By Day Nine dawn, the seizure notice had learned a new number.
Elara crossed out SIX and wrote FIVE FULL DAYS beneath it.
The lockbox remained three silver marks and nine copper bits.
Kellan stared at the request board as though one of those facts might become kinder if he stood very still.
Maelis removed the shepherd-family medicine packet from SAFE TO WAIT.
"Your trial," she said.
Kellan looked at the packet. Then at her. "That?"
"Disappointed?"
"No."
"You sounded disappointed."
"I expected something more..."
"Glorious?" Ren suggested.
Kellan wisely said nothing.
Nia spread her eastern route notes across the table with one hand. Her shoulder was still strapped beneath her courier coat.
"I am not coming," she said before Ren could ask. "Bellwater still says no fighting, climbing, hard draw, or full sprint. Slow riding is permitted. So today I am a map with ears."
"An improvement over several maps I have met," Edrin said from Bram’s breakfast bench.
Nia ignored him professionally.
The medicine was for an isolated shepherd family beyond the eastern grazing fields. Their eldest son had come to collect it and would return with the team. The request itself was ordinary delivery and public aid. No combat fee. No monster work. Maelis would accompany them under her own license while evaluating Kellan.
She wrote the limits in front of him.
"Objective?"
"Deliver the medicine and the client safely."
"Priority if threatened?"
"Client first. Medicine second. Equipment after that."
"Authority?"
"You."
"Your current privileges?"
"Supervised support. No independent action. No field weapon. No pursuit."
Nia tapped a charcoal mark on the route.
"Three miles east, the lane narrows beside a dry-stone sheep wall. There have been two theft reports near it. Dain’s patrol checks the old salt shed around second bell. If trouble starts, you do not win the road. You move toward the patrol."
Kellan nodded.
Maelis made him repeat everything.
Then she made him repeat it again.
The road stayed peaceful long enough to become suspicious.
Ren walked behind the shepherd with his right wrist wrapped and the Waywarden’s Cuff silent beneath the bandages. Maelis held the rear. Kellan stayed beside the client with the medicine satchel across his chest.
At the sheep wall, Kellan stopped.
Not because anyone appeared.
Because a cord had been stretched ankle-high across the lane.
He raised one fist.
Everyone froze.
Maelis said nothing.
Kellan studied the wall, ditch, and hawthorn beyond it.
A boot moved behind the stones.
"Back to the gate," he said quietly.
The shepherd obeyed.
Three people rose from cover.
They were not professional killers. Their coats were patched, one man’s knife had been sharpened so often the blade had narrowed, and the woman beside him looked more frightened than dangerous.
That did not make the knife less sharp.
"Leave the satchel," the leader said. "Coin too."
Kellan backed through the narrow sheep gate with the client.
"We’re carrying medicine," he said. "Walk away and nobody follows you."
The leader laughed. "You’re the escort?"
Kellan’s face reddened.
Ren saw the old mistake arrive in him—the need to prove that question wrong.
Kellan shut the gate instead.
He looped the loose gate rope through the post and pulled it tight.
"Two whistles," he called.
Maelis joined the regroup point.
The thieves had expected one nervous farm boy. The sight of a horned provincial assessor changing the calculation made the woman take one step backward.
The leader did not.
He climbed the wall.
Maelis’s weighted restraint mesh opened in the air.
Iron weights struck stone on either side of him. The net folded around his shoulders and pulled him sideways into the grass.
The second man rushed the gate.
Kellan moved between him and the shepherd.
No weapon. No charge.
He planted both hands against the gate and held it closed while the man slammed into the other side.
The old wood shook.
"Withdrawal route," Maelis ordered.
Kellan did not look at the man trying to reach him.
"Salt shed. East ditch. Client first."
"Move."
He moved.
The shepherd stumbled on the wet verge. Kellan caught his coat, recovered him, and kept going.
Behind them, the third thief ran.
Kellan looked back once.
The runner was close enough to chase.
For a heartbeat Ren saw exactly how badly he wanted to.
Kellan turned forward.
He stayed with the client.
Ren smiled despite himself.
The second thief abandoned the gate when Maelis drew her capture fork. He made it fifty paces before running directly into Dain Korr and two watch constables coming around the bend from the salt shed.
Dain stopped.
The thief stopped.
"This feels efficient," Dain said.
By midday, the medicine had reached the farm unopened.
The shepherd’s mother cried when she saw it, then immediately demanded everyone eat cheese.
Maelis refused payment to the guild for the field portion and recorded the delivery as public-benefit work under her licensed supervision. Dain took custody of the two captured thieves and the route statements. The third had fled into the fields; tracking and arrest belonged to the watch.
Nobody from Sovereign Guild pursued him.
Back at the hall, Maelis placed Kellan’s Trial Trainee form on the table.
"You identified the hazard before contact. You moved the client. You used the planned withdrawal route. You did not pursue."
Kellan stood straighter with every sentence.
"You also let the gate become your entire attention for three breaths and failed to check the client during contact."
His shoulders dropped again.
"So I failed."
"No."
Elara slid a second form beneath the first.
Across the top she had written:
JUNIOR MEMBER — SUPERVISED FIELD SUPPORT
Maelis read the limits aloud.
"Low-risk escort, search, and rescue only. Named licensed commander required. No independent combat. No creature suppression. No command authority. No Artifact use. No accepting requests or negotiating field fees. Approved rescue and defensive equipment only after inspection. Any commander may return you to training status after a safety breach."
Kellan swallowed.
"Sign if you understand what you have not earned yet."
He signed.
Ren held out his left hand.
Kellan clasped it.
"You protected the person you were responsible for," Ren said. "That is the part that matters."
Nia stood beside the route board watching them.
Her hand lifted slightly toward Ren’s sleeve.
Then stopped.
She reached for her courier satchel instead.
"Bellwater route," she said. "Slow circuit. Final shoulder check tomorrow."
Ren nodded. "Send word if the road changes."
Nia’s ears shifted toward him.
"I will."
She left without kissing him.
Ren did not follow.
The front door opened again before the room had settled.
A dwarven man entered in a dark registrar’s coat, silver beard trimmed into a line precise enough to qualify as paperwork. He carried a leather document case beneath one arm and the original Crossroads Hall papers beneath the other.
Elara stood immediately.
"Oren Pell."
The registrar looked at the new junior-member form, then at the seizure notice, then at Ren.
"I had intended to begin with congratulations," he said. "Circumstances have filed an objection."
He placed a sealed notice on the table.
"Someone has submitted an offer to purchase the hall’s debt."