Chapter II

Morning light slipped through the cracks in the shutter like thin silver blades, cutting pale stripes across the rumpled sheets and the two bodies still tangled in them. Astram woke up first, always did, road habit. His eyes opened to the low raftered ceiling, the faint smell of spent tallow and sex, and the warm weight of Mara draped half across his chest, one leg hooked over his thigh, dark hair fanned across his scarred shoulder like spilled ink.

She was still breathing slow and deep, lips parted, face slack with the kind of sleep that only comes after real exhaustion or real satisfaction. He figured it was the latter. Last night had been… thorough. No rush, no performance, just two people taking what they needed until neither had anything left to give.

He eased out from under her carefully, careful not to wake her if he could help it, then sat on the edge of the mattress. The straw tick sighed. His body ached in the good way: muscles loose, bruises tender but not angry. He reached for his clothes piled on the stool, breeches first, then the shirt stiff with yesterday’s sweat, then the hauberk that clinked softly as he lifted it.

The sound was enough.

Mara stirred. One eye cracked open, then the other. She propped herself on an elbow, sheet slipping to her waist, breasts bare and unselfconscious in the morning light.

“You’re leaving without a goodbye?” she asked. Voice husky from sleep and last night’s moans. A small, crooked smile tugged at her mouth. “That’s cold, even for a man with a self-made house.”

Astram tugged the hauberk over his head, chain settling cold against his skin. He didn’t look at her yet, busied himself with the laces instead.

“Road doesn’t wait for goodbyes,” he said. “And I’ve got miles to cover before the sun goes down again.”

She watched him lace his boots, head tilted.

“You’re really just going to walk out like I’m some tavern wench you paid and forgot?, you said you loved me when you're fucking me.”

He finally met her eyes. Blue on brown. Calm. Almost gentle.

“You’re not forgotten,” he said. “But I don’t stay. Never have. Never will.”

Mara sat up fully now, sheet pooling around her hips. She stretched, slow, catlike, then leaned forward, elbows on her knees.

“Fair enough,” she said. “But if you ever come back this way… ask for Mara. I’ll remember you.”

Astram buckled his sword belt, adjusted the longsword so it hung right. He shook his head once—small, rueful.

“If you ever hear the name Manhart.” he said, “or see a blue rag with a man throwing a spear… find me. If you want.”

Her smile widened, real this time, warm, a little surprised.

“You think that name’s going to echo across Eiurp someday?”

“I think names only echo if someone makes them loud enough,” he answered. “And I'll be loud this time.”

Mara laughed soft, throaty, the same laugh she’d given when he’d first made her come last night.

“You’re better,” she said suddenly. No tease, no flattery—just plain statement. “Far better than anyone who’s ever been inside me. And I’ve had a lot of men through that door, Astram Manhart. Knights, merchants, pilgrims, Qwesters, boys pretending to be men. None of them fucked like they meant it. You did.”

He paused at the door, hand on the latch. Looked back at her, naked, unashamed, sunlight gilding the curve of her shoulder.

“Well” he said simply. “You're paid to do that, to like it.”

She snorted. “I didn’t charge extra last night, remember? That was on the house.”

Astram’s mouth twitched, the closest he came to a real smile most days.

“Then I owe you,” he said. “Next time I pass this way, dinner’s on me. Real dinner. Not brothel stew.”

“Deal,” Mara said. She lay back on the pillows, arms stretched above her head, watching him like she was memorizing the shape of him. “Safe roads, bread-boy. Don’t die in a ditch before you make that name famous.”

He nodded once, short, final, then opened the door and stepped out.

Down the creaking ladder-stair, past the common room where the qwesters had finally passed out in various states of undress and spilled ale. One still snored with his face in a girl’s lap. The fire was dead ash now. Morning gray light leaked through the red curtain.

Outside, the air was cool, clean, smelling of dew and horse. Thorn stood in the small yard, already saddled by the silent stable boy who’d taken the copper yesterday. The horse nickered low when he saw Astram, greeting, complaint, both at once.

Astram checked the girth, patted the bay’s neck.

“Miss me, you greedy bastard?” he muttered.

Thorn bumped his chest.

Astram laughed under his breath, quiet, private, then swung up into the saddle. The leather creaked. He gathered the reins, glanced once back at the low building with its faded red curtain still hanging limp in the window.

No one watched from upstairs. No dramatic silhouette. Just a closed shutter and the memory of warm skin.

He touched his heels to Thorn’s flanks.

The horse stepped out onto the lonely road, hooves soft on the dew-damp earth. The central plains rolled away in every direction, green, endless, indifferent.

Astram didn’t look back again.

He rode west, the scrap of blue cloth still folded in his saddlebag, the name Manhart still only a whisper in his own head, and the faint, lingering taste of Mara on his tongue like a promise he wasn’t sure he’d keep.

The road stretched on.

The central plains rolled gentle under Thorn’s steady trot, grass whispering against the gelding’s fetlocks with every stride. Astram rode loose in the saddle, reins slack in one hand, the other resting easy on his thigh. The sky above was a perfect, aching blue, high, cloudless, the kind that made a man feel small in the best way. He pursed his lips and started whistling: no real tune at first, just a wandering melody he pulled from half-remembered tavern songs and the wind itself. It rose and fell, lazy and free, matching the easy rhythm of the horse beneath him.

The air tasted clean, cool, green, carrying the faint sweetness of crushed herbs and distant rain that hadn’t yet fallen. No smoke. No iron. No screams carried on the breeze. For once the world seemed to have forgotten how to bleed.

Then he saw them.

Twenty riders coming on from the west, strung out in a loose column, moving east at a purposeful walk-trot. Mail glinted dull under cloaks, lance-heads caught the sun like distant sparks, horses lean and dust-streaked from long miles. Mercenaries, by the look, mixed gear, mismatched banners, no lord’s livery flying proud. Men who fought for coin, not symbols.

Astram slowed Thorn to a walk as they drew near. The lead rider, a tall man in his late thirties, face weathered to leather, short beard streaked with gray, lifted a gloved hand in casual greeting. His horse, a big gray stallion, kept moving; the whole column didn’t break stride.

“How you faring?” Astram called, voice carrying easy across the narrowing gap.

The leader reined his mount just enough to match pace for a moment. “Good enough,” he answered, voice rough but cheerful. “Horse is sound, arse isn’t bleeding, sun’s shining. Better than most days.”

Astram nodded once. “Where you headed?”

“Arae,” the man said without hesitation. His gray kept trotting; he had to half-turn in the saddle to keep talking. “Barana Empire, old Valdorian claimers, eastern People’s Faith holdouts. Castle called Felenhope. Veleks are bringing a siege train up from the coast. Big one. Catapults, trebuchets, the works. Word is they’ll crack the walls inside a fortnight if the Barans don’t get reinforcements.”

Astram’s whistling had died on his lips. Thorn’s ears flicked forward, listening.

“You riding to lift the siege?” Astram asked.

The leader barked a laugh, short, dry. “Lift it? Fuck no. We’re riding to join it. Barans are paying double wages to any man who’ll stand on the ramparts or swing a sword when the ladders go up. Glory’s a bonus, but coin’s the real prophet today.”

He grinned, teeth crooked and white against the beard.

“High Priest Maric won’t send a single company west of Luminarg,” he went on, voice dropping a notch. “Says Felenhope’s too far, too small, too lost. Let the Veleks chew on it, he says. Let them break their teeth on stone instead of our cathedral cities. Smart, maybe. Cold as a Pelsan winter, definitely.”

The column was already pulling ahead; horses snorting, hooves drumming steady.

“But when that castle falls,” the leader called back over his shoulder, “the gate to the heart of Eiurp swings wide. Veleks’ll pour through like rats through a granary door. Then the High Priest might remember how to pray for help instead of preaching it.”

He laughed again, big, reckless, and slapped his thigh.

“Either way, we get paid. Either way, we get to kill something that deserves it. Ride safe, blue-eyes. Or don’t. Your choice.”

The leader touched spurs to the gray. The column flowed past, faces turning to glance at Astram, some curious, some indifferent, a few smirking like they already knew he wouldn’t follow. Lances bobbed. Saddlebags clinked. Then they were past, dust rising in their wake, figures shrinking against the green until they were just dark specks under that endless sky.

Astram let Thorn drift back to a loose walk. The gelding snorted once, shook his head, as if shaking off the interruption.

Astram sat quiet a long minute, hands resting on the pommel, staring east where the riders had vanished.

“Felenhope,” he muttered to no one. Or maybe to Thorn. “Never heard of it till today. Now it’s the door to everything.”

He exhaled through his nose, slow, measured.

High Priest Maric sitting safe in Luminarg, fat on tithes and incense, while some border castle bled for the faith he claimed to guard. Barans clinging to the Three Circles with one hand while reaching for mercenaries with the other. Veleks, Pelsan steel wrapped in Five rayed sun banners, already tasting the soft underbelly of Eiurp.

And twenty men riding toward it for coin and a chance at dying famous.

Astram’s mouth twisted. Not quite a smile. Not quite a grimace.

“Glory,” he said aloud, tasting the word like bad ale. “Glory’s just a pretty word for getting your guts ripped out while someone writes a song about it.”

Thorn flicked an ear back, listening.

Astram patted the bay’s neck, hard, familiar.

“Thing is,” he went on, quieter now, “if that gate opens… if the Veleks flood through… Mansteal’s a long way west, but not long enough. Not if armies start marching again.”

He looked down at the saddlebag where the blue rag lay folded, still secret, still his alone.

“Manhart,” he said to the wind, testing it. “Not much of a name yet. But names don’t grow on trees. They grow in places like Felenhope.”

Thorn snorted loud, dismissive.

Astram laughed once, low, private.

“Yeah, yeah. I know. We’re not heroes. We’re just a man and a greedy horse who like eating more than dying.”

He gathered the reins, touched heels lightly.

Thorn stepped out again, breaking into the same easy trot.

The sky stayed beautiful. The air stayed fresh.

But the peace felt thinner now, stretc

hed tight, like a bowstring waiting for the arrow.

Astram didn’t whistle anymore.

He rode east, into the sun, toward whatever waited beyond the next rise.