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<nc-section data-title="Chapter 2: The Knight at the Stables (Version 1)" data-color="red"> I passed beneath the portcullis just as the last sliver of sun slipped behind the western hills. The courtyard smelled of hay, woodsmoke, and iron from the forge. A stable boy hurried toward me, but before he could take Thunder's reins, a deep voice rang out across the cobblestones. "You'll be the Aldermoor boy, then." A tall man stepped from the shadow of the stable doorway. He wore no armor, only a plain leather jerkin and riding boots caked with mud, yet there was no mistaking what he was. A pale scar ran from his left temple to his jaw, and his grey eyes looked me over the way a smith looks over a blade fresh from the fire, searching for flaws. I swung down from the saddle and bowed, perhaps too low. "Frederick of Aldermoor, sir. I've come to serve." "Sir Roland of Ashcombe." He did not bow back. Instead he walked a slow circle around Thunder, running a calloused hand along the stallion's neck. Thunder, who had bitten two grooms and a priest in his time, stood perfectly still. "Fine animal. Too fine for a squire, some would say." "He was my father's, sir." Roland paused, and something shifted in his face, though I could not tell what. "I knew your father," he said quietly. Then, as if the words had slipped out without leave, his voice hardened again. "Rest tonight. At first light you'll muck every stall in this stable, and then we'll see whether you can hold a sword or only look pretty on a horse." He turned to go, then stopped at the stable door without looking back. "And Frederick. Whatever you hear in the castle about the mountains to the north, you keep your questions to yourself. Understood?" Before I could answer, he was gone into the dusk. </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Chapter 2: The Knight at the Stables (Version 2)" data-color="green"> The stables were larger than the whole manor house I had grown up in. Lanterns were being lit along the rafters, and in their golden light I saw a knight kneeling in the straw beside a grey mare, murmuring to her as he wrapped a bandage around her foreleg. "Easy, Maren. Easy, old girl. There we are." I dismounted as quietly as I could, but Thunder snorted, and the knight looked up. He was older than I'd imagined a knight of the realm would be, his beard shot through with silver, his face creased by laughter as much as by weather. He rose, brushing straw from his knees, and grinned. "Well! You must be young Frederick. We've been expecting you since noon. I'd begun to think you'd been eaten by wolves." He clasped my forearm in a grip like a bear trap. "Sir Roland. Welcome to Castle Wyverncrest." "Forgive my lateness, sir. The river crossing at Dunmere was flooded." "Flooded, eh?" He gave me a wink. "Or did you stop to admire the view from Harrow's Ridge? Every lad does. No shame in it." He stepped past me to greet Thunder, who, to my astonishment, lowered his great head to nuzzle the knight's shoulder. "Ha! He knows a friend when he meets one. Horses always do. People take a bit longer." He led Thunder into an empty stall himself, talking all the while about the castle, the cook's temper, which of the other squires snored, and which of the maids would slip me an extra honey cake if I minded my manners. "You'll train hard here," he said at last, his voice growing more serious as he latched the stall door. "Harder than you'd believe. But you'll not be alone in it. That's a promise." He clapped me on the back. "Now come. Supper's on, and if we're late, Cook will feed our share to the hounds." As we crossed the courtyard, I glanced up at the tallest tower. A single window glowed there, and for a moment I thought I saw something huge and dark move across the stars behind it. When I looked again, there was nothing. </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Chapter 2: The Knight at the Stables (Version 3)" data-color="blue"> The courtyard was nearly deserted by the time I reached the stables, and a strange silence had fallen over the place. No hammer rang in the forge. No hounds barked. Even Thunder seemed uneasy, his ears flicking back and forth as I led him toward the long wooden building. A man stood at the stable entrance, holding a lantern high. The light caught the polished steel of his breastplate and the emblem upon it: a silver dragon, wings outspread, on a field of midnight blue. "Halt. State your name and business." "Frederick of Aldermoor," I said, fumbling in my saddlebag for the sealed letter I had carried for eleven days. "I'm to be squired to Sir Roland of Ashcombe." The man lowered the lantern, and I saw his face for the first time. He was younger than I'd expected, no more than thirty, with a close-cropped dark beard and eyes that seemed far too tired for his years. He took the letter, broke the seal, and read it by the flickering flame. "Then you've found him," he said. "I am Roland." I dropped to one knee on the cold stones. "My lord." "Get up. I'm no lord, and the ground's too wet for ceremony." He handed back the letter and studied me for a long moment. "You're younger than they said." "I'm sixteen, sir." "Sixteen." He said it the way one might name a wound. Then he reached out and took Thunder's bridle, and I noticed his hand was trembling, just slightly. "Tell me, Frederick. On the road here, did you see anything in the sky? Anything at all?" I thought of the evening before, camped beneath the pines, when every bird in the forest had gone silent at once and a warm wind had swept down from the north, smelling faintly of smoke. "No, sir," I said, though I was not certain it was the truth. Roland nodded slowly, as if he had heard the lie and chosen to let it pass. "Good. Come inside, then. There's much you need to learn, and I fear we have far less time than I'd hoped." </nc-section>