Twenty minutes later, Renee had deposited Pebble with the innkeeper’s daughter under strict instructions that he was not to be allowed near kitchens, purses, jewelry, unsecured cupboards, or anything else he might interpret as a personal challenge. Talia had added that preventing all of those things simultaneously was impossible, wished the girl luck, and disappeared with Elia toward the maintenance path before anyone could reconsider the arrangement. By the time our visible group finally left the village, the only evidence of their presence was the absence of two horses from the stable yard and a growing awareness in the pit of my stomach that the next time I saw Talia, there was a meaningful possibility somebody would already be shooting at us.
We made no effort to conceal ourselves. Rocky rattled along behind Renee with my luggage stacked exactly as it had been before the morning’s interruption, Raven walked beside the cart, and Brann rode close enough to look like an ordinary hired guard without crowding anyone. Adrian kept Goliath a little ahead of the cart while Skydancer and I occupied the position most likely to draw attention, which seemed appropriate considering subtlety had never been one of my strongest visual qualities.
The road west descended gradually toward the river, winding through farmland before trees began closing around it again. Traffic had become almost nonexistent. We passed one empty wagon heading east during the first ten minutes and nobody at all afterward, and the absence bothered me more than a line of armed men would have. Roads connecting settlements were supposed to have people on them.
“Still think we look harmless?” I asked.
Adrian’s eyes moved constantly between the road, tree line, and slopes ahead. “You look wealthy.”
“That was not the question.”
“You are five feet tall.”
“That is also not an answer.”
“It contributes.”
I looked toward Brann. “Can I reduce his contract payment for insulting his employer?”
“No, Your Highness.”
“Can I increase yours for giving the correct answer?”
“That I would accept, Your Highness.”
Adrian smiled without looking at me. The fact that he could apparently enjoy himself while scanning for an ambush irritated me enough to be reassuring.
The bridge first appeared through the trees as pale stone crossing a broad, slow river nearly twice the width of the channel through the village. It was larger than I had expected, built with three heavy arches and substantial parapets wide enough to suggest this had once been one of the more important western routes. A squat stone building stood beside the far end, positioned where anyone controlling the crossing could watch both the bridge and the road beyond it.
“That is not an improvised toll booth,” I murmured.
“No,” Adrian said.
Brann leaned slightly forward in his saddle. “Old Crown roadhouse.”
I looked at him, and he nodded toward the building. “Or something close. Place for inspectors, toll collectors back when there were legal tolls, road crews, maybe guards.”
The irony was almost offensive. Someone had apparently taken Crown infrastructure intended to support the road and converted it into infrastructure for robbing people on the Crown road.
We were still far enough away that I could not count everyone around the crossing, but movement became visible as the trees thinned. Two men stood beside a wooden barrier drawn partway across the road before the bridge. Another leaned against the parapet. More occupied the area around the stone building, and a wagon had been positioned off to one side with crates stacked beneath a canvas cover.
Adrian’s voice lowered. “Eight visible.”
“I have seven.”
“Man beside the building entrance.”
I found him after a second. “Eight.”
“Crossbows?”
“Two I can see.”
Brann adjusted his shield without drawing it. “There will be more.”
I resisted the impulse to search the hillside for Talia. If I could easily find her, the people at the bridge could too.
A man near the barrier noticed us and straightened. He said something to the others, and the change propagated through the group immediately. Nobody drew a weapon, but hands moved closer to them and the two visible crossbowmen shifted to positions where their bows could be raised quickly.
“Friendly place,” Renee said from the cart.
“Stay with Rocky,” Brann told her.
“I know.”
“If it turns bad, you keep the cart moving away from the bridge unless I tell you otherwise.”
Renee’s eyes narrowed slightly at being instructed, but she nodded. Personal Defense Mastery One had apparently not removed her capacity for recognizing good advice.
We continued forward at an ordinary walking pace until the barrier filled most of the road ahead. The man who stepped into the remaining gap wore reinforced leather beneath a dark coat and carried a saber at his hip. He was broad through the shoulders, perhaps in his forties, with a beard beginning to gray along the sides, and the missing piece of his left ear made identification unnecessarily convenient.
Varrick smiled as we approached, but nothing about the expression reached his eyes. “Road levy,” he called. “Twenty silver for the cart, ten each mounted traveler.”
I drew Skydancer to a halt several yards from him while Adrian stopped Goliath slightly behind and to my right. Brann remained with Renee, exactly where we had planned.
“That is expensive.”
“Road costs money to maintain.”
I looked deliberately at the bridge. “Does it?”
His smile thinned. “You want to cross, you pay.”
“Under whose authority?”
“Local authority.”
“Which local authority?”
That caused the first tiny hesitation. Behind Varrick, one of the men near the stone building moved toward the door, and I noticed because Adrian did.
“Radiance,” he said quietly.
“I saw.”
Varrick’s gaze flicked between us. “Does it matter? Road’s safe because of us. You pay, you cross.”
I let my expression settle into the polite court smile that had survived far more hostile rooms than this one. “I would like the name of the official who authorized the levy.”
His eyes narrowed. “You some kind of clerk?”
“No.”
“Then pay the toll.”
A familiar face appeared beside the roadhouse. The man who had escaped us that morning emerged from behind the building, took one look at Skydancer, and stopped so abruptly that the person behind him nearly walked into his back. His gaze found Adrian next, then me, and all the color drained out of his face.
“That’s them.”
Varrick glanced toward him. “Them who?”
“The ones from the road.”
The mood changed instantly. Men who had been pretending to function as toll collectors stopped pretending. One crossbow came off a shoulder, someone behind the barrier drew a short sword, and another man began moving toward the roadhouse entrance at a run.
Varrick looked at Adrian’s armor, Brann’s shield, the cart, and finally me with a new kind of attention. “Our people?”
“Taken.”
“How many?”
“All of them.”
Varrick looked back at me, and I smiled. “I would still like the name of the official who authorized your toll.”
His expression hardened. “You’ve got a lot of nerve for a little rich girl.”
My tail moved once behind Skydancer, and Adrian inhaled quietly beside me. I touched two fingers to the signet ring on my right hand, then raised it where the engraved Soulflame crest caught the afternoon light. “I am Princess Radiance Ember Soulflame, Crown Princess of Calder. This is a royal road, that is Crown property, and you are currently charging your future queen an illegal toll to cross her own bridge.”
Silence spread outward from us. The escaped bandit closed his eyes, while one of the men near the roadhouse whispered something I did not catch.
Varrick stared at the ring, then at my horns, and I watched the moment disbelief became recognition. For half a second, I thought royal authority might actually accomplish what it was designed to accomplish, but then his eyes moved to my clothes, Skydancer, Adrian, and the cart behind us.
Calculation replaced surprise. “A princess,” he said. I did not like the way he said it, and Adrian shifted Goliath half a step closer. Varrick smiled again, and this time there was no pretense of civility left in it. “You know what a princess is worth?”
Brann’s shield came off his back, and my pulse accelerated. “Consider your next sentence very carefully.”
Varrick looked past me toward his people. “More alive than dead.” Adrian’s polearm was in his hands before Varrick finished turning.
“Take her alive!”
The first crossbow snapped. Adrian moved between the sound and me so quickly that Goliath barely had time to respond. His polearm swept across my field of vision while Interposing Reach snapped through the movement, and the bolt struck the reinforced haft instead of my chest before spinning away into the road.
A second bolt came from somewhere I had not seen. Brann’s shield slammed upward beside Rocky with a crack that made Renee duck behind the cart rail as the bolt buried itself in wood and metal.
Then the hillside answered. Talia’s arrow crossed the space above us with a high, vicious hiss and struck the first visible crossbowman through the upper arm before he could reload. He spun sideways, bow dropping from suddenly useless fingers, while another sharp report from higher ground sent Elia’s bolt into the road directly in front of a man charging toward the barrier.
Not a miss. A warning deliberate enough that the man stopped immediately.
I felt something settle inside me as the shock of the first shots became a pattern I could act inside. Adrian was already moving forward, Brann had Renee and the cart, Talia and Elia had the high ground, and the people ahead of us had just made the extremely poor decision to turn an extortion investigation into a fight.
“Renee!” I called.
“Moving!”
Rocky began backing under her reins while Brann kept his shield toward the bridge. The road behind us remained clear, exactly as planned.
Three men surged around the barrier toward Adrian. He lowered his polearm and planted himself between them and me as the System text flashed at the edge of my awareness.
HOLD THE LINE
His stance locked into something that seemed to claim the road itself. The first attacker hesitated at the edge of his reach, not compelled to stop but forced to confront the obvious fact that advancing meant entering a space Adrian had prepared to punish.
The second tried anyway, and Adrian’s polearm swept low, caught the man behind the knee, and dumped him hard onto the road. I urged Skydancer sideways rather than sitting obediently behind him.
“Princess,” Adrian warned.
“I know.”
The third attacker came around his left side expecting me to retreat, and I smiled at him instead. The attacker expected a frightened girl on horseback and got Cadenced Step instead. Skydancer shifted under me at the same instant I moved, the rhythm of the technique carrying through saddle, hips, and reins as though horse and rider had briefly agreed on the same piece of choreography. His grab closed on empty air where my skirt had been, and I brought the heel of my boot down across his forearm before turning Skydancer sharply enough to put distance between us.
He cursed and lunged again, but this time I did not wait for him. I let a few notes of Beguiling Refrain slip into my voice, not enough for a song and certainly not enough to make the absurd situation feel theatrical, but enough to catch attention and drag it where I wanted.
“Eyes on me.”
The words carried farther than they should have. Two men near the barrier glanced toward me at the same instant, their focus hitching just long enough for Talia to exploit it. Her next arrow came from higher on the slope, and this time I saw the faint disturbance of water around its path before it struck. The shaft clipped the weapon hand of one man, and a ribbon of river water snapped around another man’s ankle from the edge of the bridge.
CURRENT SNARE
He stumbled violently when the water tightened and pulled his footing out from under him. Talia’s magic did not drag him helplessly across the road or control his body. It ruined the one thing he needed most in that moment, balance, and the result was enough. He went down on one knee just as Elia’s crossbow cracked again from concealment, her bolt striking the wooden barrier inches from his face in a warning deliberate enough that he stopped trying to rise.
“High right!” Brann shouted.
I followed his warning and caught a flash from the roadhouse window, where a third crossbowman had appeared behind the shutters, half concealed by stone. Adrian saw him too.
“Stay mobile.”
“I was planning to.”
The attacker beside me recovered and came in low, trying to catch Skydancer’s reins rather than reach me directly. I twisted away and snapped my rapier free, drawing more on Coordination and practiced grace than strength as the blade came between his hand and the leather. He recoiled, and I followed with Resonant Strike.
The rapier touched his weapon rather than his body, but the technique carried through the impact in a sharp pulse that traveled up his arm. His fingers spasmed open, and the short sword dropped onto the road.
“Down,” I told him.
He stared at me, then looked toward Varrick instead. Wrong choice. Adrian’s polearm drove the butt end into another attacker’s chest hard enough to send him staggering backward, and the space around him tightened as Guardian’s Challenge flared through posture, presence, and unmistakable threat. It was not compulsion. Nobody’s mind snapped into obedience. It was the supernatural amplification of a protector making himself the most dangerous obstacle on the road, forcing anyone who wanted past him to consciously choose to ignore the man already controlling their approach.
Most of them chose badly. Two committed to Adrian at once, and he gave ground only where he wanted to, using the length of the polearm to funnel them toward the narrowest part of the road. The movement pulled them away from me and away from Rocky’s retreat, and I saw the opening well enough to change roles instead of chasing another personal victory.
“Inspiring Flourish,” I whispered.
The technique caught on the same rhythm that still lingered through my movement. I swept the rapier outward in a bright, deliberate arc, voice carrying with it.
“Brann, left side! Renee, keep Rocky moving. Adrian, two behind the barrier!”
The effect was subtle but immediate. Brann shifted before the next bolt came, his shield already angling to protect Renee, while Adrian turned his head only enough to register my warning and repositioned before the pair behind the barrier could flank him. The boost did not make anyone stronger than they were. It sharpened timing, reinforced confidence, and made the party feel for a few precious seconds like we were moving from the same count.
The man I had disarmed finally dropped to his knees. “Smart,” I told him. Varrick answered by drawing his saber, shouting something toward the roadhouse, and charging directly toward me.
I brought Skydancer around while my pulse spiked, but before he reached us a surge of water rose over the edge of the bridge. Not much, just enough for Talia’s Water Lash to strike Varrick across the side of the legs with a crack sharp enough to stagger him sideways. He caught himself against the barrier, swore, and looked uphill
Talia had moved. I only caught a glimpse of her because Flowstep Shot carried her across the slope with the strange liquid smoothness of someone whose body and magic understood terrain as one problem. She loosed before fully settling, the arrow striking the road beside the roadhouse doorway and forcing the man there back into cover. Elia fired from farther left, giving them another angle and another source of pressure. The people at the bridge had expected travelers. They had not expected the hillside to start shooting back.
For several seconds, the fight tilted in our favor. Then the roadhouse window exploded outward, and a heavier bolt tore through the shutters before striking Goliath’s tack hard enough to make the warhorse rear.
Adrian cursed and hauled the reins, keeping his seat while Goliath came down snorting and furious. The bolt had not hit flesh, but it had passed close enough to tear leather along the saddle rigging.
“That was not a hand crossbow,” Brann shouted.
“No,” Adrian said.
I looked toward the upper window and saw movement behind the broken shutters. Something large occupied the darkness there, too wide to be carried normally, and my stomach dropped as the shape resolved.
“Mounted weapon.”
Adrian’s expression hardened. Another man rushed him while his attention was on the window. Adrian caught the attack late, twisted, and drove forward with Shielded Advance, the protective technique expressing through armored shoulder, weapon haft, and relentless positioning rather than any literal shield in his hands. He forced the attacker backward and away from me.
The upper window shifted again. “Adrian!”
He turned as the crossbow snapped. The bolt came lower and faster than the first. Adrian moved toward me instead of away, his body crossing the line of fire before I could understand what he was doing.
It struck high into his shoulder near the edge of his armor. The small sound he made scared me more than a shout would have. He stayed upright for a second as though the impact had not happened. Then his polearm dipped, Goliath sidestepped beneath him, and dark blood began spreading around the shaft.
“Adrian.”
“I’m fine.”
“You are not fine!”
“I can still move.”
That was not the standard I wanted. Varrick saw the wound, and so did everyone else. The man smiled. I hated him for that more than anything he had done so far. He came forward again, saber lifted, with another two behind him as though Adrian bleeding had transformed the fight into opportunity. Something hot and ancient stirred beneath my ribs, but I did not let it decide the shape of what happened next. I did.
“Soulflame Spark.”
The fire that answered was precise. A narrow flare of opalescent heat snapped from my hand and struck the road directly in front of Varrick’s boots. Stone blackened, air warped, and he stopped hard enough that the men behind him nearly collided with his back.
I pointed at him. “Take another step.”
He looked at the scorched stone, then at me, and the amusement vanished from his face. Good. Behind him, one of the roadhouse men shouted, “Reloading!”
My attention snapped upward. The mounted weapon’s heavy mechanism was already being cranked again, and Adrian had heard it too. He leaned forward over Goliath’s neck, face pale beneath the strain.
“You need to move.”
“So do you.”
“I mean now.”
The warning in his voice reached me half a second before the upper window opened fully. The weapon behind it was an arbalest mounted to a swivel frame, larger than anything one person should reasonably have been allowed to aim at another human being. The new bolt seated across it looked thick enough to punch through a door.
It was pointed at me. I pulled Skydancer’s reins, but I was too slow. Adrian left Goliath. One moment he was in the saddle. The next, he hit me from the side, his good shoulder catching beneath mine as his weight tore me off Skydancer and carried both of us toward the road. The world became sky, pale stone, Adrian’s armor, and the violent impact of his body taking most of the fall beneath me.
The arbalest fired overhead with a sound like something ripping the air open, and the bolt struck the parapet exactly where my chest had been. Stone exploded. Fragments sprayed across the road. Skydancer screamed and bolted several strides before catching herself.
For a moment, I could not breathe. Adrian’s arm was around me. His wounded shoulder was beneath my hand, and there was blood everywhere.
“Adrian.”
“I’m here.”
“You fucking idiot.”
His mouth moved in something dangerously close to a smile despite the pain carved into his face. “You’re welcome.”
I nearly hit him. Instead I shoved myself upright and looked toward the roadhouse, where the arbalest crew were already trying to reset the mechanism.
Talia saw them first. A line of water ripped upward from the river toward the open window while her arrow followed through it.
FARSHOT FOCUS
The shot crossed a distance I would not have trusted myself to judge and vanished through the upper opening. Someone screamed, the mechanism jerked sideways, and then the river water slammed through the window after it, soaking wood, crew, and whatever winding assembly sat behind the stone.
Elia fired a heartbeat later. Her bolt struck the exposed crank assembly and snapped something important enough that the frame sagged.
“Mounted weapon disabled!” Talia shouted from the slope.
The disabled weapon barely registered because Adrian was already trying to stand. I put one hand against his chest. “No.”
“Radiance.”
“You have a crossbow bolt in your shoulder.”
“I noticed.”
“Then sit down.”
“There are still hostiles.”
“There are also four other armed people on our side, plus me, plus a horse who has already proven she is willing to commit aggravated assault.”
As if summoned by insult, Skydancer came trotting back toward us with her ears pinned and murder in her posture. I loved her desperately.
Brann had pushed Renee and Rocky farther down the road, then turned back once they had enough distance. He now held the choke point between the cart and two men trying to advance from the bridge, his shield absorbing one strike while the short spear punched forward from behind it with brutally efficient economy. Renee had Raven beside the cart and the riding crop back in her hand, but Personal Defense Mastery One had apparently not convinced her to seek out danger. It had made her position herself better when danger approached. Good. Varrick was still standing, which was substantially less good. He looked at Adrian on the road, then at me kneeling beside him, and saw a small princess beside an injured protector. He mistook that for an opportunity and charged.
I stood. This time I did not bother pretending the rapier was the most dangerous thing in my hand.
“Beguiling Refrain,” I breathed again, but the cadence shifted darker, drawing his attention tighter toward me while stripping away the ease with which he might read everything happening around him.
His eyes locked onto mine. “Come on, then.” He did. The saber came down hard. I stepped inside it with Dancer’s Guard, turning enough that the blade slid past my shoulder instead of through it. My body moved with the same impossible confidence that had carried me through dance long before I understood how much of that competence had become mine.
His free hand caught my wrist. Pain shot up my arm, and for one awful second I was exactly where he wanted me. Then Adrian was there. I had not seen him rise. His good hand clamped around Varrick’s forearm and tore him away from me with enough force to break the grip.
“Do not touch her.” The words were quiet.
Varrick swung toward him, and Adrian’s wounded arm failed when he tried to bring the polearm up. That was all I needed to see. Soulflame answered before fear could become panic. I drove my palm against Varrick’s chest.
“Spark.”
The fire hit at contact range. Not enough to burn through him, but enough to burst opalescent flame across the front of his reinforced coat and send him screaming backward. The leather darkened, then one edge caught. Talia’s next Water Lash put the flames out and knocked him flat at the same time.
I looked uphill. “Thank you.”
“You looked busy!”
Varrick rolled onto his side coughing, but I had already turned back toward Adrian. He was swaying now, and that scared me more than the arbalest had.
“Sit.”
“I can still—”
“Adrian.”
Something in my voice finally reached him. He lowered himself against the parapet, jaw clenched hard enough that the muscles jumped along the side of his face.
Around us, the remaining fight began collapsing. One man dropped his weapon when Brann drove him backward toward the bridge edge. Another surrendered after Elia’s bolt struck the road between his feet for the second time. Talia descended from the slope in a blur of controlled movement, bow already redrawn, while a thin current of river water followed her around the edge of the bridge like a living tool waiting for direction.
“Weapons down!” she shouted. “Now!”
A man near the barrier looked at Varrick on the ground, Adrian bleeding against the parapet, me standing over both of them with Soulflame still glowing faintly around my fingers, and apparently concluded that whatever he was being paid had ceased to justify the afternoon. His sword hit the road, and the others followed in quick succession.
Brann did not relax. Neither did Elia, and Talia kept her bow drawn while I forced myself to think past the blood on Adrian’s shoulder.
“Renee!”
“I’m coming!”
She abandoned the cart only after Brann gave her a sharp nod and ran toward us with her medical pouch in hand. Her eyes went immediately to Adrian and widened when she saw the bolt.
“Do not pull it out.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Good.”
She dropped beside him, hands hovering for a fraction of a second before Field Medicine gave her enough structure to begin. She checked the wound, then his hand.
“Can you move your fingers?”
Adrian flexed them. “Yes.”
“Any numbness?”
“No.”
“Difficulty breathing?”
“No.”
She looked at me. “The bolt did not pass through. That is good. We still need a healer to remove it properly.”
“Stable?” I asked.
“As far as I can tell.” I opened the Party interface so fast the display nearly blurred.
Adrian Valenne
Condition: Wounded
Injury: Penetrating shoulder trauma
Stability: Stable
Immediate Threat: Low
Functional Impairment: Moderate
Blood Loss: Controlled / Ongoing
My lungs finally worked again. He was stable. Stable did not mean fine, and it did not erase the bolt still buried in his shoulder, but it meant he was not currently dying.
I looked at him. “You are drinking a Greater Recovery Draught.”
His eyebrows rose. “We should save those.”
“You used your body to block an arbalest.”
“It missed me.”
“Because you tackled me off a horse.”
“That worked.”
“Drink the potion.”
He glanced at Renee, who immediately held out her hand. “Potion.”
Traitor. Adrian sighed and reached for the draught. Adrian uncorked the Greater Recovery Draught with his teeth and drank while Renee kept one hand beneath his injured arm to prevent unnecessary movement. The potion worked quickly enough to be visible. Some of the grayness receded from his face, his breathing eased, and the trembling tension through his good hand settled, but the bolt remained embedded in his shoulder and blood still darkened the armor around it.
RECOVERY EFFECT APPLIED
Greater Recovery Draught
Acute blood loss reduced
Pain response moderated
Tissue stabilization increased
Ongoing foreign-object injury remains
Removal by qualified medical personnel recommended
“There,” Adrian said. “Better.”
“You still have a piece of wood and metal sticking out of you.”
“I did not say healed.”
“You were going to imply it.”
“I would never.”
Renee gave him a look remarkably similar to one she used on me whenever I attempted to redefine obvious facts for my own convenience. “Do not move that shoulder unless you have no alternative. The draught is helping your body cope with the injury. It is not permission to pretend the injury has disappeared.”
Adrian looked from her to me. “Are there two of you now?”
“Yes,” I said. “Be afraid.”
Talia reached us while keeping one arrow nocked, her attention moving from Adrian’s shoulder to the surrendered men and back again. “He going to stay upright?”
“He is going to stay seated,” I said.
“I asked Renee.”
“Traitor.”
Renee ignored me and answered Talia. “Stable for now. The bolt needs to be removed somewhere clean, preferably by the healer in the village.”
“Good. Then we do not linger.”
That was sensible, except we had just seized a bridge being used as the center of an organized extortion operation, and leaving without knowing what was inside the Crown building seemed likely to turn half our victory into guesswork. “We need the roadhouse.”
Adrian started to push himself away from the parapet, and I put my hand flat against his chest again before he managed more than an inch. “Not you.”
“Radiance.”
“No.”
“There could still be someone inside.”
“That is why we have Brann, Talia, Elia, and me.”
His expression sharpened at the last part. “You are not clearing a building.”
“I am absolutely helping clear my building.”
“You nearly got shot by an arbalest mounted inside that building.”
“And you currently have a bolt in your shoulder because you intercepted the other one.”
“That is precisely my point.”
“It is mine too.”
Talia stepped between the argument before either of us could improve it through volume. “Neither of you is clearing anything alone. Brann and I take the door. Elia covers the windows. Rae stays behind us and does not enter until we confirm the ground floor. Adrian sits here and experiences the character-building horror of not being useful for five minutes.”
Adrian stared at her, and I smiled despite myself. “I like her.”
“I had noticed.”
Brann had already begun gathering the surrendered men away from dropped weapons, forcing them to kneel against the inside parapet while Elia moved methodically from sword to bow to knife and kicked each weapon out of reach. Varrick required more effort. The front of his coat had been scorched and soaked, his chest rising hard beneath it while he glared up at me with enough hatred to confirm Soulflame Spark had damaged his pride considerably more than Talia’s water had damaged the rest of him.
“Hands behind your back,” Brann ordered.
Varrick spat blood onto the road. Brann waited. Varrick apparently recognized a professional lack of interest in theatrics when he saw one and obeyed. The escaped bandit from that morning had already surrendered and now looked as though he regretted every decision made since waking. His eyes found me once, immediately dropped, and stayed there while Brann bound him with two others.
I forced myself to count. Eight had been visible initially. More had emerged from the roadhouse and around the far side during the fighting. One man had taken Talia’s arrow through the arm, another had been knocked flat by Adrian, Varrick was burned and soaked, and several had bruises or shallow wounds, but nobody appeared dead. That realization arrived with more relief than I expected.
“How many?” I asked.
Brann counted the prisoners before answering. “Twelve here.”
“Twelve?”
“One in the upper room may be wounded. Talia’s arrow went through the window.”
“And whoever was working the arbalest?”
“At least two,” Talia said. “Possibly three.”
That put the group at fourteen or fifteen, exactly within the range the first prisoners had described. I looked toward the building, trying to work out whether anyone might already be slipping away through the trees or along the river.
“Anyone run?”
Elia answered from farther up the road. “One tried the river side. I put a bolt in the dirt beside him and he changed his mind.”
“Good.” A System notice pulsed at the edge of my vision, but I dismissed it without reading more than the header.
COMBAT RESOLVED
The System could congratulate me after Adrian no longer had a projectile embedded in him. Talia approached the roadhouse door with Brann beside her. A thin ribbon of river water crept across the ground ahead of them, curling under the threshold before slipping inside.
I watched it disappear. “What are you doing?”
“Checking whether anyone moves when wet boots become suddenly cold.”
“That is brilliant.”
“It also tells me the floor direction.”
“Less exciting.”
“Engineering usually is.”
The water withdrew after several seconds, and Talia’s attention sharpened toward the left side of the building. “One person moving inside,” she said. “Back left.”
Brann raised his shield while Elia shifted her crossbow to cover the nearest window. Talia looked at me. “Stay outside until I call.”
I disliked the instruction enough to understand why Adrian had objected to mine. “Fine.”
She opened the door, and Brann went through first. A crash followed almost immediately, then a shouted curse and the unmistakable sound of something wooden hitting stone. Talia disappeared behind him, and I drew my rapier while waiting exactly three seconds before deciding that obedience had reasonable limits.
“Clear!” Talia called.
I entered to find that the ground floor had once been an administrative space. A long counter divided the room, faded Crown insignia remained carved into the wall above a set of shelving, and old storage cabinets had been repurposed into places for weapons, food, stolen goods, and enough bottles to explain the smell.
One man lay facedown behind the counter with Brann’s knee between his shoulder blades. “He had a club,” Brann said.
The club was several feet away. “I see that.”
Talia was already checking the back room. “Nobody else down here.”
I looked upward toward the staircase. “Upper floor next.”
Brann gave me a look. “I will stay behind you.”
“That is what everyone says before walking beside me.”
“I am considerably smaller. It would be difficult to walk beside you on those stairs.”
That apparently met whatever threshold he required because he turned and began climbing. The upper floor smelled like wet timber, metal, and blood. The arbalest occupied most of the room facing the bridge, its mounting bolted into an old stone firing position that had clearly existed long before Varrick’s people arrived. Someone had rebuilt the frame around it, replaced parts of the mechanism, and stacked heavy bolts beneath the window.
Two men sat against the far wall with hands raised. One clutched an arrow wound high in his shoulder, while the other had blood running from his scalp where something had struck him during Talia’s water attack. A third lay curled beside the damaged crank assembly, conscious enough to groan when Brann approached.
Talia’s attention went immediately to the weapon. “This was already here.”
“You can tell?”
“The mounting is part of the building.” She ran her fingers over the stone base without touching the damaged mechanism itself. “The frame has been repaired repeatedly, but the emplacement is old.”
I looked through the shattered window toward the road where Adrian remained seated beneath Renee’s supervision. Someone had built this place expecting to defend the bridge, and centuries later criminals had inherited the weapon and pointed it at me.
“Can it be made functional again?”
Talia inspected the broken crank. “Yes. Not quickly without replacement parts.”
“Good. Make it less functional.”
Her smile was immediate. “With pleasure.”
I left her examining the arbalest and checked the rest of the floor with Brann. The second room contained bedrolls, spare clothing, crossbow bolts, food stores, and several locked chests. Nothing about it suggested temporary occupation. They had been living here and operating from this place long enough to make the Crown roadhouse their own.
Downstairs, Elia had begun sorting surrendered weapons into piles while Brann secured the three men from the upper floor. I opened one cabinet and found purses, jewelry, travel papers, two merchant seals, and a child’s small wooden horse. My stomach tightened as I stared at it.
“Stolen property,” I said.
Elia glanced over. “Looks like it.”
The next cabinet contained folded cloth, tools, and several labeled parcels. One had a merchant’s name written across it. Another bore a village mark I recognized from the district map. These people had not merely charged illegal tolls. They had cataloged the things they took.
I crossed to the long counter and found a stack of books beneath it. Most were ordinary supply records, but one ledger was different.
Names. Dates. Descriptions. Amounts. Wagon type. Number of travelers. Paid. Refused. Goods taken.
I turned the pages slowly, and the organization of it made the whole operation uglier. A robbery could be desperate. This was administration.
“Talia.”
She came down from the upper floor wiping wet hands against her trousers. “What?”
I turned the ledger toward her, and her expression changed as she read. “Fuck.”
“Yes.”
Elia stepped closer while keeping enough attention on the prisoners to continue covering them. “That could identify victims.”
“And how long this has been happening.”
“And who else was involved,” Talia added.
I looked through the next pages. Several entries carried marks I did not understand, small symbols in the margins beside particular dates.
“What are these?”
Talia leaned over my shoulder. “Could be route markers.”
Elia shook her head. “Not route. Too repetitive.”
I turned back several pages. The same marks appeared at regular intervals until I found a line written in a different hand.
North patrol delayed one bell. Crossing clear until dusk.
I stopped, and Talia read over my shoulder before either of us said anything. I turned another page.
South watch using river road. Hold western team until second bell.
Another. Inspection moved to third day. M. confirms.
My skin went cold in an entirely different way. “This is how they knew.”
Talia’s jaw tightened. “Looks like it.”
I found another entry and another, scattered throughout months of toll records. Patrol timings. Route changes. Inspection schedules. Someone had been feeding them information, and not rumors from passing travelers. This was specific information.
I looked toward the bridge through the open door and thought of the magistrate showing us two failed patrol reports with obvious frustration. He had not been imagining the problem. His patrols had been compromised before they left.
“Pack every ledger,” I said. “Nothing gets left behind.” Elia nodded and began collecting them into a canvas sack.
Talia looked toward the prisoners. “Ask Varrick who ‘M’ is?”
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to know what he thinks we know.”
Her grin returned, smaller and sharper. I took the ledger with me when we went back outside. Adrian looked up the moment I emerged. Renee had cut part of his sleeve away around the injured shoulder and improvised additional stabilization around the bolt, which somehow made the wound look both more controlled and more horrifying.
I went directly to him. “You stayed sitting.”
“I considered the alternatives.”
“That almost sounds like personal growth.”
“I was supervised.”
Renee held up the riding crop. “That explains it.” I crouched beside him and checked the Party interface again before I could stop myself.
Adrian Valenne
Stability: Stable
Blood Loss: Minimal / Controlled
Recovery Draught: Active
Functional Impairment: Moderate
Still stable. Only then did I show him the ledger.
“Patrol schedules.”
His attention sharpened immediately. He read three of the entries, then looked toward Varrick.
“Specific ones.”
“Yes.”
“Someone local is feeding them information.”
“Or someone between the village and district administration.”
He nodded. “Do not assume the leak is at the post.”
“I wasn’t.”
“I know.”
That quiet confidence did something inconvenient beneath my ribs, and I chose not to examine it while his shoulder remained occupied by a crossbow bolt. Varrick watched us from where he sat bound against the parapet. I closed the ledger and stood.
“Now I want to talk to him.”
Brann moved with me as I crossed the road, which I accepted without argument because I had reached my daily limit for proving I could stand beside dangerous men without supervision. Varrick looked up. “Enjoying my bridge?”
“My bridge.”
His mouth twisted. “That what this is about?”
“No. This is about the people you robbed, the people you threatened, the men you sent to ambush travelers, and the weapon you ordered fired at me twice.”
“I told them to take you alive.”
“That makes the arbalest especially confusing.”
He said nothing, and I held up the ledger. His expression changed only a little, but it was enough.
“You kept excellent records.”
“That isn’t mine.”
“Of course not.”
“It was here.”
“Also excellent. Then you will have no objection to explaining why a ledger that allegedly has nothing to do with you contains advance notice of Crown patrol movements.”
His eyes went flat. I smiled. “That reaction tells me I found the part that matters.”
He looked away. I crouched enough to bring us closer to eye level, careful to remain outside kicking distance. “Who is M?”
No answer. “Who gave you the schedules?”
Still nothing. “Was it someone at the Crown post?”
His jaw tightened. “District office?”
Nothing. “Local watch?”
A flicker crossed his face, tiny enough that I might have missed it if I had not been watching for exactly that. I let the silence sit until he knew I had seen it. That was the problem with people who thought silence made them unreadable. Silence was still behavior. I straightened. “Thank you.”
His head snapped toward me. “I didn’t tell you anything.”
“I know.”
I walked away before he could recover, and Talia fell into step beside me. “Local watch?”
“Maybe. He reacted.”
“Could be deliberate.”
“Yes.”
“You are annoyingly cautious.”
“I have been informed I am learning.”
Adrian smiled from where he sat, and I pointed at him. ““You are injured. Stop helping.””
Renee began repacking her medical pouch. “If we intend to reach the healer before sunset, perhaps everyone could postpone congratulating Her Highness on developing judgment.”
“I dislike the tone of this entire conversation.”
“You can dislike it while mounting your horse.”
I looked toward Skydancer, then Adrian, and caught him following my gaze. “You cannot ride Goliath with that shoulder.”
His expression tightened. “I know.”
“You also cannot walk several miles.”
“I can.”
Renee, Talia, Brann, and I all answered at once. “No.”
Adrian stared at us, and Elia looked almost sympathetic. “You lost that one,” she said.
He exhaled through his nose. “Then what do you suggest?”
The cart had enough room now that most of the stolen property and seized weapons could remain at the bridge under a temporary guard until Crown personnel arrived. Rocky only needed to carry the critical evidence, our luggage, and one deeply irritated prince.
I smiled, and Adrian saw it immediately. “No.”
“You still do not know what I am going to say.”
“You are looking at the cart.”
“You are injured.”
“I am not riding beside your dresses.”
“My dresses have already surrendered space to one injured criminal today. They understand public service now.”
Talia laughed so hard she had to turn away, while Adrian looked toward Renee for support. She pointed at the cart. Five minutes later he was sitting in it, and his dignity did not survive the loading process. I considered that medicinal.
We left two contracted village watchmen to hold the bridge after sending a rider back from the nearest farmstead with a sealed message for the magistrate. The surrendered criminals walked bound behind Brann and Elia, while Varrick was secured separately with enough rope to express our opinion of his reliability.
I rode beside Rocky rather than at the front. This was tactical and had nothing whatsoever to do with checking Adrian every few minutes.
He caught me looking for the fourth time. “I am still stable.”
“I know.”
“You checked.”
“I have access to information. It would be irresponsible not to use it.”
“Of course.”
“You were shot.”
“I remember.”
“You were also almost hit by an arbalest after being shot.”
“I remember that too.”
“And then you stood up again.”
“That part appears to bother you most.”
I looked straight ahead. “Yes.”
He went quiet. For once, he did not tease me, and that was somehow worse. The road back to the village felt shorter than the ride out, though the procession moved slowly enough that it could not possibly have been. Adrenaline receded in uneven waves, leaving every bruise and strained muscle more noticeable, while the System continued politely pulsing several unread notifications at the edge of my vision.
I ignored all of them. The village roofs appeared between the trees as the light began to soften toward evening. The first watchman who saw us stared at the prisoners, then at Adrian sitting bloodied in my luggage cart, before turning and sprinting toward the Crown post.
Adrian watched him go. “That will help the rumors.”
“What rumors?”
“The ones where I am defeated in battle and transported home among your dresses.”
“You are lucky I did not put a hat on you.”
Renee looked back from Raven. “There is still time.” Adrian’s eyes narrowed, and for the first time since the bolt struck him, I laughed without forcing it.