Run: 2026-09-23-01M36WEMEYZ7M7JB0TAKAT5CJ0

<nc-section data-title="Chapter 2: A Knight's Welcome" data-color="red"> As Thunder slowed to a trot through the castle gates, the clatter of hooves echoed off the courtyard stones. I guided him toward the stables, where a broad-shouldered figure leaned against a wooden post, arms crossed over a weathered breastplate. His salt-and-pepper beard framed a face etched with the memory of a hundred battles, yet his eyes twinkled with something warm — the look of a man who remembered being young. "You must be the boy they've been whispering about," he said, pushing off the post and striding forward with a warrior's easy confidence. He extended a gauntleted hand. "Sir Roland. I've been charged with keeping you alive long enough to be useful." He grinned, then clapped me hard on the shoulder. "Welcome to Castle Ironhaven, lad. Tell me — have you ever held a sword that wasn't made of wood?" </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Chapter 2: The Stables at Dusk" data-color="green"> The stable hands rushed to take Thunder's reins as I dismounted, my legs stiff from the long ride. I had barely unbuckled my saddlebag when a voice rang out across the yard — clear and sharp as the ring of steel on steel. "Frederick of Oakhaven, I presume?" A knight in a green-crested surcoat strode toward me, his boots crunching on the straw-strewn ground. Sir Roland, they had told me. The kingdom's finest. Up close, he seemed less like the statues I had imagined and more like a man — tired around the eyes, a scar splitting one eyebrow, his gauntlets scuffed from real use. He looked me up and down the way a smith examines raw iron. "You're younger than the letter said," he muttered. Then, quieter: "No matter. I was younger than this when I first pissed myself in a skirmish." He smirked. "Come, squire. Supper is nearly cold, and a man's training begins on a full stomach." </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Chapter 2: First Words" data-color="blue"> The last light of day caught the towers of the castle as I rode Thunder beneath the gatehouse arch. The courtyard was a bustle of squires and soldiers, the clang of the forge competing with the shouts of men at practice. But it was the stables that drew me — the smell of hay and leather, the soft nicker of horses — things I understood. A shadow fell across the stable entrance. "Easy there," said a voice, low and steady, as Thunder tossed his mane. A hand — bare, calloused, gentle — appeared at my stallion's neck, and the great beast calmed at once. Sir Roland stepped into the torchlight: tall, lean as a whippet, with silver threading his dark hair and a quiet gravity about him that made the squires nearby fall silent. "Dismount," he said. Not a command, exactly — more like an invitation. "You've ridden hard." He studied my face for a long moment. "Good. You'll need that endurance. The training here..." He glanced toward the distant mountains, where a strange light flickered against the clouds. "It will demand more of you than you know. But we'll begin with the small things." He smiled — the first warmth I had felt since leaving home. "I'm Roland. And I'll teach you how not to die." </nc-section>