The walk back from the glade was a march through a dying world. Every rustle of leaves, every patch of unusually dark moss, now seemed suspect to Arrion. The Verdant King's thorn pulsed warmly against his chest where he'd secured it inside his armor, a bizarre counterpoint to the cold dread coiling in his gut. He had traded one impossible task for another: from convincing a forest god to spare his home, to now having to actually fulfill his wild boast.
He pushed open the longhouse door, the familiar smells of hearth-smoke, herbs, and stew washing over him—a sanctuary he was about to voluntarily abandon. The scene inside, however, was not the quiet family council he expected.
Borryn and Orryn were at the large table, their faces tense. Between them, standing with the rigid, alert posture of a soldier even when at rest, was a man in the azure and silver of the Oakhaven garrison. It was **Sergeant Evander**, the junior officer who had been left in charge of the token force before the full withdrawal. He was a lean man in his forties, with a neatly trimmed beard and eyes the colour of flint that missed little. Arrion had seen him during the fortification, a competent, no-nonsense soldier who had seemed more weary of frontier nonsense than actively suspicious.
All three men looked up as Arrion entered. Borryn's relief was palpable, but tightly controlled. Orryn's gaze was questioning, sharp. Sergeant Evander's was appraising, lingering on the new, living thorn now visible at Arrion's collar where his cloak had fallen open.
"Arrion," Borryn said, his voice a careful neutral. "Sergeant Evander has come on… personal business. From Father Alden."
Evander gave a short, precise nod. "Haelend. Father Alden tells me you're a man who needs to travel east. Quickly, and with as few questions as possible."
Arrion's blood ran cold for a split second. Had the priest betrayed him? Had the Church's bureaucracy moved faster than Alden predicted? He shot a glance at Borryn, who gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head—*not a threat.*
"The Father spoke of a need," Arrion said cautiously, not moving from the doorway. "He did not say to whom."
Evander's lips thinned in what might have been a smile. "He didn't need to. He and I have an understanding. Several winters back, my daughter took a fever. The garrison surgeon wrote her off. Father Alden sat with her for three days and nights, using his blessings and every herb in his garden. He pulled her back from the threshold. I owe him a debt that can't be repaid with coin or duty rosters."
He leaned forward, his voice dropping, though they were alone. "He came to me this morning. Said a good man, a protector of this village, had to go on a journey of great importance. That imperial roads and waystations would be… problematic. That you'd need passage that doesn't ask for writs of travel, and coin that doesn't come from a taxable purse." His flinty eyes met Arrion's. "He asked me to help. As a personal favour. To him."
The relief that washed through Arrion was immediately followed by a wave of sheer, staggering luck. This was the crack in the monolithic imperial façade, the personal loyalty that overrode procedure. A gift from Lyria's kindness, channeled through her green-eyed priest.
"The Father's trust is not misplaced," Arrion said, finally stepping fully into the room and closing the door. "The journey is urgent. And the reasons… would compromise your duty to report them, Sergeant."
Evander snorted. "Son, I've served on this border for fifteen years. I know there are more secrets in the Weald and the Marches than there are trees. My duty is to Oakhaven and its people. Hearthstone is under Oakhaven's remit. If Father Alden says your going helps protect it, that's all the justification my conscience needs. The Empire's paperwork can go hang."
He reached into a pouch at his belt and placed two items on the table. First, a small but heavy leather purse that clinked with the solid sound of silver Shields. "This is my daughter's dowry, minus what she's already spent on a foolish boy. Consider it an investment in the village's future. Use it for supplies, bribes, whatever you need."
Second, he placed a stamped lead token, like a large, crude coin. It bore the silhouette of a bridge—the imperial emblem, but crudely made. "This is a **'Mudlark's Pass.'** Not official. But the quartermasters who run the supply barges up the Sorrowflow and the eastern tributaries know it. It means the bearer is 'on imperial business, details obscured.' It gets you a bunk on a barge, no questions, and passage past the river checkpoints into the eastern territories. It won't get you into a Marquis's holdfast, but it'll get you to the doorstep of the Drakespine foothills."
Arrion stared at the objects. They were not just aid; they were a miracle of timing and connection. The coin solved the immediate problem of funding a potentially long journey. The pass solved the infinitely more difficult problem of moving a giant of a man with a legendary sword across imperial territory without attracting the attention of Ralke's spies or officious local bailiffs.
"I cannot repay this," Arrion said, his voice thick.
"You can," Evander said, standing straight again. "By going, doing what you need to do, and coming back. This village… it's got a good heart. It'd be a shame to see it added to the list of frontier tragedies I've filed reports on." He picked up his helmet. "I was never here. The coin was lost at cards. The pass fell off a supply wagon. Understood?"
"Understood," Borryn and Orryn said in unison. Arrion simply nodded, a soldier's acknowledgment.
With a final, sharp nod, Sergeant Evander left, the door closing with a soft thud behind him, leaving the three men in a charged silence.
Orryn was the first to speak, picking up the Mudlark's Pass and turning it over. "This is worth more than the coin. It's a thread through the labyrinth." He looked at Arrion. "So the King agreed to your madness?"
"He agreed to hold the line," Arrion said, pulling the thorn from his collar and placing it on the table beside the pass and purse. It pulsed softly, a tiny, defiant heartbeat. "While I cut the head off the snake. This is his… insurance."
Borryn reached out a calloused finger, but didn't touch the thorn. "Gods above and below, boy. You're really going to do it. You're going to walk into Ralke's den."
"Not his den," Arrion corrected, his mind already racing down eastern roads, mapping the journey. "The mountain's heart. The source of the blight. The thing he serves." He looked at his uncle and cousin, the only family he had left. "I need to move faster than news can travel. I'll take Briar, but only to the first barge point on the Sorrowflow. From there, I become a Mudlark. A silent, funded, passenger moving east."
The planning began in earnest then, swift and pragmatic. Orryn would use the militia to quietly gather the toughest travel rations, spare bowstrings, and arrows. Borryn would use his tavern network to spread a cover story: Arrion had taken a long-range hunting contract for a noble estate in the south, a tale boring enough to be believed and distant enough to explain his absence.
As they worked, Arrion felt the weight of the thorn, the pass, and the coins. They were not just tools; they were a chain of trust. Father Alden's trust in him and in Evander. Evander's trust in Alden and, by extension, in him. The Verdant King's grim, conditional trust. All converging on his shoulders as he prepared to step from the green, dying world of the Weald into the stone and shadow of the poisoned mountains. The imperial guard had, in the most unofficial way possible, just handed him the key to the first lock on his path to hell.