Run: 2026-09-23-01M37NTT93M4VE7C92HT83HPSN

<nc-section data-title="Chapter 1: The Arrival (Version 1)" data-color="red"> By the time I reached the stables, the last of the sunlight had drained from the sky, leaving only the orange flicker of torches along the courtyard wall. Thunder snorted and stamped as I swung down from the saddle, his flanks steaming in the cooling air. "You're late." The voice came from the shadows beside the stable doors. A man stepped into the torchlight: broad-shouldered, grey at the temples, a jagged scar running from his left ear to the corner of his jaw. He wore no armor, only a plain leather jerkin, but the sword at his hip had a hilt worn smooth by years of use. "Sir Roland?" I asked, though I already knew. Everyone in the southern provinces knew that scar. "I was told to expect a squire at midday." His eyes moved over me slowly, from my mud-spattered boots to the dust in my hair. "Not at supper." "The bridge at Harrow's Ford was washed out, sir. I had to ride two leagues upriver to find a crossing." "Hm." He did not seem impressed. He walked past me and ran a calloused hand along Thunder's neck, then lifted one of the stallion's forelegs to inspect the hoof. "You rode him hard." "I didn't want to keep you waiting, sir." "And now he'll be lame by morning if you don't tend him properly." He set the hoof down and turned to face me. "Lesson one, boy. A knight's horse eats before the knight does. Drinks before the knight does. Rests before the knight does. The day you forget that is the day your horse fails you in the field, and you die in the mud with a lance through your belly." I swallowed. "Yes, sir." "Brush him down. Water, then oats, not the other way around. Check his shoes." He started toward the keep, then paused without looking back. "When you're finished, and not before, come to the great hall. There may be something left of supper." "And if there isn't, sir?" For the first time, something that might have been a smile tugged at the unscarred corner of his mouth. "Then you'll remember to be on time." </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Chapter 1: The Arrival (Version 2)" data-color="green"> The stable yard was a cheerful chaos of stable boys, clucking hens, and the smell of fresh hay. I had barely brought Thunder to a halt when a booming laugh rang out across the cobblestones. "By the saints, look at the size of that beast! Did you ride him here, lad, or did he carry you like a sack of turnips?" A tall man with a thick chestnut beard strode toward me, wiping his hands on a rag. His tunic bore the crest of the rearing stag, and though he moved with the easy confidence of a warrior, his face was creased with laugh lines. "I rode him, sir," I said, sliding down from the saddle and trying very hard to look as though I did it every day. "Mostly." "Mostly!" He laughed again and clapped me on the shoulder so heartily that I staggered. "Honest, too. Good. I'm Roland, and you must be young Frederick. Your father wrote to me. He said you had a stubborn streak and a quick tongue, and that I should work the first out of you and leave the second alone." "He... said that, sir?" "In rather more words. Your father never did learn brevity." Sir Roland reached up to scratch Thunder between the ears, and to my astonishment the stallion, who had bitten two grooms and a blacksmith back home, leaned into his hand like a lapdog. "We served together, your father and I, back when we were younger and far more foolish than you are now. He saved my life at the Siege of Carrowmere. I've been waiting twenty years to repay the debt." I didn't know what to say to that. My father had never spoken of Carrowmere. "Come," Sir Roland said, handing Thunder's reins to a wide-eyed stable boy. "Tomas will see to your horse. You'll see to a hot meal and a warm bed. Tomorrow we begin, and I warn you now, lad, I'll work you harder than you've ever been worked in your life." He grinned. "But tonight, you're a guest. Welcome to Ravenhold." </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Chapter 1: The Arrival (Version 3)" data-color="blue"> The stables stood apart from the rest of the castle, a long low building of dark timber built against the northern wall. It was strangely quiet. No grooms came to meet me, and the horses inside were silent, their ears pinned back, their eyes rolling white in the gloom. Thunder refused to go any closer. He planted his hooves and would not move, trembling beneath me like a leaf in a storm. "He smells it," said a voice. "They all do, at first." A knight stood at the edge of the stable yard, so still I had taken him for a statue. His armor was old-fashioned and dented, lacquered a deep green that looked almost black in the fading light. He was not young; his hair was white and cropped close, and his face was lean and weathered. But his eyes were sharp, and they were fixed not on me, but on the sky above the northern wall. "Smells what, sir?" I asked. He finally looked at me. "You're Frederick. The new squire." "Yes, sir. And you're..." "Roland." He crossed the yard and laid a gauntleted hand on Thunder's muzzle. The stallion calmed at once, though he still would not stop trembling. "Your horse smells ash, boy. Ash and old smoke and something older still. It gets into the stones here. Into the wood." He tapped the stable wall. "This building was rebuilt eleven times in the last century. Do you know why?" I shook my head. "Because it kept burning down." He said it quite plainly, as though remarking on the weather. "Every spring, near the equinox. Always the stables first. Always the horses." A cold feeling crept up the back of my neck. "The stories say the dragons are gone, sir. The last one was slain two hundred years ago." "The stories say a great many things." Sir Roland turned back to the sky, where the first stars were beginning to show. "Stable your horse, Frederick. Then get some sleep. You'll need it." "Sir, what is it I'm training for?" He was quiet for so long that I thought he would not answer. Then, softly: "To finish what the stories got wrong." </nc-section>