Chapter 73. Oaths Under Open Sky

We didn’t ride for Shadowfang yet.

We rode for the field beyond Veilgrove where the ground still remembered tents and songs and the old kind of justice—the one you shout, not write. Banners from the east and north and nameless places knelt in rows that pretended order. Ashfall stood bone-still, arms folded, eyes sharp. Two-River sent half its wall. Hollowborn arrived late and hungry and apologized for neither.

I stepped onto a flat stone that the wind liked. Kael took my right. Syra and Neris bracketed the front. Orla wandered the edges like a woman counting threads and boys prone to dumb bravery.

“I’m not here to be over you,” I said, when the murmurs had burned down. “I’m here to stand with you or get out of your way. Choose.”

Murmurs changed flavor. A man with a scar down his cheek and a ring I recognized as a bribe raised his chin.

“And if we choose neither?” he asked. Polite. Poisoned.

“Then don’t waste my daylight,” I said. “Go