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<nc-section data-title="Chapter 1: The Arrival (Version 1)" data-color="red"> The guards waved me through the gates without a word, and I followed the smell of hay and horse toward the stables at the eastern wall. Thunder snorted as we drew near, his hooves ringing on the cobblestones, and I had barely swung down from the saddle when a voice cut through the evening air like a blade. "You're late." I turned. A man stood in the doorway of the stable, broad as the frame he leaned against, his arms folded across a chest scarred and weathered as old leather. His hair was iron-grey and cropped short, and a long white scar ran from his left temple down into his beard. He wore no armor, only a plain tunic stained with sweat, but there was no mistaking him for anything other than a knight. "Sir Roland?" I asked, and my voice came out smaller than I'd intended. "The same." He pushed himself off the doorframe and walked a slow circle around me, the way a farmer might inspect a calf at market. His eyes lingered on my hands, my boots, the sword at my hip that had belonged to my father. "They told me the boy from Ashford would arrive by midday. The sun's nearly down." "The bridge at Millbrook was washed out, sir. I had to ride around by the old road." "Then you should have left earlier." He stopped in front of me, close enough that I could smell the smoke and oil on him. "A knight doesn't make excuses for the weather, lad. The weather doesn't care, and neither will your enemies." I felt the heat rise in my cheeks, but I held his gaze. For a long moment, neither of us spoke. Then, unexpectedly, something that might have been approval flickered across his face. "Good," he grunted. "You didn't look away. That's a start." He took Thunder's reins from my hand and ran a palm along the stallion's neck. Thunder, who had bitten three stable hands in Ashford, lowered his head and nickered softly. "Fine animal. Better than you deserve, I'd wager. Stable him, feed him, brush him down. Then find the kitchens and eat. We begin at first light." "First light, sir?" He was already walking away. "Before it," he called over his shoulder. "If you're late again, you'll be mucking these stalls until midsummer." </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Chapter 1: The Arrival (Version 2)" data-color="green"> Inside the walls, the castle courtyard was alive with noise—blacksmiths hammering in their forges, servants hauling barrels, children chasing a squawking goose between the legs of irritated soldiers. I guided Thunder carefully through the chaos, craning my neck to take it all in, until at last I found the long timber stables tucked against the eastern wall. "Ho there! You must be Frederick!" A man came striding out of the stables, wiping his hands on a rag. He was tall and barrel-chested, with a thick red beard and cheeks flushed from the day's work. Before I could so much as dismount, he had seized my hand and was pumping it with such enthusiasm that I nearly toppled out of the saddle. "Sir Roland," he announced, beaming. "Though most folk here just call me Roland, and the stable boys call me worse when they think I can't hear. Welcome, welcome! We've been expecting you all day. Cook's been fretting that you'd starve on the road." "Thank you, sir," I managed, sliding down to the ground at last. My legs ached from the long ride, and I wobbled a little as I landed. Roland laughed—a great booming sound that startled a pair of pigeons from the rafters. "Saddle-legs! I remember those. First time I rode to this castle, I was about your age, and I couldn't walk straight for two days. Old Sir Edmund made me run laps around the practice yard anyway." He clapped me on the shoulder. "Don't worry. I'm a kinder master than he was. Mostly." He turned his attention to Thunder, and his eyes widened with genuine admiration. "Now *this* is a horse. Look at the chest on him! Where did you get such a beast?" "He was my father's," I said quietly. Something in my voice must have told him more than my words, because Roland's grin softened. He nodded slowly and laid a gentle hand on Thunder's flank. "Then we'll take good care of him," he said. "And of you. Come on, lad. Let's get him settled, and then I'll show you where you'll be sleeping. The squires' quarters are drafty, but the company's good, and the stew tonight is venison." As he led Thunder into the warm, lantern-lit stable, I followed, and for the first time since leaving home, I felt the tight knot in my chest begin to loosen. </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Chapter 1: The Arrival (Version 3)" data-color="blue"> By the time I reached the stables, the last of the sunlight had drained from the sky, and torches were being lit along the battlements. The courtyard had grown quiet. Somewhere, a dog barked twice and fell silent. I was loosening Thunder's girth when I realized I was not alone. A man sat on an overturned bucket in the shadows at the end of the row, so still that I had walked right past him. He was lean and grey-bearded, wrapped in a travel-worn cloak, and he was turning something over in his fingers—a small, dark object that caught the torchlight with a strange, oily shimmer. "You ride like your father," he said. I froze. "You knew my father?" "I did." He rose and stepped into the light, and I saw that his face was lined and tired, but his eyes were sharp and pale as winter frost. "I am Sir Roland. I fought beside Aldric of Ashford for eleven years. I was there when he fell." The words struck me harder than any blow. No one had ever told me how my father died—only that he had not come home from the northern campaign, and that his sword had been returned to us wrapped in black cloth. "Sir," I began, but he raised a hand. "Not tonight. There will be time for that story, and it's not one to be told in a stable." He glanced toward the courtyard, as though making sure no one was listening, then held out the object he had been holding. "But you should have this. It was his." I took it. It was a scale—as large as my palm, curved and impossibly hard, dark as a moonless night. When I tilted it toward the torch, colors rippled across its surface: deep crimson, then gold, then a green like sunlight through forest leaves. It was warm. Not warm from his hand, but warm from within, as though something inside it still remembered being alive. "What is it?" I whispered. Sir Roland looked at me for a long moment. "Most people in this kingdom will tell you that the dragons are gone," he said at last. "That the last of them died a hundred years ago, and good riddance." He pulled his cloak tighter around his shoulders. "Your father didn't believe that. Neither do I." He turned and walked toward the castle, leaving me alone with Thunder and the faint, steady warmth pulsing against my palm. "Get some sleep, Frederick," he called back from the darkness. "Your training begins tomorrow. And it will not be the training you expected." </nc-section>