Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCPT72EACCAJRXCNBGX9DPK

<nc-section data-title="Chapter 2: The Iron Handshake" data-color="red"> The stable yard smelled of hay, horse sweat, and woodsmoke. I had barely swung down from Thunder's back when a shadow fell across the cobbles. "So this is the boy they sent me." He was broad as a door, this knight, with a grey-shot beard and a nose that had been broken more than once and set badly every time. His surcoat was faded blue, the lion upon it worn nearly to a ghost. He did not smile. "Frederick, my lord." I bowed, and nearly dropped the reins doing it. "Sir Roland will do. I'm nobody's lord." He took Thunder's bridle in one scarred hand and ran the other down the stallion's neck, feeling the muscle beneath. "You rode him hard." "I wanted to arrive before dark." "You wanted to arrive looking splendid." Sir Roland glanced at me, and something flickered in his eyes that might have been amusement, or might have been pity. "There's a difference, and you'll learn it. A horse ridden to arrive looking splendid is a horse that dies under you when it matters." Heat climbed my face. "Yes, Sir Roland." "Walk him out. Cool him down. Rub him yourself, no grooms." He turned toward the keep, then paused. "And when you're finished, come to the armoury. There's something you'll want to see before the others tell you lies about it." </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Chapter 2: A Kindness at the Gate" data-color="green"> I found the stables by the sound of them, the low shuffle and snort of horses settling for the night, and there beneath the lantern hung from the beam stood a man in a plain wool tunic, sleeves rolled, arms wet to the elbow. "You'll be Frederick," he said, and wiped his hands on a rag. "I'm Roland. I'd offer you my hand but I've spent the last hour with a mare who thinks very little of me." I hesitated. This was not what I had imagined a knight to be. There was no armour, no plume, no sword — only a tall man with kind creases at the corners of his eyes and straw caught in his hair. "Sir Roland," I said. "I was told to report to you." "You were told to report to me tomorrow. But you're here now, and you've the look of a lad who hasn't eaten since morning." He took Thunder's reins from me as easily as taking a cup. "Fine animal. Your father's?" "Mine." I said it too quickly, too proudly. "A gift. When I left." "Then he loves you, whatever else was said between you." Roland led Thunder into the warm dark of the stable, and I followed because there was nothing else to do. "I knew your mother's brother. We stood the wall together at Ashford. I'll tell you about it sometime, when you've earned a story." "And how do I earn one?" He laughed, a short, surprised bark of a laugh, and set the lantern on its hook. "You've made a good start by asking. Now fetch that bucket." </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Chapter 2: What the Knight Did Not Say" data-color="blue"> He was waiting for me. That was the first strange thing. No page had run ahead to announce me. No horn had sounded from the walls. Yet when I brought Thunder around the corner of the stables, Sir Roland stood in the gap between the buildings with his arms folded, as though he had been standing there some while, watching the road I'd come by. "You're late," he said. "My lord, I don't believe I was expected until—" "You weren't expected at all." He stepped closer, and I saw that his hand rested on the pommel of a sword he had no reason to be wearing in his own stable yard. "Which is why you're late. Three days late, Frederick. The letter went out three days ago. It said come at once." "I received no letter." Sir Roland was quiet for a long moment. Somewhere behind him a horse kicked its stall, and he did not so much as glance at it. Then he reached out and, to my astonishment, took Thunder's bridle and began walking the stallion into the shadows. "Then someone stopped it," he said, low. "Keep your voice down and follow me. Don't look up at the tower windows. Whatever you do, don't look up." I followed. I did not look up. But as we passed beneath the arch I caught, in the black water of the trough, a reflection of the highest window — and something in it that moved. </nc-section>