Run: 2026-07-25-01KYCRHRX8KQ3M4DN9BRKRVEBC

<nc-section data-title="Chapter 1: The Arrival — Version 1" data-color="red"> The gates swallowed me whole, and the courtyard beyond smelled of hay and hot iron. I had barely swung down from Thunder's back when a shadow fell across the cobbles, long and broad-shouldered, cast by a man who seemed to have been carved from the same grey stone as the walls. "You'll be the boy from Ashcombe." His voice was gravel dragged over gravel. He did not offer his hand; instead he took Thunder's bridle, and the stallion — who bit anyone who dared such a liberty — went still as a lamb. "Sir Roland. I keep the training yard, the armoury, and what little patience remains to me." "Frederick, my lord." I bowed too deeply and felt the flush climb my neck. "Sir will do. Lords sit in halls." He ran a hand down Thunder's flank, and something almost like approval flickered under his iron brows. "You rode him hard." "I wanted to arrive before dark." "You wanted to arrive looking splendid." He handed the reins to a stable boy who had appeared from nowhere. "Wanting things is not a sin, squire. Wanting them more than your horse's legs — that is a habit we will break tonight. Come. You'll rub him down yourself, and then you'll eat, and then you'll sleep, because tomorrow begins at the fourth bell and I do not knock twice." </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Chapter 1: The Arrival — Version 2" data-color="green"> The stables stood at the eastern edge of the courtyard, warm and dim and loud with the shifting of hooves. I led Thunder inside, and there, leaning against a stall post with a bridle half-mended in his lap, sat a knight. He was younger than I had imagined a knight could be, and older than any man I had ever seen laugh so easily. A scar ran from his left ear into his beard, pale as a thread of silver. "Well," he said, without rising. "Either you're the new squire, or you're the cleverest horse thief in three counties, and I confess I hope for the second. It's been a dull month." "Frederick, sir. Of Ashcombe." "Roland." He set the bridle aside and stood, and standing he was very tall indeed. "Sir Roland, when the Marshal is listening, which he never is after supper." He looked me over — not unkindly, but thoroughly, the way a smith looks at unworked metal. "Ashcombe. That's four days' ride." "Five, sir. There was rain." "Five days alone on the road, at your age." He whistled softly. "And here I was told you were sent to us because your father wished you out from under his feet. Well. Feet are a poor reason to make a knight, but I've seen worse. Bring him in — the third stall's empty, and mind the mare beside it, she has opinions." </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Chapter 1: The Arrival — Version 3" data-color="blue"> I found the stables by the smell of them, and I had my cheek pressed to Thunder's neck, whispering my thanks into his hide, when someone cleared his throat behind me. I turned so fast I nearly fell. The knight standing in the doorway had the last of the sunset behind him, so that for a moment he was only a shape — mail, and a cloak, and the long line of a sword. Then he stepped in, and the lamplight found a weathered face, and eyes that had gone grey the way the sea goes grey before weather. "Talking to your horse," he said. "Good. The ones who talk to their horses tend to live longer than the ones who talk to themselves." He inclined his head, a shallow, formal thing. "Roland of Marrowfield. Knight of this house, for whatever that is still worth." "Frederick, sir." My mouth had gone dry. "I've come to serve." "Everyone comes to serve." He said it gently, and that made it worse somehow. "Listen to me, squire, because I will say it once tonight and then not again for a year: this castle is not what the songs told you. There are things stirring in the north that the Marshal will not name at table, and you will hear whispers of them before the week is out. When you do, come to me. Not to the other boys. Me." Behind him, somewhere high in the darkening sky, something cried out — a sound like nothing I had heard, thin and enormous at once. Sir Roland did not look up. That frightened me more than the sound had. "Now," he said. "Water for your horse. Then follow me." </nc-section>