The next morning, the convoy was already assembled by the time Rivelius stepped out into the courtyard.
Four horses harnessed to the carriage, two more stationed ahead of it, Reyna standing beside Ashen at the front of the formation, the two lizard-mounts positioned at the rear this time rather than flanking.
"Is this enough?" Reyna asked, as he came to stand beside her. "Numbers-wise. For safety."
He nodded, unbothered. He didn’t explain the reasoning; that after the sparring match, after feeling exactly how far Reyna’s own strength outstripped anything a county’s worth of common bandits or highwaymen was likely to field, he was fairly confident a modest, well-armed convoy would be more than sufficient in a county that’s well outside the capital’s more dangerous circles. He kept that to himself.
His gaze moved from her to Ashen, standing calm and enormous at her side.
"You’re bonded with it now."
"I am, my lord." She rested a hand briefly against the tigermaw’s flank. "Since two days after you handed it to me."
He filed that away, the same as everything else.
That was when Cordelia arrived, wheeled up beside Mireille, who peeled off toward the house the moment they reached the courtyard’s edge.
"Did you wait long?"
"No," he said.
He crossed to her without further comment, bent, and lifted her into his arms the same way he had every time before, carrying her the short distance to the carriage. She was smiling before he’d even set her down inside.
At the edge of his vision, the marker flickered.
[Warden: Active.]
[Wife mood: Happy.]
He frowned, faintly. No EXP had come with it.
"What’s wrong?" Cordelia asked, catching the look.
"Nothing." He straightened, and turned toward the waiting convoy.
His eyes moved briefly over the estate behind them; the handful of guards remaining to hold Ashfall Hold in their absence, little as the rest of the household’s numbers had always been. Then, past them, to the House Kane banner mounted above the carriage door.
A pause.
"Reyna."
"My lord?"
"Remove the banners."
She hesitated, just a beat, before inclining her head. "Yes, my lord."
She gave a nod to two of the guards still stationed at the gate, and they moved quickly, unfastening the House Kane crest from the carriage’s side and folding it away without a word.
Reyna glanced back at him once more, and he nodded.
"Move out," she called.
The carriage lurched into motion. Reyna fell into position at its side atop Ashen, close and steady, the way any competent guard captain rode beside the lord he or she was sworn to protect.
The road wound through open farmland and patches of dense treeline for the better part of two hours, and Rivelius spent most of it doing what he always did in unfamiliar terrain; marking it. A treeline, close enough to the road and thick enough for cover, was a decent ambush point. A narrow stretch where the path dipped between two low ridges, worse. Old habits, apparently, didn’t need an active war to stay sharp.
By the time they reached the county town, the road had widened into proper cobblestone, and the convoy slowed to accommodate the traffic filling its streets.
People stared. Not glanced, stared. Open and unguarded, the kind of attention a lacquered carriage flanked by armed riders and a woman mounted on a horned, tiger-boned beast was always going to draw in a place that saw more grain carts than nobility.
Rivelius watched the town pass by the window, cataloguing it out of habit: the market stalls, the modest guard presence at the gates, the layout of the streets. He’d conquered places like this before, dozens of them, towns too small to matter individually but useful all the same, absorbed into something larger the moment their walls stopped mattering.
His eyes caught on a farmer leading a Mudhorn dragging a loaded cart through the crowd, a scattering of smaller pack beasts trailing behind—
"Look."
Cordelia had thrown open the curtain on her side, leaning as far toward the window as the carriage allowed, pointing at a stall stacked high with dyed cloth, bolts of it in colors bright enough to catch anyone’s eye from across the street.
She looked genuinely delighted.
"You’re this excited over fabric?" he asked.
She nodded, still smiling, still watching it as they passed. "After the injury, I didn’t go out much. I was mostly kept inside the palace." She said it lightly, no weight behind it at all, already turning her attention to the next stall coming into view. "It’s been a while since I’ve seen a proper market."
[New Task: Buy your wife an outfit.]
Rivelius went very still.
[Reward: 200 EXP. +200 Vitality. +100 Agility. +50 Intelligence.]
I do not NEED Intelligence, I already have more than enough of it, he thought, flat. I need Strength.
[I don’t make the rules.]
You most certainly do—
He exhaled, and rapped a knuckle once against the carriage frame. "Stop here."
The carriage slowed. Cordelia looked at him, curious.
"Let’s buy you a few outfits," he said, "before we continue."
She paused, something crossing her face she clearly tried and failed to fully hide; a flush at her cheeks, a smile she couldn’t quite flatten. "That’s— we can do that another time. We’re here for an entirely different reason."
He paused, but the marker was still flickering patiently, at the edge of his vision.
[Warden: Active.]
"I insist," he said.
Cordelia nodded, smiling down at her own hands now rather than at him.
[Wife mood: Ecstatic.]
The convoy came to a proper stop, guards dismounting in practiced unison. Reyna swung down from Ashen and had the wheelchair positioned at the carriage door before Rivelius had even finished stepping out, ready the moment he lifted Cordelia down and set her into it.
"Keep watch," Reyna told the guards, before falling into step beside Rivelius and Cordelia.
Rivelius took the handles himself, and the three of them made their way toward the nearest clothing stall, leaving the rest of the convoy behind to hold the street.
The stares followed them the whole way. Cordelia especially, more than him. Eyes kept landing on the wheelchair, lingering a beat too long before catching themselves and looking elsewhere.
Rivelius glanced down at her as he rolled the chair forward, watching for any sign it bothered her. There wasn’t one. If anything, she looked pleased, chin up, taking in the market stalls and the noise and the crowd like she’d missed all of it more than she’d ever admit outright.
[She’s happy. Because of you. In case you’re wondering.]
He ignored it, as always.
A merchant peeled away from his stall before they’d gone another ten feet, all smiles, already gesturing toward a rack of dyed fabric. "My lord! I’ve got finer outfits than anything you’ll find elsewhere in the county. Perfect for the lady, if I may say—"
Another was closing in from the opposite direction before the first had even finished, already talking over him.
Rivelius considered, briefly, the most efficient way to make both of them stop existing in his immediate vicinity. Or existing at all.
Beside him, Reyna’s hand shifted, resting more deliberately against the hilt at her hip; not drawing, not even close to it, just enough movement to make the intent unmistakable.
Both merchants found somewhere else to be almost instantly.
Rivelius glanced at her, and gave a small, approving nod.
He turned his attention to the stalls themselves, and found, for what might have been the first time in longer than he could remember, that he had absolutely no idea what he was looking at. Fabric. Colors. Racks of clothing that all blurred into some indistinguishable sameness the longer he looked at them. He’d commanded armies through terrain he’d never seen, negotiated with kings in languages he barely spoke, and none of it had prepared him for this.
"They all look the same," he muttered, mostly to himself.
Cordelia heard it anyway, and smiled. She lifted a hand and pointed, without hesitation, toward one stall in particular. "That one."
Something in him eased faintly, at having the decision made for him. He said nothing about it, pushed her the rest of the way to the stall, and set about doing the one thing he’d never once had to do in either of his lives: stand still and be useful while someone else made decisions.
Cordelia moved through the racks with quiet, obvious delight, holding up fabric after fabric, turning colors over in the light. "What do you think of this one? The blue."
"It’s fine," he said.
She gave him a look. "Fine?"
"It’s good."
"That’s not an opinion, that’s a word you’re saying to end the conversation."
He considered the fabric again, properly this time. "It suits you."
[50 EXP received.]
[Marital Instinct — Lv. 3. EXP: 845/1,500 to Lv. 4.]
That, apparently, was the correct answer. She smiled, set it aside for purchase, and moved on to the next.
It went on like that for the better part of an hour; her holding things up, asking, him doing his level best to actually look rather than simply agree. He got better at it, marginally, by the third or fourth attempt. He got worse at it entirely the moment she held up something green, turned to him with genuine curiosity in her face, and asked, "Does this shade suit me?"
Rivelius froze.
"...Yes." A beat. "No?"
Beside him, Reyna made a sound suspiciously like a laugh, quickly smothered into a cleared throat.
Cordelia laughed outright, unbothered, and set the green aside without waiting for him to recover. "I’ll take that as a maybe."
[50 EXP received.]
It kept happening. Small things, none of them requiring effort on his part beyond simply staying present, paying attention, answering when asked. Each one added something, small and steady, the numbers ticking upward the entire time without him once checking to see how high they’d climbed.
By the time the last outfit was paid for and folded into parcels for the guards to carry, the marker at the edge of his vision flickered one final time.
[Marital Instinct — Lv. 3 → Lv. 4 Achieved.]
[EXP: 1650/3,500 to Lv. 5]
[Reward: 200 EXP. +200 Vitality. +100 Agility. +50 Intelligence.]
[Agility (AGI): 892 → 992 ↑]
[Vitality (VIT): 501 → 701 ↑]
[Intelligence (INT): 9,789 → 9,839 ↑]
They were halfway back across the street when a convoy rounded the corner ahead of them; a carriage flanked by mounted riders, and two wolf-like hound-beasts pacing alongside, lean and alert, clearly bred for hunting rather than hauling.
The street quieted around them. Conversations dropped, stalls stilled.
The carriage stopped directly in front of them. A man stepped down. Well-dressed, composed, the kind of bearing that came from decades of being deferred to.
His gaze moved first to the far end of the street, to Rivelius’s own convoy, already drawing closer now that his guards had noticed the situation. Then back, slower this time, taking in Rivelius, Cordelia in her wheelchair, Reyna beside them, and the two guards approaching with arms full of parcels.
"You must be new to the county," he said, pleasant enough on the surface, though something beneath it was already calculating. "I am Lord Garran Rolin, Warden of this county. Aldervale County. And I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure."
Rivelius looked at him for a long moment, saying nothing. Then: "Do you need something?"
Rolin’s smile didn’t move, but something beneath it sharpened. "It’s customary," he said, still pleasant, still smiling, "for visitors to introduce themselves to the county’s Warden. Especially ones traveling without banners."
Rivelius looked at him a moment longer, entirely unmoved. "I don’t see why that matters to me."
Cordelia glanced up at him. He looked down at her for a moment, then back at Rolin.
He turned the wheelchair to go around him.
Rolin stepped sideways, directly into his path. "I don’t believe I’ve dismissed you."
The street, already quiet, went utterly still.
Beside Rivelius, Reyna’s hand drifted to the hilt at her hip; the same deliberate, unmistakable shift she’d used on the merchants earlier, except this time Rolin noticed, and smiled wider for it.
"Oh?" he said, delighted.
His own guards moved at once, blades clearing their sheaths in a single ringing motion, the two hound-beasts at his flanks dropping low, hackles rising, ready to strike.
Rivelius’s men arrived a heartbeat later, swords drawn, Ashen already advancing slowly, the two lizard-mounts falling into position on either side.
Rivelius didn’t reach for a weapon. He simply looked at Rolin, flat and unblinking, and let the silence stretch exactly as long as it needed to.