The words still hung in her throat—And I would not lose—when the second knock came.
Hallah flinched. Her father's hand found the hammer at his belt. Her mother stepped between her and the door, her body a shield. The king's horses had barely disappeared into the mist, the dust still settling, and already another power stood at their threshold.
This knock was different. Softer. Three raps, measured—the pattern of temple bells, of incense, of the Church of the Six.
Her father opened the door.
A woman stood there, robed in white and gold, the colors of the Church of the Six. She was tall, her hair silver-white despite her unlined face, and she held a bundle wrapped in cloth the color of sacred candles. Hallah felt something from her—not healing, not like her mother's weak gift, but something older. Something that smelled of stone and silence and voices raised in praise of the Six: Valerius, Thalessa, Garrick, Kaelen, Morwenna, Aethelgard.
"Brant Ironhand," the woman said, her voice carrying the weight of ritual. "Eira Moonwhisper. I am High Priestess Eira Valorian, servant of the Cathedral of Valerian. May I enter?"
Her father hesitated, his hand still on his hammer, his eyes scanning the road behind her. No carriage. No guards. Just the High Priestess and two Vestal Sisters standing silent in the yard, their hands folded in the sleeves of their robes.
"You may," her father said, stepping aside.
The High Priestess entered, and the room seemed to change around her—not dramatically, not with magic that could be seen, but with the subtle shift of power entering a space. She moved to the center of the room, her eyes finding Hallah immediately, studying her with an intensity that made Hallah want to check her bandages, her posture, her very soul.
"The Church has watched," the High Priestess said. "Since the Appraisal. Since the revelation of the Paladin's return. We have waited, prayed, sought guidance from the Six." She held out the bundle. "This is for you, child."
Hallah stepped forward, her parents tense behind her. She unwrapped the cloth. Inside lay a tabard—white silk, embroidered with the six colors of the gods in their proper order: Valerius's gold, Thalessa's silver, Garrick's bronze, Kaelen's iron, Morwenna's copper, Aethelgard's platinum.
"Divine protection," the High Priestess said. "The cloth itself is immortal—the threads blessed by the Vestal Sisters in the Cathedral of Valerian. It will not tear, nor stain, nor burn. It turns aside curses and grants immunity to elemental magic." Her expression darkened. "You will need it. The court is not what you think, child."
Hallah felt the weight of the tabard as she lifted it—the surprising substance of it, the warmth that pulsed against her palms like a second heartbeat. She draped it over her shoulders, and the silk settled against her skin with an almost sentient awareness.
"What do you mean?" her father asked, his voice rough with suspicion. "The King's letter just arrived. His messenger barely gone."
"And that is why I am here." The High Priestess turned to face them fully, her silver eyes serious. "King Aldric LXIX is a good man. Steadfast, devout, truly protective of the realm. But he is aging. And his heir..." She paused, choosing her words with care. "Crown Prince Aldric LXX is not his father."
Hallah felt a chill that had nothing to do with the autumn air. "Tell us."
The High Priestess's voice dropped, became intimate, a warning whispered between believers. "The Crown Prince is twenty-seven years old. Classless. Bitter. He has watched his younger brother manifest gifts he will never possess, watched the court's eyes turn to a child of five who may yet eclipse him entirely. He fears—rightly—that the nobility will support a younger heir with power over an older one without."
"Prince Lucan," her mother whispered.
"Yes." The High Priestess nodded. "The second prince. Five years old, same as you, Hallah. Destined for the Wizard class—powerful, brilliant, everything his brother is not. And timid." She emphasized the word. "Timid because he has been reminded every day of his life that he is only the spare. The backup. The extra son, kept in case the first died. But the first did not die. And so Lucan learned to be small, to stay quiet, to flinch when shadows moved. The Crown Prince has... educated him thoroughly in his place."
Hallah tried to picture it—a boy her age, taught to apologize for existing. Did he stutter when forced to speak? Did he practice making himself invisible, holding his breath in rooms where his brother's shadow fell? Did he look at the floor instead of meeting eyes, expecting blows instead of kindness?
"The Crown Prince sees you as a threat," the High Priestess continued. "Or a tool. He knows the Weave has bound your fate to Lucan's—Syltherion's threads have shown it. Together, Paladin and Wizard, you would be formidable. Unstoppable. A threat to his inheritance. He will seek to control you, or break you, or eliminate you before you can stand beside his brother."
"And the King?" her father asked.
"Trusts his son. Loves him. Will not see his cruelty until it is too late." The High Priestess stepped closer to Hallah, placing her hands on the child's shoulders. "Five years until you meet the princes. Five years until the Crown Prince realizes you are not a weapon he can wield, but a shield he cannot penetrate. Prepare well. The danger is not the King—it is the heir who fears losing his crown to a talented younger brother."
She stepped back, her warning delivered, her duty done. "The tabard will protect your body. Your training must protect your will. Do not let him make you his."
The Vestal Sisters moved to the door, opening it for their High Priestess. Eira Valorian paused on the threshold, her silhouette framed against the daylight, then stepped through. The door closed behind her with a sound like the sealing of a tomb—or the locking of a fate.
Her father broke the silence. "Then we train. Now. Today. While the fear is fresh, while the anger burns."
The forge waited.
Her father led her there without another word, the tabard still draped over her shoulders, its divine warmth a comfort against the morning chill. The royal letter lay on the table, its seal broken, its commands noted but not yet obeyed. The High Priestess's warning hung in the air like smoke.
"You'll train in that?" Her father gestured at the tabard, his brow furrowed with practical skepticism. "Silk? Church finery?"
"It doesn't stain," Hallah said, touching the fabric. "It doesn't tear. Watch."
She wiped her soot-covered hand across the white silk. The mark vanished as she pulled her fingers away, absorbed or expelled by whatever blessing the Vestal Sisters had woven into the threads.
Her father stared, then grunted—the sound of a man accepting that some things lay beyond his understanding. "Kharzun method," he said, gesturing to the anvil. "You have shaped nails. You have shaped hooks. Today you learn to strike."
He produced a sledgehammer—ten pounds of black iron, the head worn smooth by decades of use, the handle dark with sweat and oil. "The Kharzun do not tap. We do not persuade metal. We strike. Once. Twice. Three times. With purpose. With commitment. With the full weight of the body behind the blow."
He demonstrated. The sledge rose, paused at the apex—a moment of potential, of coiled force—then descended. Not a tap. Not a push. A strike. The anvil rang like a bell, the sound vibrating through the floorboards, through Hallah's boots, through her teeth.
"Your turn."
Hallah took the sledge. The weight was shocking—ten pounds didn't sound like much until you tried to lift it with arms already trembling from yesterday's sword work. She hefted it, found the balance point, raised it overhead. Her shoulders screamed. Her back protested. She let it fall.
The strike was weak. The anvil barely whispered.
"Again," her father said. "Commit. The strike begins in the feet. The legs drive. The hips turn. The back carries. The arms only guide."
She tried again. Thought about her feet, her stance, the geometry of force. Lifted. Paused. Let the weight fall with her body behind it.
Clang.
Better. The anvil sang.
"Again."
Clang.
"Again."
CLANG.
By the tenth strike, her arms were jelly. By the fifteenth, her vision blurred. She wanted to stop—every instinct screamed that she was too small, too weak, that five-year-olds didn't swing sledges—but she thought of the prince flinching in marble hallways, and she lifted the hammer again. By the twentieth strike, she was crying, not from pain but from rage, and her father finally caught the sledge as she raised it, his eyes wet with something between pride and fear.
Her father had pushed her past where any five-year-old should stop, past where her muscles could recover, into territory where damage became permanent. But Bear remembered worse—remembered broken ribs and fighting anyway, remembered blood in his mouth and keeping his feet—and Hallah let that memory guide her. She was Bear in the ways that mattered: the stubbornness, the willingness to break herself against the anvil of necessity. The girl-body was new, but the will was old.
"Enough," her father finally said. "Enough for today. You have the technique. The strength will come."
She let him take the hammer, let him guide her to a stool, let her mother press cool water into her shaking hands. The tabard had not moved, had not slipped, its divine fabric somehow shedding the sweat and soot that covered her skin.
"Rest," her mother said. "Then the sword."
The sword came in the afternoon, when the sun had begun its descent and the shadows grew long.
Her father had modified a kite shield for her—smaller than a warrior's, but larger than a buckler, shaped to cover from knee to shoulder when held properly. The weight was significant, three pounds of wood and leather and iron, and he made her hold it for an hour before she was allowed to move.
"The shield is not a wall," he said, strapping it to her left forearm. "It is geometry. It is angles. It is the knowledge of where the blade will fall and the certainty that you will be somewhere else."
He drew his own sword, the practice blade dulled but still dangerous. "Hold it up. High guard. Elbow bent, shield angled toward me. Good. Now step. Left foot first. Slide, don't stomp. Keep your weight balanced. If you lean, you die."
She moved as he instructed, the shield heavy on her arm, the unfamiliar weight throwing off her balance. He struck—controlled, slow—and she raised the shield to meet the blow. The impact traveled up her arm, into her shoulder, made her teeth click together.
"Again."
He struck again. She caught it, the angle slightly better this time, the force distributed across the shield's face rather than concentrated on her arm.
"Better. Again."
They worked for hours. Footwork first—the slide and pivot, the half-step back, the lateral movement that kept her center of gravity low and mobile. Then binding—catching his blade on her shield's edge, controlling it, redirecting its force rather than absorbing it. Then fatigue management—learning to rest the shield's weight against her knee in the brief moments between exchanges, to breathe in rhythm with her movement, to let the muscles recover even in the midst of combat.
The shield was heavy. Not just "lift with your legs" heavy, but "your arm will fall off" heavy. It pulled her shoulder down, made her fingers tingle, made her want to drop it and run away. The leather strap dug into her forearm, smelling of oil and sweat and old blood, cutting off circulation until her hand went numb and she had to shake it back to life between exchanges. But her father stood there with his sword, and she thought of the boy who couldn't run away, and she raised the shield again.
"Real combat is not clean," her father said, as the sun touched the horizon and her legs trembled beneath her. "Real combat is exhaustion. Fear. The certainty that you are not good enough, strong enough, fast enough. You fight anyway. You hold the line anyway. Because someone stands behind you who cannot hold it themselves."
Hallah thought of Prince Lucan, flinching in marble hallways. She thought of the High Priestess's words: He has learned to be small.
"I understand," she said, her voice hoarse.
"Do you?" Her father lowered his sword, studying her with eyes that saw too much. "The Crown Prince is twenty-seven years old, Hallah. He has spent that time learning politics, learning cruelty, learning how to break those weaker than himself. You have five years to learn how to stop him. Five years to become someone he cannot break."
"Then we continue tomorrow," Hallah said. "And the day after. And every day until I am strong enough."
Her father smiled—the rare, rough smile. "Kharzun steel," he said. "Unbroken. Unbent. That is what we forge here."
Night came with pain.
Hallah woke to the sensation of having been beaten—not by fists, but by hammers and swords and her own stubbornness. Every muscle in her body ached with a deep, settled throb. Her hands were stiff, the bandages tight against swollen flesh. Her shoulders burned. Her legs trembled when she tried to stand.
She was five years old. She had trained until she cried. And today, she had done it again.
She lay on her bedroll, the enchanted tabard folded carefully beside her, her new hammer resting against the wall within arm's reach. Moonlight filtered through the window, casting pale squares across the floor, while the ache in her shoulders kept time with her heartbeat.
Timid.
The word repeated itself in her mind, foreign and strange against the memory of violence she had practiced that afternoon. Hallah tried to picture it—a prince who was timid. Did he stutter when he spoke, tripping over sounds the way she sometimes stumbled over her hammer blows? Did he look at the floor instead of meeting people's eyes? She thought of the traveling merchants who passed through the village, bold and loud. A timid prince would be the opposite. Small. Hesitant. Afraid.
But he was a prince. What could possibly make a prince afraid?
Hallah pulled her knees to her chest, wincing as her bruised arms protested, remembering the High Priestess's careful words. "He has learned to be small. It is not his nature, but his survival."
She imagined it now: the older prince, tall and sharp-edged, cornering his little brother in marble hallways. She could almost hear the words, cruel and precise.
"You're just the spare, little brother. Mother and Father only had you in case I died. But I didn't die, did I? So what use are you?"
A spare. An extra. A backup plan made flesh, constantly reminded that his existence was redundant. Every manifestation of Lucan's magical talent would be another stone added to the weight pressing down on him. Not celebrated. Feared.
Hallah thought of her parents—her father's patient hands guiding hers on the hammer, her mother's gentle touch healing her scrapes. They had never made her feel small.
Prince Lucan had no such safety. At five years old—her own age—he had already learned that survival meant shrinking, staying quiet, keeping his eyes down and his magical gifts hidden lest they trigger another round of cruelty. The Crown Prince didn't just bully him; he systematically broke him, reminder after reminder, until Lucan's natural timidity became armor against the world.
She wondered what it did to a boy, being told every day that he was superfluous. Did he flinch when people moved too quickly? Did he apologize for existing? Did he practice making himself invisible, holding his breath in rooms where his brother's shadow fell?
Hallah touched the tabard beside her, the fabric warm beneath her fingers, and felt a strange, fierce protectiveness bloom in her chest. The Weave had bound her fate to his—this boy who had learned to be small, who carried wounds no healer's magic could touch.
But she knew, suddenly and with absolute certainty, that when she finally met Prince Lucan in five years—when she was ten and the world began to open beyond her village—she would not look away from him. She would not remind him that he was spare. Five years until she met him at ten. Two more until the Academy at twelve. Seven years total to become someone who could stand between a prince and his nightmares. And when they both stood at the threshold of the Academy, she would already know who he was beneath the armor of his fear.
She would look him in the eyes, and let him decide if he wanted to be small or stand tall.
The fierceness of the thought surprised her. Hallah lay still in the darkness, trying to understand the source of this sudden, burning resolve to protect a boy she'd never met. It didn't feel like the thoughts of a five-year-old girl. It felt older. Heavier.
Memory stirred. Not the memories of this life—her father's forge, her mother's herbs—but something deeper. A frozen parking lot in a city that no longer existed. The smell of gasoline and frozen blood. Three children huddled in a bathtub, their eyes wide with terror.
The girl with the knife. Jade green eyes, like hers.
Hallah's breath caught. She remembered them now—the boy with the split lip, the older girl shaking so hard the blade rattled against linoleum, the younger one pressed between them. She remembered kicking down the wrong door, expecting enemies, finding only victims. She remembered putting herself between them and the gunfire. She remembered dying with her blood on their bathroom floor instead of her hands around their throats.
Bear had saved them. Bear, who had spent thirty-eight years as a weapon, had chosen in that final moment to be a shield.
The realization settled over her like a mantle. She had always possessed the capacity to protect the vulnerable. The Weaver hadn't given her something new when he spun her soul into this form. He had stripped away the rot, the poison, the years of violence, and allowed what was already there to breathe.
The qualities of a knight. They had existed even in her past life, buried beneath the wreckage. Syltherion hadn't created her protective nature—he had excavated it. Brought it to the fore while suppressing the cruelty, the selfishness, the casual brutality.
Hallah closed her eyes, exhausted beyond measure. The hammer against the wall, the tabard beside her, the sword and shield waiting for tomorrow's practice—they weren't new gifts. They were old truths, finally given form.
She had been a weapon. Now she would be a shield.
And Prince Lucan—timid, broken, flinching Prince Lucan—would be the first person she chose to stand for.
The vow rose in her throat, silent and absolute, witnessed only by moonlight and memory. I will walk the path of the Paladin—not to spite what I was, not to prove them wrong, but because I can. Because I choose to. Because the Weaver showed me what I could be when the rot was scraped away.
The realization felt strange in her chest—not because it was foreign, but because it was hers. Bear would have made the same vow, but the fierceness of it felt different now, warmer, more protective than aggressive. She was still Bear in the ways that mattered—the memories, the skills, the scars on her soul—but she was becoming Hallah too, and Hallah wanted to shield where Bear had only ever wanted to survive.
She thought of the noble Paladins in stories, silver-tongued and perfect, speaking in poetry and high ideals. That would never be her. She'd still curse when she burned her hand on the forge. She'd still speak with the rough edges of a village smith's daughter, with Bear's blunt pragmatism lurking behind her teeth. She wouldn't change how she spoke, how she carried herself, how she moved through the world.
But she would change what she stood for.
Not in spite. Not to erase Bear Norcofski. But in truth. In full, unvarnished embodiment of what it meant to be a Paladin—the bloody-knuckled reality. A shield that didn't care about the elegance of its surface, only the strength of its substance.
Let them expect pretty prayers and flowery speeches, she thought, the vow settling into her bones like cooling steel. I'll give them results. I'll give them a Paladin who speaks like a smith and fights like someone who knows exactly what the darkness looks like—because I've been it, once, and chose to be the light instead.
Lucan would see it first. In five years, when they met, he'd look at her with those frightened eyes, expecting another tormentor. And she'd show him what it meant to have someone stand between him and the dark—not because she was holy, but because she had been unholy, and had learned the difference.
The hammer waited against the wall. The tabard breathed warmth beside her. The Weave pulled taut, connecting her soul to his, two children who had learned to survive in different ways.
Hallah slept, and in her dreams, she stood in a doorway with a shield in her hands, while three children huddled behind her, and a prince with frightened eyes looked up at her like she was something holy.
She woke with the taste of iron on her tongue, and knew it for an omen.