Spring in the mountains was not a gentle awakening, but a violent, muddy rebirth. Torrents of snowmelt roared down the gorges, turning the Weeping Valley's quiet stream into a furious brown serpent and testing the foundations of William's watchtowers. But with the thaw came life, and with life, renewed complexity. The delicate machinery of William's rule, which had creaked but held through the winter, now had to move from mere survival to active governance.
The success of the northern oat seed was the first green shoot of hope. In fields that had yielded only meager barley, the hardy northern grain sprouted with a vigorous, dark green promise. Peasants who had watched with skepticism now tended the rows with a possessive care William had never seen. It was a tangible result, a dividend paid on the trust he had asked for. The compact was bearing fruit, literally.
Yet, for every sprout of hope, a weed of trouble emerged. The royal tax assessors, like persistent crows, returned with the drier weather. They were not satisfied with merely guarding the forfeited silver in the vault; they now presented a new decree, signed by the Lord High Justiciar Morwin. It cited "administrative costs for the adjudication of the Highcrown succession and the maintenance of royal serjeants." The sum was not astronomical, but it was a deliberate turn of the screw, a reminder that the king's favor was a service with a perpetual invoice. It drained the modest toll revenue from Olaf's caravans before it could touch the keep's treasury.
"They mean to keep you on the edge," Cuthbert fretted, the new scroll adding a fresh tremor to his hands. "Enough to function, never enough to thrive independently. You are to remain a dependent, not a peer."
William felt the old, familiar frustration—the sense of a cliff face crumbling under his grip just as he reached for the next hold. He had solved the king's problem in Highcrown, and the reward was another financial wound. He stalked to the eastern battlement, seeking the cold clarity of the heights. Below, he saw the mine entrance, a hive of activity that poured wealth into a vault he couldn't open. He saw the green fields, whose surplus would now be taxed to pay for the king's own impositions. He was building a ship, but the crown held the pump, constantly bailing out his gains.
It was Kael who found him there. The Borrell man had shed some of his observer's reticence, moving through the keep with a quiet, earned authority. He followed William's gaze.
"They squeeze you," Kael stated, no sympathy, just observation.
"They test the strength of their leash," William replied.
"A leash only works if the dog believes in the master's right to hold it." Kael leaned on the cold stone. "Your people believe in the seed. In the towers. In the peace on the road. They do not cheer for the king in his distant palace. They cheer for the full belly and the unburned house. This," he gestured to the scroll in William's hand, "is not of their world. It is of his world. The world of parchment and seals. You must fight him there, with his own tools, or you will be bled white by a thousand small cuts."
William looked at him, surprised by the acuity of the analysis. "How does a man of the Marches know of fighting with parchment?"
Kael's smile was grim. "We have treaties with the Red Elk. They are worth less than the hide they are written on, but they create a space for talk between raids. Parchment is a battlefield for a different season. Your king understands this. You must learn it." He paused. "My cousins' reply came. They agree to the trade corridor in principle. But they send a condition. They wish to meet. Not here, not in their holds. On neutral ground. The old moot circle at the head of the Ironwood Valley, where the three territories meet."
A meeting. Not with a spy or an emissary, but with the Borrell lords themselves. It was a risk of monumental proportions. It could be a trap, an ambush to remove the thorn in their side. It could also be the genuine birth of something new—a political arrangement, not just a temporary truce.
"They will come under a flag of truce," Kael added, seeing the hesitation. "I will guarantee it with my life. They are… curious. The tale of the caravan raid and the parley has reached them. They see a stream of southern grain and southern steel flowing north through a pass they do not control, and they wish to dip their cups. Greed is a stronger lure than pride, sometimes."
William made the decision swiftly. He would meet them. He would go to the moot circle with a small guard, with Kael, and with Olaf the merchant. He would bring the parchment, the maps, the numbers. He would fight the next battle on the field of mutual interest.
The night before the meeting, a different kind of messenger arrived. Not a herald, but a lone rider in the unmarked livery of a noble house, carrying a letter perfumed with jasmine and sealed with a stylized falcon. Lady Elyse.
William,
Your star continues its peculiar ascent. The court whispers of the 'Wolf of the North' who settles squabbles in peaceful valleys and parleys with savages. It is a compelling, dangerous myth you are crafting. Daerlon is apoplectic; he claims you are building a private kingdom with northern barbarians. The king listens, says nothing, but his silence is a room where Daerlon's words echo.
A word of advice, from one who appreciates a well-told story: when you sit with wolves, do not try to be a shepherd. Be the wolf who remembers how to wear a collar when it suits him. Your strength now lies in your usefulness to multiple parties. Be indispensable to the Borrells for their wealth, to Olaf for his safety, and to the king for his peace. The moment you are beholden to only one, you become their tool, or their victim.
I may find myself traveling north this summer, to take the mountain air. The stories of your… rugged hospitality… are intriguing.
E.
The letter was a cocktail of flattery, warning, and tantalizing possibility. She was watching, and she was coming. Her presence would be a wildfire in his already volatile political landscape.
The moot circle was an ancient place, a flat expanse of weathered granite atop a treeless hill, encircled by a ring of standing stones softened by millennia of wind and lichen. It felt older than kings, older than law. William arrived with ten men, Elric at his side, and Olaf. Kael was already there, standing with two men who could only be Rorik and Joric Borrell.
They were as Kael had described: like two grizzled bears, clad in heavy furs despite the spring sun, their faces hard, their eyes holding the perpetual suspicion of men who trust only the land and the blade. They looked William up and down, their gaze lingering on his simple, unadorned sword and the lack of ostentation in his dress.
"So," Rorik, the older and broader of the two, grunted, dispensing with titles. "The cliff-climber. You have our brother's ear." He nodded at Kael, who stood impassively between the two parties.
"I have his word," William corrected. "And he has mine. That is why we are here."
Joric, sharper-faced, spat on the granite. "Words are cheap. Silver is not. You propose a road. A road brings more than merchants. It brings southern laws, southern priests, southern eyes."
"It brings Olaf's silver," William said, nodding to the merchant. "A toll on every wagon. A share for you, a share for the Red Elk, to keep the peace you have already begun." He gestured to Kael. "Your man brokered that peace. It holds. Imagine it holding for a season, then a year, then a generation. Your people buy grain in a market, not steal it in a raid. They sell their furs for steel tools, not trade them for promises."
"And in return, we bow to the king's seal on your toll-house?" Rorik's voice was a low rumble.
"You bow to nothing," William said, stepping closer, his voice ringing in the open space. "You make a pact. With me. The king's peace is the air we breathe; it is not the ground we walk on. The ground is this mountain. The pact is between the people of the mountain. The king gets his wider peace, and he leaves us to our business. That is how he sees usefulness. That is how we buy our freedom from his… attentions."
He was speaking treason, wrapped in pragmatism. He was offering them a vision of autonomy within the kingdom, a northern bloc with Blackcliff as its hinge. It was audacious. It was exactly what Daerlon feared and the king might ultimately forbid.
Olaf laid out his ledgers, showing the projected traffic, the tolls, the profits. The numbers were a language the Borrells understood better than poetry. A long, silent negotiation began, haggling over percentages, over responsibility for trail maintenance, over justice for crimes committed on the road. It was commerce as statecraft, raw and elemental.
As the sun began to sink, casting long shadows from the standing stones, an agreement was forged. It was not a treaty the king's scribes would recognize. It was a sworn oath on a dagger, a pact of mutual profit and shared defense of the trade route. The Borrells would keep the Red Elk in line. William would ensure the southern goods flowed and the king's men looked no further north than Blackcliff. They would meet each season at the moot to settle disputes.
As they made to depart, Rorik fixed William with a final, piercing look. "You are not one of them. The southern lords. You have their polish, but you have the mountain in your bones now. That is why we talk. Do not let the polish fool you into thinking you are one of them. Or you will end up dead, or in a gilded cage, which is the same thing."
William rode back to Blackcliff as twilight deepened, the agreement a heavy, potent weight in his saddlebag. He had not just secured a trade route; he had forged an alliance with the very forces that had been his existential threat. He had become the bridge, and in doing so, had made himself the keystone. If removed, the entire arch—the peace, the trade, the king's quiet border—would collapse.
He had scarcely returned and broken his fast the next morning when the third event of that pivotal spring occurred. A commotion at the gate announced not a herald, but a procession. Lady Elyse had made good on her hint. She arrived not with a modest retinue, but with a small court on horseback: two ladies-in-waiting, a knight protector, a poet, and a train of pack mules laden with chests. She was a vision of impractical elegance against the grim stone, dressed in riding silks of deep green, her smile a calculated shock of warmth.
"Lord Marren!" she called, her voice like silver bells. "You must forgive the intrusion. The tales of your black cliffs were simply too compelling to resist. I come to see the forge where the kingdom's newest hero is hammered."
Her presence in the great hall was as disruptive as a peacock in a rookery. She filled the space with laughter, perfume, and a relentless, charming curiosity. She praised the stark beauty of the keep, asked insightful questions about the mine that bordered on espionage, and cast appreciative, lingering glances at William that set the hall buzzing.
That evening, at a dinner for which Cuthbert had frantically assembled the keep's meager best, she held court. She spoke of the capital's gossip, artfully weaving in mentions of Daerlon's growing frustration and the king's "watchful approval." She turned to Kael, who sat stiffly farther down the table.
"And you must be the famous Borrell emissary! How thrilling. Tell me, is it true your people worship the winter winds?"
Kael's face was stone. "We respect them, my lady. We do not worship anything we cannot kill and eat."
Elyse's laugh was a delighted trill. "Marvelous! So practical." She turned her dazzling attention back to William. "You have gathered the most fascinating menagerie, my lord. A wolf from the north, a merchant prince, and I hear you even command the respect of draft horses and miners. You are a collector of useful things."
The barb was exquisite, reminding him that in her world, and the king's, Kael and Olaf were curiosities, tools. Later, she found him on the now-familiar balcony, the night air cool.
"You have been busy," she said, the playful tone gone, replaced by a sharp, analytical one. "Meeting with Borrells on pagan stone circles. Forging pacts. You are building a power base, William. It is admirable. And it is a knife pointed at your own heart if you are not careful."
"I am securing the king's peace," he said, defensively.
"You are securing your peace," she corrected. "There is a difference. The king's peace is an absence of war. Your peace is a network of obligation and profit that runs through you. He will see it, if he does not already. Daerlon will certainly spell it out for him." She moved closer, the scent of jasmine overwhelming the clean mountain scent. "You need a counterweight. An anchor in the southern world, to balance your northern alliances."
"What anchor?"
"Me," she said simply. "A marriage. Not now. Not even soon. But the promise of it. The rumor of it. It would silence Daerlon—tying the upstart to an old, if slightly tarnished, royal line. It would reassure the king that you are, ultimately, bound to the realm's heart, not its wild edges. And it would give you… an advisor who understands the game in the palace, while you master the game on the mountain."
William stared at her, stunned. It was a political proposal of breathtaking coldness and brilliance. It was also a gilded cage, beautifully offered.
"And what do you get?" he asked, his voice hoarse.
"Power," she said, her eyes gleaming in the starlight. "A seat at a new table. The thrill of shaping something real, instead of just gossiping about it. And a husband who is not a boring old relic. Think on it. You do not have to decide now. But know this: the path you are on leads to a summit where you will stand alone, exposed to every wind. An alliance, a true one, can build a fortress on that summit."
She left him there, reeling. In the span of days, he had gone from haggling with barbarian lords to receiving a marriage proposal from a king's cousin. He had forged an alliance in the north and been offered an anchor in the south. He was no longer simply defending a keep; he was balancing an entire nascent kingdom on his shoulders.
He looked inward, to the heart of his strength. The mine, its wealth still locked away. The fields, their promise still growing. The towers, their fires burning. And the people—his people, Kael, Elric, the villagers—whose loyalties were the true mortar of his walls.
He was in the forge now, not of swords, but of statecraft. The hammer was the relentless pressure of kings and rivals. The anvil was the unforgiving mountain. And he, William Marren, was the metal being shaped—tempered by crisis, alloyed with strange partnerships, and tested in a fire hotter than any he had ever known. The boy who wanted a title was gone. The lord who defended a keep was evolving. What was emerging from the smoke and sparks was something else entirely: a ruler. And the next blow of the hammer was always just a heartbeat away.