Thorns of midnight

Chapter 3_Wtb

Because last night something stood on the threshold of my mind and looked in as if it had the right. Because I felt the same pressure now, like a storm waking, and part of me—traitor—wanted to step out and let it break over me, just to know what it would make of me. None of those were answers you give a father who has taught you to name tools and truths plainly.

“I’m counting customers,” I said instead. “Preparing for difficult ones.”

He accepted the lie because it was neat, not because he believed it. “We prepare in pairs,” he said, which was his way of saying: You won’t face anything alone while I breathe.

“I know,” I said, and wanted it to be enough.

By late day the forge smelled of rain that hadn’t fallen. The sky wore the color of old steel, and swallows stitched black thread across it in quick loops. We closed early to scrub and to check our own hinges, as if any door could stall a thing that walked your dreams and learned your name from the way your bones answered.

Before sundown we climbed the lane to the square. The village had dressed itself for caution: shutters half-closed, stall awnings tied lower, the tavern’s signboard newly mended where some drunk had split it with a chair. A woman with a basket of lavender moved like peace through the crowd, tucking sprigs into belts and hair. People kept their voices low, which only made the rumors louder.

Council met in the room above the ale, under beams too old to fall and too stubborn to care. We found seats along the back wall. The floorboards remembered every argument with a complaint. Men and women filled the benches—farmers with dirt in their fingerprints, the miller with flour in the creases of his elbow, a pair of trappers still smelling of spruce and tanned hide. Eyes went to Father when he entered, then to me, then away: a little respect, a little hope, a little fear of asking too much from those who had given enough.

They spoke—of patrols, of rationing salt, of whether to bar the east road at night and who would mind the gate that did not exist. They did not say Summer, not first. It came in a dozen other names—coastal troubles, levy-men, our cousins from the warm side of the wind—until Maren of the river stones smacked her palm on the table and said it plain.

“Summer’s fingers are in our pockets,” she snapped. “And you’d all pretend it’s rain.”

A murmur. A flinch. A man near the window said we should be grateful for coin. Father said gratitude is cheap until it costs your sons. Someone else said no sons would be taken if we kept our heads low and our doors open.

Ronan slid in late, found the wall behind me, and stood in silence like a shield. When too much cowardice dressed itself as caution, he spoke, and when he spoke people listened, because his voice carries decency the way a lantern carries light. He didn’t promise victory; he promised standing. The room did not decide anything tonight—rooms like this rarely do. But when we filed out into the dusk, the air felt a fraction less stale, and you could see the line in Father’s shoulders that meant: This is not done, but we are not undone, either.