We rode east on a Friday.
Kaden, Cael, and I, with a small escort of four — deliberately sized below the threshold that would signal a formal diplomatic visit and above the threshold that would suggest we were unconcerned with road safety in midwinter. The balance that communicated: we are Alphas traveling to conduct business, not a delegation making a statement.
The eastern road was different from the northern road — broader, better maintained, the evidence of heavier trade traffic in the wheel ruts compressed into the frozen surface. The forest on either side gave way periodically to open ground, small settlements visible in the distance, the particular texture of a territory that had been inhabited longer and more densely than Ironveil's quieter northern approaches.
I had ridden this
