of saying breakfast had ended and work had begun.
“Take this to Bram,” she said, tying the bread in a cloth. “The eastern stock fence shifted again in the night.”
“The fence or Bram?”
“Bram has been leaning since before you were born. Don’t make him worse.”
She pressed the adze into my hand. The haft was smooth from years of work and smelled faintly of old sap. I tucked the bread against my ribs and stepped into the road.
Morning had opened cleanly over Brookhaven. Sunlight struck the wet roofs, and the last puddles held scraps of blue between the wheel ruts. Axes beat a steady rhythm from the timber yards. Somewhere beyond the cottages, a mule objected to being harnessed, and a woman answered it with language suggesting the mule had begun the argument.
I liked mornings better when they admitted I was still young enough to be sent on errands. There was dignity in carrying bread. Less so in carrying an adze beneath one arm while trying not to look as though I’d forgotten what an adze was for.
Dalla was outside her cottage, sorting bundles of dried leaves across a cloth. Her blunt dark hair had been tied back with a strip of linen, though several short strands had escaped around her face. She looked up as I passed, hands settling on her hips.
“Hands?” she asked.
“Both attached.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“Sore, not broken.”
“Good. Keep it that way.”
Her green eyes dropped to the bread. “Maren send you with food?”
“She feared I might become difficult without it.”
“She has experience.”
I continued before Dalla could inventory every bruise Kade had left me. My knuckles were still scraped from training, but the adze sat easily enough in my hands.
At the eastern grazing yards, Bram stood beside the damaged fence with his shoulders rolled forward and one hand pressed to his lower back. His dark hair, silvering at the temples, was tied neatly despite the mud on his boots. Marta Sedge stood on the other side of the rails, holding a crooked post upright while scolding the fence as though it’d chosen its angle out of spite.
“There he is,” Bram said. “The town’s finest young laborer.”
“You should’ve called sooner. I had a nap planned.”
“You didn’t.”
“It was an ambitious nap.”
Marta reached over the rail and took the bread before either of us could argue. She opened the cloth, tore off a piece, and chewed while examining the post.
“Your mother’s?” she asked.
“Unless Bram has developed the skill of baking.”
“I can bake,” Bram said. “I choose not to inflict it on people.”
Marta handed him the larger half. “That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said this morning.”
The shifted fence had three rails pulled loose, and the post nearest the grazing field leaned toward the sheep as if eager to join them. Bram blamed spring mud, Marta blamed Bram’s original post hole, and the fence declined to defend either of them. Bram held it while I dug around its base with the adze. Marta braced the lower rail against her shoulder, solid as a gate herself.
“Not there,” Bram said. “The ground’s still soft.”
“I know.”
“You’re digging there.”
“I’m testing your confidence.”
“It’s surviving.”
It didn’t survive when the adze struck a buried stone and jolted my hands numb. Marta tutted.
“Use the edge, not the middle.”
“I was going to do that next.”
“Of course you were.”
We worked through the morning in the simple rhythm of lifting, bracing, striking, and passing tools. The sun climbed. Mud dried in a thin crust along my boots. Bram complained about his back, his gloves, the quality of the timber, and the fact that no one had invented a fence that repaired itself out of gratitude. Marta answered each complaint with a grunt or a piece of bread.
By the time the last rail sat firm, my shoulders burned pleasantly and my hands had begun to blister beneath the old calluses. I flexed my fingers and decided the blisters made them look more seasoned than they were. Vanity survived hard labor with remarkable stubbornness.
Bram leaned against the repaired post. It held him.
“There,” he said. “You’ve done something worthwhile.”
“Only something?”
“Don’t let it go to your head. You’re still holding the adze backward.”
I looked down. I wasn’t holding it backward, but I’d been holding it in a way that made his accusation possible.
Marta tucked the remaining bread into my hand. “Take that home.”
“Maren sent it for you.”
“She sent food for three. I’ve eaten food for five.”
Bram glanced toward the eastern fields, then at the fence. “Kade will walk the grazing line later. If he asks, tell him the post was sound before the storm.”
“And after?”
“After, it had the good sense to improve.”
I carried the adze back toward town with bread in my pocket, mud drying on my boots, and the fence’s labor settled pleasantly into my arms.
Kade found us before noon, when the repaired fence still smelled of split wood and my hands hadn’t stopped aching.
He came along the grazing line with his old sword at his hip and his heavy stride making the wet ground seem personally responsible for his knee. Bram straightened from the fence. I tried to do the same without looking as though I’d been caught resting.
Kade’s gaze flicked to my hands and then to the adze leaning against the post.
“You look busy,” he said.
“I’ve been carrying the entire fence.”
“It must be grateful.”
Bram rubbed one shoulder. “He helped.”
“That’s not the same as carrying it.”
I leaned the adze against the post. “You came to praise me?”
“I came to see why the sheep are getting out.”
“They’re ambitious.”
“They’re sheep.”
Kade moved along the fence, inspecting the broken rails, the disturbed earth, and the gaps where the storm had pulled nails loose. He never hurried when looking at damage. That made everyone else slow down, whether we wanted to or not.
At the far end of the grazing yard, the fence gave way to a low run of scrub and open grass. The sheep had been moved farther west, leaving the damp ground bare. I followed Kade past the last post, expecting more storm damage.
Then a tuft of gray hair caught against a splintered rail.
“Wolf,” I said.
Kade stopped. Bram came up behind us.
“Could be dog,” Bram said.
“Too coarse for most dogs.” I crouched and touched the hair without lifting it. “The guard hairs are gray at the root. Old wolf, perhaps.”
Kade bent beside me. He studied the rail, then the mud beneath it. A shallow groove cut across the ground from the broken fence toward the scrub. Something had dragged itself or been dragged there. The groove ended beneath a clump of flattened grass.
“What do you see?” he asked.
I looked past the groove. Three prints marked the softer earth, long and narrow, with the front edge blurred by water.
“It came through after the rain. Left forepaw landed here, then the other two farther along. It was moving low.”
“Why low?”
“Injured.”
Bram peered over my shoulder. “You got all that from three prints?”
“Four, if you count the one by the grass.”
“I don’t.”
“That’s because you lack imagination.”
I rose too quickly. The groove ran east, and the next mark waited beyond the rail. I stepped over before Kade could stop me.
“Edrin,” Kade said.
I heard him. I went anyway.
The first print beyond the fence was deeper than the others, pressed into wet clay beside a thorn bush. I saw the shape of the pads, the spread of the toes, the faint cut where one claw had scored the edge.
Then my boot came down across it.
Mud folded beneath my sole. The print became a dark smear.
I froze with my weight still forward.
Bram groaned. “There it is.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” Kade’s voice stayed quiet. That was worse than shouting.
I stepped back carefully. The damage was done. My boot had crushed the clearest sign into a useless hollow, though a narrow crescent remained at the edge.
“It was fresh,” I said.
“How fresh?”
I crouched again. Clay clung wetly to the print’s edge. A bead of water had gathered in the deepest part, but the surrounding grass had begun to lift.
“Since the rain stopped. Maybe an hour.”
Kade looked at the crushed mark. “Maybe.”
Heat climbed my neck. The slope, the mud, the angle of the sun: three excellent excuses, and my boot across the middle of all of them.
“Reconstruct it,” Kade said.
“What?”
“You saw it before you ruined it. Tell me what remains.”
I swallowed and studied the ground without touching anything else. The drag groove ran eastward. The first paw had been heavy, the next lighter. One hind print sat partly beneath a crushed tuft of grass. The wolf had favored its right side, or perhaps the pain was in the left. I couldn’t tell from what I’d left behind.
“It was moving east,” I said. “Slowly. The front paw was deeper than the hind. It dragged something, but not for long. The animal was hurt or carrying weight. The ground was wet when it passed, but the rain had already ended.”
Kade’s eyes narrowed.
“Good.”
The word landed cleanly. I kept my face down over the print so Bram wouldn’t see what it did to me.
“You found the hair and the groove before either of us,” he continued. “You read the print correctly. Then you let wanting the next piece outrun your feet.”
“I can fix that.”
“You can remember it.”
Bram folded his arms. “The fence is repaired. The wolf’s gone east. What are we doing?”
Kade looked toward the scrub and the low fields beyond. “A small patrol. We follow the sign as far as the orchard bend and see whether it turns toward the farms.”
His gaze returned to me.
“You’re coming.”
I kept my face still. Inside, something bright and foolish stood up and began applauding.
“Because I crushed the print?”
“Because you noticed it before we did. Don’t make me regret the distinction.”
Bram sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I’ll tell the gate watch where we’re going.”
“No,” Kade said. “The gate watch can hear it from me. You’re coming. Nobody else knows where that fence line runs. Oren knows the eastern trail. Perin knows the boundary paths. I’ll bring them.”
He pointed at the surviving signs. “You’ll look. You’ll speak when you have something useful. You won’t run ahead to prove you found it.”
“You do hate seeing me enjoy myself.”
“I hate fetching you.”
“Quarter hour,” Kade said. “Eastern gate.”
Kade turned toward Brookhaven. I followed. Behind us, my boot had turned the clearest track into a hole anyone could've made.
I found Sera beside the millrace, cleaning mud from her boots with a thin stick.
The water ran quick beside the path, brown from spring rain and bright where the sun broke through the alder branches. She had one foot braced on a flat stone, her deep green trousers tucked neatly into worn leather boots. Her russet overshirt fit close through the shoulders and narrowed at her waist before falling loose over her hips. I’d known every version of her since childhood. My eyes had only recently started making trouble of it.
She glanced up. “You’ve been holding your hands like an old man.”
“I’m cultivating wisdom.”
“You’ve blistered them.”
“That too.”
She looked at the mud on my boots. “Fence work?”
“Fence work. Wolf sign. A print.”
“You found a print?”
“I found several.”
“And?”
“I found one particularly well.”
Her clear brown eyes sharpened. “What did you do?”
“Improved it.”
She laughed once and pointed the muddy stick at my boot. “Give me that.” Sera had always been willing to help me while making certain I understood the insult contained in the favor.
“Kade says I noticed the right things,” I said. “Then I stepped on the best one.”
“Of course you did.”
“You say that as if I’m predictable.”
“You’re very predictable when there’s something to prove.”
She lifted my foot by the toe of my boot and worked at a strip of clay caught in the tread. Her braid had come loose at the shoulder, and the copper-brown strands brushed the front of her cloak. The motion brought her close enough for me to smell clean wool and crushed juniper. I watched the line of her neck, then the hand around my boot, and remembered that I was supposed to be answering her.
“I’m waiting,” she said.
“For what?”
“The brilliant defense.”
“I was distracted by your technique.”
“You were staring at my chest.”
“I was evaluating the terrain.”
She looked down at herself, then back at me. “Very dangerous terrain?”
“Uneven.”
Her smile turned pleased despite the accusation. She set my foot down and stepped closer, invading the space between us with the confidence of someone who knew I wouldn’t retreat. Sera did that deliberately. She made me choose whether to hold my ground or let her see me give it up.
“Kade chose you for the patrol?”
“He chose me because I saw the sign.”
“And because you crushed it.”
“A complicated qualification.”
“You wanted it,” she said.
The millrace filled the pause. Water struck the wheel below us with a steady wooden groan.
“Kade asked me.”
“That isn't what I said.”
I looked toward the mill. Flour dust hung pale around the open doors. Sera bumped her shoulder into mine.
“Were you glad?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Because they needed you?”
“That too.”
She waited.
“I want to see what’s east,” I said.
“I know. You used to climb the grain shed so you could see an extra mile of it.”
“That was reconnaissance.”
“You fell through the roof.”
“A flaw in the roof.”
She knocked the muddy stick against my boot. “I don’t mind that you want the road, Ed. I mind when you act like you don’t.”
A cart rattled over the bridge. Sera stepped back to let it pass, then held out the muddy stick.
“Other boot.”
“You’re very commanding today.”
“Your other boot is filthy.”
I gave it to her.
In the early afternoon, Marta sent me to the market for a cask of cider and three twists of lampwick, because apparently a man selected for a patrol could still be trusted with errands that involved not breaking anything.
Lysa found me before I reached the cider stall.
She came through the market crowd with a basket hooked over one arm and her blue dress moving lightly around her legs. A drover shifted aside before she reached him; Lysa accepted the courtesy without breaking stride. Her thick braid swung between her shoulder blades, ribbons flashing red and yellow whenever she turned.
I looked. Her gaze dropped to my face, then lower, and the green came up in her eyes.
“You’ve missed the basket,” she said.
“I was studying the arrangement.”
“Of apples?”
“The whole market is full of peril.”
“And now you’re staring,” she said.
“I’m consistent.”
“That’s a polite word for helpless.”
She moved closer instead of stepping away. The market pressed around us, sellers calling prices, children darting between baskets, a goat chewing at a torn sack. Lysa smelled faintly of apples and thread-dust, with clean skin beneath it. When she leaned in, I forgot the cider entirely.
“Marta sent me for lampwick,” I said.
“How heroic.”
“And cider.”
“There it is.”
“I’m a complicated man.”
“No, pet. You’re a thirsty man with a sword.”
She took the lampwick from the stall keeper before I could reach for it, then held it against my chest as if measuring me for a coat. Her fingers were quick and capable. I watched the movement of her hands and tried not to imagine what else those hands might do when she stopped pretending an errand was the reason she’d come close.
“You’re going east,” she said.
“For a short patrol.”
“I heard.”
“Brookhaven has a remarkable talent for gossip.”
“Brookhaven has a remarkable talent for noticing when you look pleased with yourself.”
“Do I?”
“You’re doing it now.”
She tapped the lampwick against my sternum. I took it from her, though not before our fingers touched.
“Kade says I found wolf sign.”
“Kade says many things when he’s trying not to praise someone.”
“You noticed that too?”
“I notice you.”
That should’ve sounded like a jest. It didn’t. Lysa held my gaze, close enough that I could see the pale nick beside her lower lip. The market noise seemed to shift around the space she occupied.
“You’re going to make that difficult,” I said.
“I’m not the one carrying a face made for poor decisions.”
“My face is innocent.”
“Your face has never been innocent a day in its life.”
She stole an apple from her basket and bit into it. Juice brightened her lower lip. I watched her wipe it away with the tip of her thumb, and the heat that went through me had nothing to do with the afternoon sun.
“You’re enjoying this,” I said.
“Very much.”
“My discomfort?”
“Your attention.”
She didn't look away. Neither did I.
“You could come with us,” I said.
“I could.”
“But you won’t.”
“Marta needs the bathhouse open, and I’m fond of being alive.”
“A sudden concern.”
“I’ve always been fond of me.”
She laughed and pressed the apple into my hand. “Eat. You look as if Sera has been asking you questions again.”
“Sera asks questions with the cruelty of a magistrate.”
“And I ask questions with the generosity of a woman who has already decided you’re handsome.”
My mouth went dry.
Lysa tilted her head, and the small curve of her mouth told me she knew exactly what she’d done. Then she stepped away and lifted the cider cask from the stall with both hands before I could help her.
“Careful,” I said. “You’ll make me feel unnecessary.”
“You’re carrying the lampwick.”
“A great burden.”
“Try not to drop it.”
She walked beside me toward Marta’s bathhouse, so close that her shoulder brushed mine twice in the crowd. Neither touch lasted. Both stayed with me.
By the time I reached home, the quarter hour Kade had allowed was already shrinking.
Maren stood at the kitchen table cutting hard cheese into thick pieces. She looked at my face, then at the sword belt in my hands.
“You’re going.”
“That’s what the sword suggests.”
“The sword has poor judgment.”
I buckled it on and checked the knife at my hip. My shoulders complained when I bent to tighten the strap. By the time I straightened, Maren’s eyes had settled on the pause.
“Still sore?”
“Only when I move.”
“Then remain still.”
“Kade dislikes that plan.”
“Kade dislikes many sensible plans.”
She wrapped the cheese in cloth, added two rounds of bread, and tucked both into a small pack. Then she filled a skin with water and pushed it toward me.
“There’s dried meat under the bread.”
“I knew you loved me.”
“I know you’ll eat the bread first and complain about the meat later.”
She straightened the strap across my shoulder. Her gray eyes moved over the sword, the knife, the water, and finally my face.
“Don’t make this grand,” she said.
“I’m not the one packing provisions.”
“Find what Kade asked you to find. Listen when he speaks. Come back hungry.”
“That last part is guaranteed.”
“Good. Then one thing is settled.”
She pressed a piece of cheese into my hand. I ate it while she fussed with the pack until every buckle lay flat, then tightened one I'd already checked.
At the eastern gate, Kade had gathered Bram, Oren, and Perin beneath the timber lintel. Bram wore a sturdy cloak, a coil of rope over one shoulder, and the broad leather carrying strap he used for shifting fence rails. Oren had traded his innkeeper’s apron for a weathered coat and brought a short spear. Perin stood with a shrine cloak folded back from his boots, his face already arranged for bad news.
Lysa leaned against the fence nearby, her blue shawl loose around her shoulders.
“There he is,” she called. “I feared the bread had delayed you.”
“Maren packed provisions to sustain a siege.”
“Then you’ll be unbearable by sunset.”
“I’m efficient.”
Oren grinned. “I like him.”
“You haven’t seen him try to mend a fence,” Bram said.
“He held the post,” Marta called from behind the gate. She’d come as far as the road to see us off, arms folded over her heavy apron. “Mostly.”
“That’s an unfair account,” I said.
“It’s an accurate one.”
Kade lifted a hand, and the small conversation thinned.
“Raised path to the low orchard,” he said. “We follow the sign while the light holds. Nobody leaves the path alone, and nobody chases a wounded animal into cover.”
His eyes stopped on me.
“It happened once,” I said.
“Not on this patrol. Keep it that way.”
Oren tested the point of his spear against his thumb. Bram shifted the rope on his shoulder. Perin looked through the open gate toward the boundary posts. Their sudden silence made the patrol real.
My mother came through the gate and adjusted the fold of my collar. She did it in front of everyone, which was humiliating in the precise way that made me hope nobody would stop her.
“Bring him back,” she said to Kade.
Kade met her eyes. “That's the plan.”
“Plans are lovely. Bring him back.”
He nodded once.
“I’m standing here,” I said.
“Then you can hear me.”
Lysa pushed away from the fence. “Try not to impress anyone, Edrin.”
“That may be beyond my control.”
“Your control is precisely the concern.”
Kade opened the gate. Bram went first, then Oren and Perin. I followed Kade onto the road.
Behind me, Maren called, “Come back hungry.”
I lifted one hand without turning. If I looked at her, I might've made the patrol grand after all.
The eastern road narrowed beyond the last grazing yard, rising between bean fields and low hedges silvered by standing water. Kade led at an easy pace. Bram followed with his rope, Oren kept his short spear angled away from everyone’s legs, and Perin walked with his gaze lowered to the path.
I tried to match Kade’s stride without looking as if I was trying.
“Your right boot is dragging,” he said.
“I’m walking with character.”
“Walk with less of it.”
Mud had gathered thick beneath my right heel, making one stride heavier than the other. I scraped the boot against a stone and the problem disappeared. Kade’s eyes flicked to my heel anyway. Of course he had.
Behind us, Brookhaven diminished by degrees. The hammering from the yards softened. A dog barked once near the common, then stopped. Oren glanced back at the roofs.
“We should’ve brought more bread,” he said.
“Maren gave Edrin food for all of us,” Bram replied.
“I knew I liked her.”
“You’ve never met a meal you didn’t like.”
“That’s not true. I once disliked a turnip.”
Perin exhaled through his nose. It might’ve been a laugh. With Perin, optimism had to travel a long way before anyone could be sure.
Kade raised two fingers.
We stopped. He pointed toward the ditch below the path, where brown water trembled beneath last year’s reeds.
A frog broke the surface and vanished. Oren lowered his spear.
Kade moved on without comment. I followed before my relief became visible.
At the first rise, Oren pointed out a cart track that cut toward the drainage hollow.
“Don’t take that,” he said. “The mud looks firm until it doesn’t.”
“That’s the wisdom you gained by losing your boot?” Bram asked.
“I gained the boot wisdom afterward.”
We stayed on the raised path. The bean fields gave way to rough grass and thorn hedges. Kade halted where a shallow groove crossed the path and vanished beneath the hedge. Gray fur clung to one thorn, with two fresh prints in the softened ground beyond.
I crouched without stepping closer. “Still east. Within the hour.”
Kade followed the sign toward the orchard. “Good.”
My chest warmed. This time my boots had stayed out of the answer.
Perin looked beyond the hedge. “There are no birds in that stretch.”
Oren’s grip shifted on his spear. “There were this morning.”
Kade stood. “We keep going until the orchard bend. Eyes up. Stay close.”
The light had begun to slope westward by the time we reached the last rise. Long strips of gold lay across the fields. Nettles crowded the banks, their leaves bruised where something had passed through recently. A black thorn held another tuft of damp gray fur.
Kade stopped beside the boundary posts.
They stood scattered along the edge of the fields, old gray pillars weathered smooth in places by generations of rain and hands. Beyond them, the east trail dipped toward the low orchard. The land looked ordinary. That made me study it harder.
“Check your straps,” Kade said.
Bram tightened the rope. Oren shifted his spear and tested the ground with its butt. Perin looked back toward Brookhaven, where the roofs caught the last light.
I checked the straps. Everything held. My hand lingered near the sword hilt, then dropped when Kade glanced at me.
“Don’t announce your nerves,” he said.
“I was admiring the leather.”
“Admire it while walking.”
He crossed between the posts.
I followed.
Beyond them, the path held fresh mud and a broken stem pointing east. The wolf had gone that way. Kade moved after it, and the rest of us fell into place behind him.
I tightened my grip on the pack strap and kept walking.