Daren found Orin sitting on his empty grain sack before dawn, wearing boots that belonged to neither of them.“They fit,” the boy said.His heels were lost somewhere inside the leather. Daren set down the waterskin he had just filled and crouched as far as his knee allowed.“You’re staying.”“Because I’m small.”“Because I need you alive.”Orin looked past him toward the wounded men sleeping beside the hearth. Daren heard his own mistake before the boy answered.“Everybody needs that.”The hall smelled of pea water and damp wool. Beyond its shutter, the monastery glimmered above the eastern mountains, too distant to hear and too near to forget. By sunset, Maera’s promise would no longer stand between it and Hearthfast.Daren wanted to cancel the journey. He wanted to put his body in the gate and let hunger argue with him there.Instead, he sat beside his son.“Yes,” he said. “Everybody does.”He explained the grain, the road, and the people who would remain. He did not promise safety.

Asha Renn struck the first thief with a shovel and caught the falling seed jar before it hit the floor.Daren saw it through the open barn doors as Vann’s cart entered Harrowmere. The man staggered backward, clutching his nose. His companion kept hold of a sack marked with blue thread.“Those are planting beans,” Asha said. “Put them down.”“We have an order.”“You have a broken nose if you take another step.”She was shorter than Daren expected, with a long gray braid and soil worked deep into the creases of her hands. One trouser leg was tied below a missing foot. She balanced against the shovel as if it were merely another tool she had learned to use properly.The second man reached for a cudgel.Daren left the cart.He did not rush. His knee would not forgive it, and the narrow doorway favored whoever arrived standing. He caught the door edge and swung it inward between the man and Asha.The cudgel struck oak.“Outside,” Daren said.The man shoved the door. Daren let it move, then

By morning, Asha had six bowls of earth arranged outside the threshing shed and no patience for guesses.She took soil from above the millrace, below the drain, beneath the oldest field wall, and from a garden untouched by the flood. Into each bowl she put the same number of seeds. Then she added measured water from two separate jars.Daren watched the care with which she worked.“How long?”“For an ordinary answer, days. For a useful warning, perhaps less.”She placed both palms beside the bowls. A faint green light moved under her skin, showing the paths of cultivated breath through her fingers. It did not leap into the seeds. It settled around them, warm and steady.“A little borrowed spring,” she said. “Enough to ask. Not enough to feed a village.”The effort tightened her mouth. Daren recognized the restraint of someone refusing to spend more strength than she could replace.Hessa arrived carrying bread and the previous season’s records. She gave each traveler a slice against fut

Caster Vey carried no sword. He let his guards explain why he did not need one.They spread across the yard while he examined the iron band around the upper stone. One put a hand on the water gate. Asha knocked it away with her shovel.“Ask before you stop a turning load.”The guard looked to Caster, who inclined his head as though granting a courtesy he had invented.Hessa brought the loan bark from her kitchen. Selka stood beside her, hands visible. Daren stayed near the frame, where he could watch the workers and the door together.“The stone was damaged before we touched it,” Hessa said. “Your share is being weighed.”“My share includes recovery of losses.”“Not every sack in Harrowmere.”Caster opened his leather case and produced a second document bearing a red court mark.“Emergency custody. The Summit requires secure grain movement while the high roads are under strain.”Daren looked at Selka.She asked to read it. Caster studied her face, and recognition sharpened his polite

Vann spread his hands over the cart’s empty bed.“Four days by the lower road. Your people cannot eat a good deed.”Daren stood beside him with a swollen knee and no answer that changed the distance. It was the ninth morning since the flight to Hearthfast. Iven expected him by the ninth evening. The borrowed mule was due back then too.Harrowmere’s western crossing would take days to rebuild. Trying to drag a loaded cart around the broken sluice would only give the river another meal.Halvek’s rope lay beside Daren, shortened where the farmer had cut it. His spear rested in Vann’s hands. Every decision now carried something already spent.Jun arrived from the kitchen with a rough map scratched onto a board.“Oren knows a charcoal path.”Vann shook his head before seeing it. “No cart.”“No cart,” she agreed. “Mules can pass. If the lower ford stays shallow, two days to Rillmarket.”Daren looked at Selka, seated against the wall with her arm in a sling.“Can you ride?”“Better than I ca