Run: 2026-09-23-01M37Q4VRQCT6C2NKFH9ZM9JCX

<nc-section data-title="Chapter 2: The Iron Welcome" data-color="red"> I reined Thunder in just inside the gates. His hooves clattered on the cobblestones as I guided him toward the long, low building I took to be the stables. The smell of hay and horse sweat hung thick in the evening air, and somewhere a smith's hammer rang out in slow, steady strokes. I had barely swung down from the saddle when a voice cracked across the yard like a whip. "You there. Who told you to bring that animal in lathered like that?" I turned. A man stood in the stable doorway, broad as the frame he filled, his arms crossed over a leather jerkin scarred by old blade marks. His hair was iron-gray and cropped close, and a pale scar ran from his left temple down into his beard. His eyes were the color of cold ashes, and they looked straight through me. "I, forgive me, sir," I stammered, snatching the cap from my head. "I'm Frederick of Ashford. I was sent to begin my training. I was told to report to Sir Roland." "You're reporting to him now." He stepped forward and ran a calloused hand down Thunder's neck, then held up his damp palm for me to see. "First lesson, boy. A knight who rides his horse half to death to make a grand entrance will one day find himself on foot when it matters most. Walk him. Cool him. Brush him down. Then you may think about your own supper." My cheeks burned. "Yes, Sir Roland." He studied me a moment longer, as if weighing something he had not yet decided to buy. "Ashford," he said at last. "Your father was Aldric?" "He was, sir." Something flickered across his hard face, too quick to name. "He was a good man. Stubborn. Stupid, sometimes." He turned back toward the stable. "We'll see which of those you inherited. Dawn, in the practice yard. Late, and you'll muck every stall in this castle." He vanished into the shadows between the horses, leaving me alone with Thunder, the ringing hammer, and the uneasy feeling that I had already failed my first test. </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Chapter 2: A Friend at the Stables" data-color="green"> Thunder slowed to a proud, high-stepping walk as we passed beneath the portcullis, as if he knew we were being watched. I followed the scent of hay to the stables on the eastern side of the courtyard, where lanterns were already being lit against the coming dusk. "Now there's a fine beast!" A man came striding out from between the stalls, wiping his hands on a rag. He was tall and weathered, perhaps fifty years old, with a thick chestnut beard streaked with silver and laugh lines worn deep around his eyes. He wore no armor, only a plain tunic with a faded crest stitched over the heart: a silver tower on a field of green. "Good evening," I said, dismounting. "I'm looking for Sir Roland. I'm Frederick, the new squire." "Then your looking is done, lad, for you've found him." He clasped my forearm in a grip like a vise and grinned. "Welcome to Highmoor. We've been expecting you since noon. I'd half begun to think the wolves on the North Road had taken you." "Thunder threw a shoe near the river," I admitted. "We had to find a farrier." "Thunder, is it?" Sir Roland stroked the stallion's nose, and to my surprise Thunder, who had bitten two stable boys back home, leaned into his hand like a lapdog. "Aye, he's got the look of a storm about him. Good lines. Good heart, too, I'd wager. You can tell a great deal about a man by how his horse regards him." "And what does Thunder say about me?" Roland laughed, a deep, rolling sound. "That you're green as spring grass, but you don't go easy on the oats." He handed Thunder's reins to a waiting groom and threw an arm around my shoulders, steering me toward the great hall. "Come. There's venison on the spit and a bed with your name on it. Training starts tomorrow, and I promise you'll hate me by midday. But tonight, you eat." As we crossed the courtyard, I glanced up at the highest tower, where a single window glowed red against the darkening sky. Roland followed my gaze, and for a heartbeat his smile faltered. "Don't mind that," he said lightly. "Old stories. You'll hear them soon enough." </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Chapter 2: The Knight Who Watched the Sky" data-color="blue"> The courtyard was quieter than I had expected. A few servants hurried past with baskets of bread and firewood, and a pair of guards leaned on their spears near the well, but no one came to greet me. I led Thunder toward the stables, his breath steaming in the cooling air. I found the knight before he found me. He was standing alone in the paddock behind the stables, his back to me, his face turned toward the mountains in the north. The last of the sunlight caught the edge of his cloak, deep blue and trimmed in tarnished silver. He was very still, the way a hunter is still, and he did not turn even when Thunder snorted and stamped. "Sir Roland?" I ventured. "The birds went quiet an hour ago," he said, without looking at me. "Did you notice, on the road? The crows. They all flew south." I hadn't noticed. I said so. Only then did he turn. He was younger than I'd imagined, perhaps not yet forty, but his face was lined with a weariness that belonged to an older man. His left hand was sheathed in a black leather glove, and even from where I stood I could see that it did not move quite as a hand should. Beneath the edge of the glove, the skin of his wrist was shiny and puckered. Burned. "You're Frederick," he said. It was not a question. "The Order said they would send me a squire. I asked them not to." "I'm sorry, sir. I didn't know. I can—" "No." He crossed the paddock and stopped before Thunder, laying his good hand on the stallion's neck. His eyes, gray-blue like the sky before snow, searched mine. "It's not you, boy. It's the timing. You've come to Highmoor at a poor hour." "Why, sir?" He was quiet for a long moment. Then he looked back toward the mountains, where the first stars were pricking through the dusk above the jagged peaks. "Because something is waking up there," he said softly. "Something that should have died a hundred years ago. And I think it remembers me." </nc-section>