The morning after the royal visit, William woke up to the smell of bacon and the wrong kind of singing.
"Gate Knight of Ashford, standing in the rain—"
Erica's voice drifted right through the door.
"Stabbing all the Germans, with his mighty—"
He opened the door.
"—face," she finished, blinking up at him. "Oh. You're up."
"My face is not a weapon," William said. "If anything, it's a war crime."
She grinned. "Mum says breakfast. Henry says if you're not at the table in five minutes, he'll drag you there by your ankles. He sounded serious. Also smug."
"Of course he did."
He was still sore, but less like "died on a gate" and more like "argued with a wall and lost on points." The stitches pulled when he moved too fast. The coal under his sternum pulsed, warm and quiet, like a secret.
He dressed quickly: a clean shirt, dark doublet, boots that didn't quite hide the stiffness in his step. His hair refused to behave, so he shoved it back and accepted defeat.
The family hall looked almost normal.
Lady Helena sat at the head of the table, a small stack of folded papers by her elbow. Henry to her right, already in an officer's coat with polished pauldrons, hair damp from an early ride. Aunt Cecilia near the other end, shawl perfect, expression hungry for news. Erica halfway down, knife in hand, slicing a piece of ham.
Breakfast was solid: thick bacon, fried mushrooms and onions, toast, soft cheese, a pot of porridge, and a bowl of contraband oranges gleaming like little suns.
William slid into his chair. The wood creaked in familiar protest.
Henry looked him over. "Good. You don't look like you're about to fall over. That'll impress the War Office."
William, halfway to lifting his spoon, froze. "The what now?"
Lady Helena's mouth twitched.
"I was going to let you at least drink your tea first," she said. "But yes. There was a courier before dawn."
She tapped the topmost paper with one finger. Red wax caught the light: the sun-and-sword of the Holy Army, pressed next to the Maximilian crest.
William's stomach did a small, nervous flip.
"A summons?" he asked.
"A request," she said. "From the King and the War Office both. They want your account of Ashford-on-Lea in person. The generals have their reports. Now they want the man at the gate."
Aunt Cecilia inhaled sharply, delighted. "Face to face with His Majesty. Imagine."
Erica leaned forward. "You're going to Albion."
"Apparently," William said.
Henry snorted. "You sound thrilled."
"I'm still processing the part where people with crowns want to ask me questions," William said. "Usually it's Master Harrow, and he just yells."
"Same effect, less jewelry," Henry said.
Lady Helena studied him. "You'll give truth," she said. "Not flattery. Not a ballad. The men who stayed deserve that."
"I know," William said quietly.
Cecilia fanned herself, eyes bright. "They don't summon cadets to Albion for nothing," she said. "There will be… decisions, William. About Ashford. About you. Promotion, perhaps. Stewardship. The court loves a narrative."
"Or they just want to make sure I'm not some kind of fluke or heretic," William muttered.
"Both can be true," Henry said.
Erica tore off another piece of toast.
"Did the princess ask for you to come?" she asked, trying for casual and failing.
William tried not to picture Elizabeth in the solar: hands on the windowsill, eyes sharp, saying I'm glad you're not a story in past tense.
"It was a formal summons," Lady Helena said smoothly. "From the King. Her Highness may have… advised."
"Which means yes," Erica said, very satisfied.
William reached for the porridge mostly to hide his face.
Henry watched him over the rim of his cup.
"So," Henry said. "You get to go stand in front of the King and tell him about Ashford. I get to explain to half the officer corps why my little brother is giving them a lecture."
William blinked. "You're coming?"
"Of course I'm coming," Henry said. "I'm a captain in the Holy Army, I was on the Marches roster, and Father's in Albion already. Someone has to keep you from saying something that makes a general faint."
"And I'll be there as a healer who's deeply invested in those stitches staying closed," came Sister Maren's voice from the doorway.
William hadn't seen her come in. She stole a piece of bacon from Erica's plate and chewed it like a threat.
"You're not bouncing around a carriage alone for three days," she said. "You tear anything open, I want to be there to blame you in person."
"See?" Henry said. "We're all going. It will be wholesome family trauma."
Erica scowled. "I want to go."
"You," Lady Helena said, "are staying right here and continuing to antagonize Harrow. Someone has to keep the yard sharp."
Erica slumped dramatically. "Horrible. I live in a prison."
William couldn't help laughing.
"Try not to burn the keep down while I'm gone," he told her.
"No promises," she said.
Lady Helena slid the summons across the table. It was heavier than it looked.
"Eat," she said. "Then pack. You leave by midday. Henry's already ordered sixty of our best riders."
William raised a brow at his brother.
"Sixty?" he asked. "Expecting another three thousand Germans on the road?"
"After Ashford?" Henry said. "I expect anything. Besides, you attract trouble. I'm just planning ahead."
William could hardly argue.
He finished his breakfast with his mind already halfway down the road to Albion.
Yes, there was the King. The War Office. Whatever they wanted to do with Ashford. But under all of that, a quieter thought:
If she's there…
The coal under his sternum warmed as it had heard him.
The Lockhart carriage waited in the outer yard by midday, rigged for speed rather than comfort. The crest on the door gleamed; the wheels looked like they'd been inspected three times.
Around it, riders formed up. Lockhart colors—white, gold, and blue—snapped from lances. Sixty seasoned cavalry, mail glinting under cloaks, sabers at their hips, lances or spears resting in calloused hands.
Henry walked the line like a commander, checking straps, murmuring to horses, exchanging quick words with captains.
"This isn't a parade," he told one of them. "We got hit once getting back from Ashford. I'm not trusting the roads now that everyone knows his face."
He jerked his chin toward William, who was checking his sword belt with more care than usual.
Lady Helena came down the steps, cloak wrapped tight. Erica shadowed her, already sulking at being left.
Maren was there too, satchel slung over one shoulder, face set.
"We'll keep him in one piece," Henry promised their mother.
"For his sake," she said. "And mine. I am too old to raise another son from scratch."
William hugged her, ignoring the twinge in his ribs.
"I'll come back," he said.
"See that you do," she replied.
Erica tugged on his cloak.
"Bring me something from Albion," she said. "Something cool. Not a pamphlet."
"I'll see what I can steal," he said.
Just as he put a foot on the carriage step, the outer gate horns sounded again.
No alarm this time. Arrival.
Heads turned.
A second column rode in through the open gates—fewer in number, but no less sharp. Black cloaks, mail, and leather underneath, and a banner bearing a red rose on a dark field.
House Roses.
At their head, of course, was Aldric.
He'd chosen a cloak that moved far more than strictly necessary, and his horse looked like it had been groomed by someone with a personal grudge against dust.
"Well, well," he called as they trotted into the yard. "Imagine my surprise, riding out for a pleasant little journey to Albion, only to find the Gate Knight himself about to leave without me."
"Aldric," Henry said. "I should have known."
"Most people do," Aldric replied cheerfully, swinging out of the saddle. He sauntered over, boots crunching on the gravel, and spread his hands. "House Roses sends its earnest desire to witness whatever chaos you cause in the capital. And, more officially, Father wants his own eyes on any Ashford settlement. So. You're welcome."
William blinked. "You're coming as… observer?"
"Yes," Aldric said. "And chronicler. And emotional support. And fashionable distraction. It's a heavy burden, but someone must bear it."
Lady Helena gave him a look that managed to be both exasperated and fond.
"Lord Roses is wise to send you," she said. "Please try not to get my sons killed."
"I make no promises," Aldric said. "But I shall at least ensure they die in ways worth writing about."
William climbed into the carriage before anyone could try to make a speech about fate. Henry followed, ducking his head to avoid the doorframe. Aldric hopped in last, flopping onto the bench like he owned it.
Outside, captains barked orders. Hooves stamped. The driver called out a sharp "Hyah," and the carriage lurched as the line began to move.
Lockhart Keep slid past the window—stone, banners, the familiar silhouette of the training yard. Erica ran along the wall walk until she couldn't keep up. Harrow watched from the gate, arms folded, expression like a particularly unimpressed gargoyle. He lifted two fingers in the barest hint of a salute.
William returned it automatically.
Then the keep fell behind, and the world narrowed to road, sky, and the hollow thunk of wheels on old stone.
They hadn't been traveling an hour before Aldric began to complain.
"This is dreadful," he announced, sprawled sideways on the bench. "We're just sitting. Sitting and bouncing. No assassins, no monsters, no scandalous secrets. I could have stayed home for this."
"I'm writing a report," William said, scratching carefully on the parchment balanced on his knee. "Some of us work."
"Oh yes, report," Aldric said. "Read what you have. I need to judge you."
"Please don't," William said.
"Do it anyway," Henry said, eyes closed, head resting against the carriage wall. "If he doesn't get it out on us now, he'll inflict himself on the generals later."
William sighed and cleared his throat.
"'At approximately third bell past dawn,'" he read, "'the colonel ordered withdrawal from Ashford-on-Lea due to overwhelming enemy numbers and lack of fortification. He assessed the village as untenable.'"
"Accurate," Henry murmured.
"Boring," Aldric said. "Where are the feelings, William? The drama? The righteous rage of a boy who has read too many chivalric romances?"
"They already know the numbers," William said. "They don't know that the men who stayed weren't idiots. They made a choice. I want that on record."
"Then say that," Aldric replied. "Without getting arrested."
William thought for a moment, then added a line.
"'Despite the assessment, ten soldiers and approximately forty villagers elected to remain in hopes of delaying the enemy. This choice was made with full understanding of the risks and against standing orders.'"
Henry cracked one eye open.
"Better," he said. "Makes it clear you're not an idiot who didn't understand the word 'retreat.' Just one who ignored it."
Aldric grinned. "And what about you? 'I, William Lockhart, spectacular fool, decided to live up to every song the bards ever wrote about knights and do the exact wrong thing.'"
William flushed. "Something like that."
"And," Aldric added, eyes glinting, "you might mention that the princess came to see you afterward. Kings like knowing their daughters have good taste."
"I am not putting that in a report to the War Office," William said.
"Coward," Aldric said. "History will be poorer."
The carriage rocked over a rut. Ink blotched. William swore softly and tried to save the paragraph.
Henry watched him for a moment, then spoke, voice quieter.
"You're going," he said, "because the King wants your story. Not because he owes you something. Don't walk in expecting reward. Walk in remembering Ashford, and the men on that wall."
"I know," William said. He did. Mostly. "I just… I don't want them to forget. Or twist it."
"They will," Aldric said cheerfully. "That's their job. Ours is to make it harder."
William huffed a laugh despite himself.
Outside, the rhythm of hooves was steady, reassuring.
Until it wasn't.
The change was subtle at first: a hitch in the cadence, a shouted order cut short, the faint, wrong sound of something slicing through air too close to the carriage.
Then someone yelled, "Shields up!" and the world went sideways.
The carriage lurched hard as horses screamed. William's parchment went flying.
A narrow blade punched through the carriage wall where his head had just been, quivering.
Aldric stared at it. "Ah," he said. "There it is. I was getting bored."
Henry was already on his feet.
All three of them stared at it for half a heartbeat.
"Ghosts," Henry hissed.
Then the world blew open.
The King's road had become a kill box.
They'd rolled into a shallow cut between low hills and winter-thin trees. Now those trees birthed killers.
Figures moved along the slopes and branches—gray-and-black shapes, faces masked, armor close-cut to the body. Wrapped hands. Curved blades. No heraldry, no clank, just the soft thud of feet and the hiss of steel.
Up in a tree to the left, one Ghost's fingers blurred into a rapid sequence—tiger → ram → snake—each seal crisp.
A faint red aura curled around his hand, flaring hotter as he snapped his wrist forward.
"Fire Muti — Ember Darts."
Tiny burning motes spat from his fingers, each one the size of a thumbnail. They hit a front-rank Lockhart rider like red-hot hail. Leather smoked. The man screamed as fire bit through cloak and into skin, knocking him sideways out of the saddle.
Another Ghost on the right slope dropped a paper charm, fingers flicking through ox → hare → bird. Aura coiled around the tag in a tight spiral, bright orange.
"Fire Muti — Blast Tag."
The charm hit a Roses rider's shield and detonated with a sharp, concussive bang. The shield folded inward; man and horse went over backwards in a shower of splinters.
Others didn't bother with tags. They dropped directly into the column, Silver-tier Martial Muti exploding through their limbs—fast, clean, efficient. Curved blades kissed throats and armpit gaps, hands clapped over mouths as men died on their saddles without time to shout.
Henry's voice cut through the chaos.
"Out!"
William went.
He hit the road in a roll, shoulder first, came up in a crouch with his sword half-drawn. Pain flared along his ribs, but his body knew what to do.
Aura up. Tap open.
Gray pressure surged through his frame, wrapping muscle and bone. The world snapped into sharper focus—the twitch of a blade, the shift of weight in a knee.
A Ghost was already on him.
The assassin slid low over the mud, Martial Muti pulsing along his legs. His blade scythed for William's ankle—no wasted movement, all Silver-tier economy.
William stepped into it.
He pivoted on the ball of his foot, letting the cut pass inches clear, and brought his own sword down in a heavy counter aimed at the man's forearm.
Steel met steel. The Ghost rode the bind, twisting, trying to drag William off-line.
Fine.
William let himself spin.
He rolled with the drag, turning the failed cut into a full-body rotation. Mud splashed as his boots slid. At the peak of the spin, he dropped his weight and let the sword whip around low.
The edge carved through the Ghost's leg just above the knee.
Blood fountained. The man screamed, aura flaring wild as his stance vanished. William crashed his shoulder into the assassin's chest to flatten him, then drove his blade straight down through mask and eye.
The body jerked once and went slack.
He ripped the sword free—warmth already slick on his hand—and turned.
A Ghost on the road's bank snapped through snake → monkey → hare, palm carving a sharp arc in front of him. Green-tinted aura spiraled around his forearm, condensing to a thin, screaming edge.
"Wind Muti — Crescent Cut."
The air itself sheared loose, a sickle of compressed wind streaking toward the carriage. It carved a trench through the road as it went, taking half a Roses horse's head on the way. Rider and mount went down in a tangle of blood and armor.
William didn't think. He dropped flat.
The Crescent skimmed over him, tugging at his hair before it slammed into the far embankment and exploded dirt and stone into shrapnel.
"Henry!" he shouted.
"On it!" his brother barked back.
Henry stood in the column's ragged heart, eyes narrowed. His aura was no longer gray. Gold-white radiance bled off him in hard, sharp waves.
"Light Muti — Radiant Chains."
Light roared down his right arm, coiling like a serpent. In the space of a breath, it snapped outward—solid links of pure light, heavy and bright, rattling without sound.
He cracked the chain like a whip.
It changed direction mid-air, snaking around a Ghost perched half-hidden on a branch. The assassin yelped as the glowing links bit into flesh and armor both.
Henry yanked.
The Ghost tore free of the branch like a rag doll, hit the road hard enough that William heard ribs snap, and didn't get back up.
The chain disintegrated into sparks, then reformed as Henry spun, lashing out again.
It hooked a Ghost mid–hand-seal on the right slope—ram → dragon—broken as the chain snapped around his forearms and jerked them together with a crunch. Whatever Muti he'd been priming died in his hands. Henry gave a short, brutal flick; the man went face-first into a rock.
"Form up!" Henry roared. "Shields up! Give me space!"
Lockhart and Rose's riders hauled shields into a rough ring around the carriage, filling gaps with bodies, spears thrusting out.
It wasn't perfect. But it was enough structure to stop the Ghosts from just pouring straight through.
A pair of assassins dropped into the gap nearest William, blades low, moving in tandem.
Their hands flashed through seals as they came—tiger → tiger—a mirrored sequence.
Twin auras flared around their weapons, one red, one pale blue.
"Fire Muti — Ashen Edge."
"Water Muti — Drowning Vein."
The left blade ignited along its edge, a serrated ribbon of fire licking out a hand's length ahead of the steel. The right blade bled water instead—thin, whip-like, trailing in droplets that hung in the air an instant too long.
They crossed simultaneously, a burning and a drowning arc meant to shred anything between them.
William dove toward the fire.
Aura flooded his legs. He launched himself into a low slide, mud soaking his coat. The Ashen Edge passed where his chest had been, licking heat along his shoulder.
As he slid under the swing, he slashed upward.
His sword caught the fire-Ghost's wrist under the guard and bit deep. The burning blade snapped away, flames sputtering as blood sprayed.
The assassin screamed, Martial Muti surging as he tried to kick. William rolled with the movement, came up inside the man's reach, and hacked once at the neck. Head and body separated in a burst of red.
The water-Ghost pressed in, Drowning Vein flicking toward William's face.
William jerked his head aside. A cold line slid across his cheek; the aura-thin water cut like wire, leaving a singing sting behind.
He stepped in anyway.
He crashed his shoulder into the Ghost's chest, taking the hit on his bruised ribs and giving worse back. The assassin stumbled. William stamped down on his foot, heard metatarsals crack, and drove his pommel into the man's mask.
Glass and bone crunched. As the Ghost reeled, the water-whip guttered. William finished it with a short, ugly thrust up under the jaw and into the brain.
"W-William!" Aldric's voice snapped from behind.
He spun.
Two Ghosts were carving through the carriage horses, blades hamstringing and slashing throats. One horse went down screaming, rear legs kicking spasmodically. Another staggered, reins tangled around riders.
Aldric backpedaled from a third assassin, parrying wildly, his foot catching on a body. The Ghost's hand flashed through monkey → hare → bird, aura flaring orange over the off-hand.
"Fire Muti — Flare Palm."
His palm struck the ground where Aldric had just been.
A dome of fire bloomed up, rolling out in a low, concussive wave. William felt the heat lick his boots as he sprinted.
He jumped.
He planted a foot on the collapsing flank of the dying horse, using it as a springboard, and hurled himself through the fading edge of the fire dome. Flame licked his coat, kissed his hair, but aura kept it from burning deep.
He came down on the Flare Palm Ghost.
Sword first.
The blade drove through the collarbone and out the back. The Ghost gagged, fingers scrabbling at metal. William tore the weapon free and spun, letting momentum carry him into another cut aimed at the second horse-killer's spine.
Steel met air.
The Ghost had flipped away, Martial Muti bursting in a tight, controlled shock under his feet. He landed lightly on the carriage shaft, hands already flying through more seals—snake → horse → tiger.
Blue aura surged around his blade, thickening the air around it into rippling distortion.
"Wind Muti — Shear Dance."
He vanished.
No—moved. Too fast. A staccato series of dashes, each accompanied by a whispering slash of wind that carved lines in the mud where William had been a heartbeat before.
William threw himself sideways, felt a Shear skim his ribs and slice his belt clean. He rolled, came up low, and threw his sword.
Martial Muti snapped through his shoulders and wrists as he let it go. The blade spun end over end, a gray-aura streak.
The Ghost's eyes widened behind the mask.
The thrown sword took him in the hip instead of the heart, but it was enough. The Shear Dance stuttered, his step faltered, and his next dash became a stumble.
William was already moving.
He sprinted forward, snatched his own sword out of the Ghost's leg with a wrench that made the assassin scream, and finished him with a horizontal cut that nearly split the torso in half.
Overhead, a Ghost finished ram → ox → dragon and slammed both palms down.
"Earth Muti — Grasping Pit."
The road bucked.
For a beat, the packed earth behaved like water—rippling, folding, then splitting five paces in front of the carriage. A jagged crack yawned open, widening into a pit as the soil flowed aside.
Three Lockhart horses went in before riders could yank reins. Men shouted, armor clanging as they tumbled after.
Henry's aura flared hotter.
"Light Muti — Sunwall."
He threw his hand up. A planar slab of gold-white light exploded out of the ground between the carriage and the new pit, braced like a buttress. The collapsing road slammed into it and stopped, earth shuddering against solid radiance.
Strain spiderwebbed across the Sunwall—dark cracks in the light—but it held.
Henry's teeth were bared.
"Lockhart! Roses! Tighten the ring! You're not dying in a ditch to some third-rate contract squad!"
He let the Sunwall bleed away into sparks, then drew that power back in around his hands.
"Light Muti — Halo Blades."
Twin swords of solid light grew from his fists, edges humming, each motion leaving a faint trail in the air.
He launched himself up the slope at the Earth Muti Ghost.
Martial Muti kicked under his boots; he covered the distance like a loosed arrow. The Ghost yanked up a curtain of mud with a panicked hare → dog → snake—
"Earth Muti — Mud Bastion—"
The Halo Blade cut through the half-formed wall like it wasn't there and didn't slow much when it hit the Ghost behind it. The assassin's torso separated from his hips in a spray of dirt and red.
On the road, William found himself chest-to-chest with another Ghost. There was no time for seals, no time for fancy Muti—just steel and speed and leverage.
Perfect.
They traded in close—short hooks, elbow strikes, forearm blocks. Martial Muti burned under both their skins, lending weight to every hit. William took a knife across the bicep and gave a headbutt in return that cracked the other man's mask.
Grinning through blood, the Ghost spat a tooth at him and tried to twist under his guard.
William let him.
He rode the twist, grabbed the man's wrist in both hands, and cranked. Joints popped. The blade clattered to the mud.
He pivoted with the movement, dropped his weight, and slammed the Ghost face-first into the road with a shoulder throw Harrow had drilled into him a thousand times. The assassin hit hard, air blasting out of his lungs.
William pinned the arm with his knee and punched his sword down between the shoulder blades.
The resistance was brief.
When the last Ghost fell—a Halo Blade to the chest, a spear through the throat, a broken neck in the mud—the road finally remembered how to be quiet.
Noise faded to groans and the rattle of harness. Steam rose from spilled guts. A horse with a slashed flank screamed until someone cut its throat.
Henry stood in the settling silence, shoulders heaving, twin light-swords fraying at the edges.
He let them go.
The blades dissolved into floating sparks that guttered out. His aura dimmed from full blazing gold back toward gray, sweat slick on his brow.
William walked to the nearest intact mask and knelt.
He ripped it off.
Chunk-cut hair, pale eyes already clouding, a thin black tattoo curling around the man's throat in characters William didn't know. Blood bubbled at the Ghost's lips when he coughed.
The assassin's fingers twitched toward a seal shape.
William stomped on his wrist. Bones shattered.
"Don't," William said. "You've done enough."
The Ghost laughed, a wet sound.
"You weren't… on any ledger," he rasped. "Just a note. 'Silver-tier kill. Gate Knight. Bonus if… crown brat included.'"
His gaze rolled toward Henry, then back.
"Ghosts don't stop, little knight," he breathed. "Not while the coin flows. Should've stayed… dead."
William's jaw clenched.
"Who hired you?" he asked.
The Ghost smiled, teeth pink.
"Ask… Albion," he whispered.
Whatever last seal he'd been trying to form died with him. His aura flickered and went out.
William drove his sword through the man's heart anyway, just to be sure.
He stood, chest heaving, and looked down the ruined road—dead assassins, dead horses, their own men bloodied and limping, healers already kneeling with salves and basic Muti.
Henry walked over, rolling his shoulders, Light Muti banked but was not gone.
"You good?" he asked.
"I'm getting tired of people trying to kill me on roads," William said. "But yes."
Aldric limped up, hand pressed to his bleeding thigh, grin shaky.
"On the plus side," he said, "your report just got a lot more interesting. 'Dear Majesty, on the way to tell you about holding a gate against three thousand Germans, assassins from Chun tried to cut my throat in a ditch.'"
William let out a breath that might have been a laugh.
"Maybe he'll promote us out of pity," he said.
"Or," Henry said quietly, eyes on the Ghost corpses, "because someone out there is scared enough of you to hire Silver-tier Ghosts just to erase a name before it becomes a legend."
He raised his voice.
"Lockhart! Roses! Strip anything useful. Burn the bodies. Double scouts. No one rides alone."
Men moved, grateful. Firewood was dragged from the wagons. Someone started piling masks and bodies together.
William cleaned his sword on a dead Ghost's cloak, sheathed it, and glanced down the road—toward Albion's white towers and sun-banners, toward the King, the War Office, and a princess with a dry voice who'd asked for the truth.
"Come on," he muttered. "Let's go tell them what their roads look like."
The column—thinner, angrier—formed up and rolled forward, leaving Ghost smoke curling behind them in the winter air.