Albion didn't appear so much as it started watching them back.
They crested a low rise and the world opened—fields laid out in neat, stubborn lines, stone road humming under the wheels, the air cleaner in a way that felt almost rude after mud and smoke.
And there it was.
White bastions stacked like the kingdom had been built to outlast the sky. Sun-sigil banners hanging from towers that didn't apologize for their height. Stained glass caught the morning and threw thin ribbons of color even from miles out, like the city was already preaching at them.
Aldric leaned toward the window like he'd paid admission.
"Finally," he sighed. "All the beautiful princesses can see their wounded prince."
William didn't look away from the skyline. "Shut up, cousin."
Henry's mouth twitched. "He gets worse the closer we get to court."
"Court does something to me," Aldric said solemnly. "It awakens my suffering. My poetry. My tragic vulnerability."
"You were stabbed in the leg," Henry said.
"A grievous wound," Aldric insisted. "A bard would weep."
William snorted and watched the road ahead fill with life.
Kids in the countryside ran alongside the convoy for a stretch—barefoot in places they shouldn't be barefoot, laughing like war was a rumor. They tried to match the trot until they ran out of lungs and pride, then waved anyway, cheeks red with cold.
Old farmers by fence lines lifted their caps. A woman with flour on her hands raised both arms like she was blessing the banners as they passed.
Henry looked out, shoulders finally easing like someone had loosened a strap.
"Feels good to be back," he said.
William glanced at him. "You mean home?"
"Albion," Henry corrected, without shame. "My force is stationed here. I was home on leave and then the whole William incident happened."
Aldric perked up. "The William Incident. I love that. Very historical. Like a plague."
Henry continued, ignoring him. "So I stayed. Helped. Until you were stitched into one piece again. Now I return you to the capital so the Crown can decide what to do with your... habit of surviving."
William's fingers tightened on the window frame. "I didn't mean—"
"You never mean," Henry said, calm as ever. "You just do."
The stone road carried them from countryside into Albion's orbit like crossing a line in the air.
The closer they got, the more order showed its teeth.
First the Outer Wards—work yards, carts, soldiers' families, smoke that smelled like bread instead of burning roofs. People moving like they had schedules. Apprentices hauling timber. Men in aprons counting tola into their palms and slapping it down for sacks of grain. Someone laughing over a pot of stew like the worst thing in their day was a spilled cup.
William watched the coin change hands and felt Moor Town press against the back of his skull.
Aldric followed his gaze and clicked his tongue. "Look at that. Food. Commerce. Happiness. Albion should be ashamed."
Then the road narrowed into a controlled funnel—Rivergate / Bridge Wards.
Checkpoints stacked like ribs. Watch platforms. Lines painted on stone where wagons stopped. Guards in clean mail and sun-tabards moving through traffic like they'd rehearsed it in a cathedral.
"Eyes forward," Henry said automatically, voice shifting into officer-mode. "No jokes at the gate. Let me talk."
Aldric leaned back, hands up. "I am the picture of restraint."
"You're a picture," William murmured. "That's about it."
The convoy slowed. A captain stepped out, palm raised. His eyes swept banners—Lockhart white-gold-blue, Roses red—then went sharp when he clocked the carriage seal.
Henry pushed the curtain aside and leaned out like he'd been born doing it.
"Captain," he said. "Henry Lockhart. Returning from March leave. Escorting Lord William Lockhart to Crown Quarter by summons."
The captain's gaze flicked—just once—to William in the shadow of the carriage window. Professional. Measured. But there was a pause there, like the name had weight now.
"Lord William," the captain acknowledged carefully.
Henry didn't give him time to drift into ceremony.
"Road ambush," he said. "Ghosts. Chun-trained. We burned bodies. We have masks and tags."
That changed the whole checkpoint in a heartbeat.
The captain's jaw tightened. His hand cut a signal. Two guards moved—not toward them, but around them—forming a tighter escort. A runner peeled off toward the inner wards at a sprint.
"Evidence?" the captain asked.
Henry held up a small cloth bundle from inside the carriage. Tight-wrapped. Corded. The porcelain shape was obvious even through fabric.
"Mask," Henry said. "Writing. And I'm filing a full account at Crown Quarter."
The captain nodded once. "Pass. No delays. Double escort. If anyone asks, you answer to the Crown."
"Gladly," Aldric muttered. "I love answering to vague authority."
The gates opened and Albion swallowed them whole.
Streets widened, stone clean enough to make William's boots feel guilty. Patrol density climbed. The air itself felt watched.
They rolled through the Highstone Rings—formal plazas, dueling grounds marked into stone, guild signs and polished carriage crests moving in slow, expensive currents. Different houses crossed their path in flashes of color and tailored cloth. A noblewoman stepped down from her carriage without looking at the workers hauling crates beside her, like the city had two layers and she lived on the upper one by default.
William watched it all with a face that tried to stay neutral and failed.
Aldric noticed, of course.
"Oh no," he said softly. "He's doing the stare. The righteous stare. Henry, restrain him before he starts lecturing someone with jewelry."
William didn't blink. "I'm not—"
"You are," Henry said, amused. "Albion makes you want to fight strangers with manners."
Then the city lifted.
The climb toward Crown Quarter wasn't just uphill—it was intentional. Buildings became whiter, taller, more monumental. Banners brighter. Guards more ceremonial. The closer they got, the more the myth of "radiant knights" stopped being a story and started being a social rule.
And above it all—
The Maximilian castle.
White bastions stacked like a crown of stone. Stained-glass halls catching sunlight and breaking it into colored bands across courtyards. Sun-sigil banners everywhere, not decoration—declaration.
Aldric pressed a hand to his chest like he was about to faint.
"Ah," he whispered. "Smell that? That's judgment."
William exhaled through his nose. "Shut up, cousin."
Henry watched the castle with the flat focus of a man who'd had to kneel there before and would do it again without liking it.
"Welcome back," he said quietly, "to the part of Britannia that thinks war is something that happens somewhere else."
The carriage rolled toward the next checkpoint, toward the inner gates where clean tabards and polished eyes would decide what kind of story Ashford was allowed to become.
William sat upright, bandages itching, heart doing that steady, stubborn thing it always did right before trouble.
Albion glittered.
And in its light, lies showed up fast.