Grenwood is quiet.
No walls. No banners. No golden horn nailed to a door.
Just bread in the ovens, frost on the cobbles, and a lordsman who still believes the Covenant means something.
For a few hours, it feels like shelter.
But shelter has a way of exposing what flight can hide.
Old partnerships strain. Mercy is questioned. Responsibility tightens its grip. And while the road west points toward Lorn, the fracture forming inside the company may reach them first.
By morning, not all departures will be agreed upon.
"Grenwood appeared just after dawn.
It arrived first as smell, bread baking, woodsmoke, the warm animal scent of a working stable. Then sound, a rooster's crow, the rhythmic thud of an axe splitting kindling, a woman calling a name across a yard. Then, finally, shape: a cluster of timber-and-thatch buildings huddled around a central square, with a single inn, the Bramble & Boar, standing at the heart of it. No fortress. No chapel tower. No golden stag's horn on the shutters."
"‘You got caught, Rho. That's not like old times. Old times, we didn't get caught.’
He flinched. Just slightly, a crack in the grin that appeared and vanished.
‘I was wounded—’
‘You were careless,’ she cut in. ‘And careless gets you hanged.’
…
‘It means,’ Emma said quietly, ‘that you're traveling with tender-hearted people who think mercy is a strategy.’
‘And you don't.’
‘Mercy is for people who can afford it.’"
Coming soon: Reflections, background, and thoughts from the trail.
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