Location: Branhal – Healer's Hut and Longhouse
Time: Morning to Night, Day 43
Arrival
The horse was pale and clean, its barding stamped subtly with the sun-and-crown insignia of Midgard — no banners, no procession, just quiet authority. The polished leather of its tack caught the morning light like black water.
The rider wore traveling leathers and a short cloak clasped with a simple steel brooch. No ostentatious armor. But not unarmed. A short sword hung at his side, its grip worn smooth by use. He dismounted in silence, his boots striking Branhal's packed earth with surgical precision.
His eyes moved across the village, not with curiosity.
But with evaluation.
At the well, Alec stood with Dal and Fenn, marking adjustments in flow rates on a charcoal-lined map of the irrigation system scratched into a pine plank. He saw the horse's crest instantly and went still.
He handed the stick to Dal. "Angle west slope sharper by two degrees. Let it curve out on the east. That should balance the pressure drop."
Dal blinked. "You're not staying to check it?"
Alec didn't answer directly. He was already turning.
"I've just been summoned."
First Contact
The rider was intercepted near the granary by Headman Harwin, whose boots were shined and whose welcome was cautious. Mira and a scattering of villagers stood at a discreet distance, their movements slower, quieter — like birds sensing a coming storm.
Alec approached alone, unhurried. The rider noticed.
Without pause, he drew a scroll from his satchel and bowed with soldier's precision. His voice was clear, formal.
"A message, by the grace of Her Grace Vaelora of Midgard," he announced, offering the sealed parchment. "To Alec — the man who turned a dying village into a rising one."
The scroll was sealed with crimson wax, pressed with a sun edged in golden flames. Fresh. Clean.
Alec took it with a nod. "You've delivered it. Are you meant to wait for a reply?"
The rider's tone didn't change. "I am to escort you, should you choose to accept the invitation."
Alec tucked the scroll beneath his arm.
"Then wait."
He turned and left without another word.
The Letter
Inside the healer's hut, Alec lit a candle and gently warmed the wax to preserve the seal's edge. He opened the scroll slowly, carefully.
The script was elegant — too fluid to be military, too refined to be bureaucratic. This was the hand of someone who ruled by writing as much as by decree.
To the one known as Alec,
Your work in Branhal has not gone unnoticed.
While the land remembers the rot of famine, it now also whispers of rivers flowing where they never reached, of gears turning where none turned before.
I am not a woman prone to fantasy, nor one easily impressed.
But I am one who listens.
I extend to you an invitation — not a summons — to speak in my court at Armathane, as a guest under Midgard's protection.
No man shall bind you, nor burden you, nor press oath upon you under my seal.
I would simply hear from your own lips what the wind seems so eager to carry on its back.
Come, Alec. Let me understand what it is the world has gained —
Or what it is about to lose.
— Vaelora, Duchess of Midgard
Alec read the letter once. Then again. Then a third time, slower.
Reading the Subtext
He set the parchment gently on the cot and sat beside it, elbows on knees, hands clasped.
It wasn't a command. That omission was surgical.
No assumption of loyalty. No assertion of hierarchy. Only a door — open, unguarded, lit with polite firelight.
But it was a trap nonetheless.
She offered protection not as a mercy, but as a message: I know what you fear.
She promised no oath, no leash — which meant she knew he didn't wear one.
And her closing?
"Let me understand…"
Not curiosity.
Control. The language of scholars who wrote wars before they fought them.
She was asking if he intended to be a kingmaker, a threat… or a mistake.
She would decide which.
Harwin's Advice
Later that day, the longhouse was dim with filtered sun through slatted shutters. Harwin sat at the table's head, the letter between them.
The old headman tapped its edge with a thick, scarred finger. "In my life, I've read declarations of war. Tax orders. Marriage contracts that sounded like funeral hymns. But this…"
"It's bait," Alec said.
"Maybe," Harwin replied. "But it's bait dressed in silk. And sometimes silk's more dangerous than steel."
"It's flattery lined with expectation."
"Yes," Harwin said. "But it's not poisoned."
"Not yet."
Harwin folded his hands. "Are you going?"
"I don't know."
Harwin studied him. "I thought you were a storm when you arrived. Now I think you're a map. The duchess?"
"She's the compass."
Harwin chuckled dryly. "Just make sure you're not charting her course instead of your own."
He looked at Alec with something approaching sorrow.
"Be careful, boy. The world's full of rulers who smile while writing your legend — right before they sign your end at the bottom."
Mira's Warning
That evening, the sky melted into violet as Alec stood by the grainhouse, the last of the sun catching on his collar.
Mira found him there.
"You got the letter," she said.
"I did."
"And you're going."
He didn't answer.
She stepped beside him. "You always move toward fire. Even when you don't have to."
"She's not fire," Alec said. "She's steel. Waiting for a forge."
"And you think you'll shape her?"
"I think she'll try to shape me."
Mira's mouth tightened. "And when she learns you don't bend?"
Alec turned to her.
"Then we'll see who breaks first."
She held his gaze for a long moment, then looked away.
"You won't come back the same," she said quietly.
He didn't answer.
She didn't need him to.
Jorren's Perspective
At dusk, the forge still glowed, Jorren hammering iron teeth for a second mill wheel. Sparks spat into the air, scattering orange fire across the darkening yard.
"You saw the rider," Alec said, approaching.
Jorren didn't pause. "Hard to miss a man with polished boots and a belt full of empty rings."
"She's called me to Armathane."
Now the blacksmith stopped.
He set the hammer down, wiped sweat from his brow, and looked Alec in the eye.
"You going?"
"I think I have to."
Jorren nodded slowly. "Then hear this, boy. Everything you're building — the gears, the math, the trenches — they mean nothing if they're twisted into something they weren't meant to be."
Alec didn't blink.
Jorren stepped forward. "You showed this village how to stand. But the moment you walk into court, you stop being a man. You become an idea. A banner. And ideas…"
He let the words settle.
"They bleed easier than people."
Alec met his gaze. "Then I'll make myself harder to bleed."
The Decision
That night, in the healer's hut, the candlelight flickered gently as Alec sat at Mira's writing desk. The seal lay open beside him. A clean parchment waited.
He dipped the quill.
Paused.
Wrote.
To Her Grace,Duchess Vaelora of Midgard,
I have read your invitation.
I will come.
I do not come as a subject, nor a tool, nor a trophy.
I come as a man with eyes open.
And I expect the same.
— Alec
He sealed it with wax.
Then placed it on the stoop for the rider to retrieve by dawn.
He sat on the cot, staring at the dying coals of the hearth.
The village outside slept.
But the road ahead had already begun.