"You're not going to the celebration?"

Roland wiped his brow.

"If you're not going... then I'm not either."

Sean shook his head and picked up the other wooden sword.

"Huh? Don't be like that. I'm not a child. I don't need a minder..."

"No way!"

Sean cut him off flat.

"I promised I'd protect you! What if that bastard Marco comes around while I'm gone?"

"Heh..."

Roland had to laugh at his friend's torn expression.

"What about your Emily, then? Not going to ask her to dance?"

"I'm not dancing..."

Sean swung the wooden sword without conviction.

"However pretty a girl is, she can't compare to a brother. Besides..."

His voice shrank with every word.

"Even if I went, she might not pick me as a partner anyway..."

Roland burst out laughing.

Honest, wounded Sean was simply too much.

"Damn it! Don't laugh!"

Sean's face went scarlet.

"Sometimes I wonder if you're really my age... You'd rather grind boring sword drills than go to the celebration? Unbelievable..."

"Boring?"

Roland spun the blade in a flourish.

"I find it rather fun."

They drilled and bantered, and noon crept up on them.

Only then did Peyton emerge from the house, mid-yawn.

"Hm?"

He knuckled his bleary eyes and looked again at the boy in the courtyard.

"Am I seeing things? How did the kid's sword work get this smooth overnight... Don't tell me he's an actual talent for this?"

"Uncle Peyton!"

Sean waved in warm greeting, yesterday's extortion apparently forgotten.

Roland stopped as well and gave a small bow.

"Yo."

Shelving his doubts, Peyton pulled a wineskin from his belt, worked the stopper loose, and drawled, "What's this, Sean? Not out chasing the fun? That's not like you."

"I... After the celebration I'm reporting to the recruitment post near the Black Fir Forest, so I need to get my sword work up fast."

"If Lord Beckham takes notice of me, I might make Knight Attendant—fight beside a real transcendent professional!"

Longing shone all over his face.

Roland sighed quietly.

By his reckoning, marching into the Black Fir Forest right now was anything but wise.

Knights with transcendent power or not, that shadow-drowned forest was too dangerous.

But he'd already tried talking Sean out of it—more than once, complete with an itemized accounting of the forest's dangers—and Sean had laughed it off every time.

Eventually Roland stopped pushing.

He knew this friend too well.

Under the honest, simple surface sat a heart more stubborn than anyone's.

Becoming a Knight Attendant, fighting beside knights—that had been Sean's dream since childhood.

Brothers or not, some decisions couldn't be talked away.

Everyone had his own road to walk.

All Roland could do was wish him well.

May that iron sword and heart guard bring him home safe...

Peyton and Sean's father saw the matter differently than Roland did.

In Peyton's words: those weak green-skinned bastards in the Black Fir Forest had only gotten anywhere because the villages were caught unready, and because they came in swarms.

With a knight personally leading soldiers against them, the green-skins didn't stand a chance.

So let Sean go widen his horizons. Better than rotting at home.

Peyton snorted at his knight-worshiping nephew and found himself a shady seat.

He tipped his head back for a swallow of wine and spoke at his own leisurely pace.

"Kid, you really love knights that much?"

"Of course!"

Sean set his wooden sword down and nodded hard.

"Great power, noble virtue—they punish evil, protect the good, keep the peace..."

Warming to the bards' stories, he launched into a full catalogue of knightly virtue.

"Ha! Noble virtue, I couldn't say. But great power? There are plenty in this world stronger than knights..."

Roland had been absorbed in his forms; at that, his hand stilled and his ears pricked.

"That's impossible!"

Sean couldn't bear to hear his knights profaned, and his face flamed.

"Impossible, is it? I used to... never mind... Why am I telling a green brat any of this..."

Some sour memory seemed to surface; Peyton's face closed over.

He sat silent a moment, laughed once, without humor, then rose and left.

Watching him go, Roland wondered.

Could there be other transcendent professionals in this world, besides knights?

No answer came. Peyton didn't return until nightfall.

...

...

Perhaps the day's festivities had wrung the village dry. Even the tavern, usually loud past dark, held only its owner, Lauren, dozing behind the counter.

Creak.

The wooden door startled him awake.

He rubbed his eyes and looked up.

A figure stood in the doorway in a hooded cloak, face wound with hemp cloth until nothing of it showed.

Lauren had long since stopped remarking on such things.

The Black Fir Forest wasn't far, and mercenaries passed through constantly.

Men who lived licking blood off blades were a strange breed. Next to customers covered in tattoos or wearing iron masks, one who merely hid his face rated as normal.

"Good evening, sir."

Lauren yawned.

"What'll it be?"

Feeling the innkeeper's eyes on him, Marco touched the hemp wrapping, checked for gaps, and pitched his voice deliberately low.

"Looking for someone."

He raised an arm toward the tavern's darkest corner.

A rickety table stood there, and at it a tall, gaunt figure sat alone, nursing an ale.

Dim candlelight jittered across the man's sunken cheeks and made him look half a ghost.

"Then help yourself."

Lauren settled back against the counter and returned to his doze.

Boot heels knocked dully over the floorboards. Marco stopped at the corner table and looked the man over.

Tattered leather armor. Dead eyes. Defeat hanging off him like a smell.

"This is supposed to be an experienced mercenary?"

Marco's brow creased with doubt.

Then again, most of the village's mercenaries had gone off to the Black Fir Forest to hunt monsters. Finding even one willing to take a job was already luck.

He sighed, knuckles rapping the tabletop of their own accord.

The crisp sound jerked the man's lowered head up, revealing a worn face.

"Good evening, sir. I hear you need some help? Right—the name's Sam..."

"I'm not interested in your name."

Marco flicked the introduction aside, drew a cloth pouch from his coat, and slapped it down on the table.

Sam only shrugged at the rudeness and reached over to untie it.

Inside: two silver coins, and a portrait with writing beneath it.

"When the job's done, you get one more silver."

At that price, Sam's eyes came alive. He studied the portrait and the words beside it.

"Roland..."

He murmured the name, then looked up.

"What do you want done?"

"I want him never able to lift a hammer again as long as he lives!"

Marco lunged forward over the table, candle flame dancing in his eyes.

The memory of Master Hawk's approving look at Roland sat in his chest like a stone.

To become Hawk's apprentice he had spent countless nights at the forge, calluses stacking layer on layer across his palms.

Win the examination two months from now, become Master Hawk's official apprentice, and his whole life changed.

He'd inherit his father's shop—and gain the chance to serve nobles.

With a little more luck, he might even climb into Knight Beckham's circle.

He would not allow—could not allow—anyone to wreck that perfect plan.

Marco ground the words out through his teeth.

"Cripple his right hand for me!"