Location: Branhal → Midgardian Roads
Time: Day 44–48 After Arrival
The Road East
The road curled like a slow, deliberate thought, etched deep into the hills by centuries of boots, hooves, and old ambition. Gravel and clay formed its backbone, with tufts of heather and wild thyme softening its edges. Highland oaks stood like patient watchers, limbs gnarled from wind and war, while unseen birds called from mist-veiled boughs.
Alec rode near the center of the column, astride a brown gelding named Fennel — a stubborn beast with an uneven gait and eyes too intelligent for a simple animal. The horse responded best when Alec whispered instructions in patterns — not tones — as if Fennel understood logic better than commands.
They had departed Branhal before sunrise. There had been no farewell crowd, no speeches or blessings. Mira had not come. Neither had Harwin.
Only Jorren, who pressed a smithing hammer into Alec's pack. Short-hafted, weighted, worn at the grip. A tool, not a weapon. Not a word spoken.
Alec understood. Not goodbye. Not luck. Just legacy.
He did not know if he would ever return.
But he knew he would not forget them.
And so he rode east — toward the seat of Midgardian power, toward its duchess, its maps, its games, and its silence dressed as civility.
The Escort
Seven riders accompanied him — disciplined, reserved, clad in Midgard's understated livery. Deep forest-green cloaks. Leather brigandines stamped with the sun-and-crown crest. They bore no banners, no fanfare. Just steel and silence.
Their captain was a woman named Sir Kaelyn Dros — mid-thirties, copper-haired, built like a sword in human form. Her movements were clipped. Her eyes unreadable. Her voice? Blunt. Polished iron with the faint edge of battlefield sand.
She addressed Alec only when necessary. Not with disrespect. But with restraint. Like a scholar observing a strange experiment from just outside the blast radius.
"How long will the journey take?" Alec asked on the first morning, when the hills still steamed with dawn frost.
Kaelyn didn't look at him. "We'll reach Rhosten Vale by nightfall. Ethelmark on the second day. Then we ride the King's Spine straight to Armathane. Four days, if the weather holds."
Alec nodded once.
He didn't ask again.
He preferred to listen.
And they noticed.
Day One – Rhosten Vale
Rhosten Vale unfolded in patchwork color — pale green fields broken by gray stone fences and red-lichened walls. Sheep dotted the hills like scattered clouds. Thin boys herded them with crooked sticks. Crows watched from wind-swayed trees like black-robed witnesses.
They passed six villages by dusk. Smaller than Branhal. Hungrier, somehow. Mud-bricked homes with sagging roofs. Granaries half-collapsed. Irrigation systems no better than trenches.
Alec studied each one as they passed — measuring angles, noting water levels, counting bodies.
"The land is fertile," he murmured to himself, "but abused. It's not decay. It's negligence."
Kaelyn, riding beside him, said without looking, "Speak louder or not at all."
Alec raised his voice just enough. "Your infrastructure's dying under the weight of assumed loyalty. These roads are cracked. Your bridges sag under unregulated haulage. Timber rot. Erosion. Yet Midgard persists. That tells me something."
Her jaw tightened. "What?"
"That your duchess rules through something other than stone and mortar."
Kaelyn finally looked at him.
"She rules through control," she said.
Alec nodded. "Control is a brittle alloy. Strong in one direction. But under pressure from too many vectors... it shatters."
Kaelyn didn't speak to him again until nightfall.
Day Two – Ethelmark Garrison
The second night they stopped at Ethelmark — a slate-and-blackwood waystation flanked by mossy palisades and rust-stained gates. The garrison commander offered Kaelyn supplies and formal deference, but his salute lacked heat. His men looked at Alec as if unsure whether to arrest or avoid him.
Alec watched carefully.
The soldiers obeyed Kaelyn, yes. But they didn't fear her. She had rank, not reverence. That distinction mattered.
At camp, Alec sat by the fire, legs crossed, a tattered map of Midgard spread over his knees. It was old. Merchant-made. Inaccurate, but still useful. A mechanical mind could fill in the gaps.
"You study it like it's holy scripture," said one of the riders — a younger man named Varen, his voice touched with curiosity.
"Maps are gears," Alec replied. "Each city, river, mountain — it's a tooth. Misalign one, and the whole thing breaks down."
Varen frowned. "You sound like a noble."
"I'm worse," Alec said. "I'm new."
Dinner that night was hard bread and barley pottage, eaten without ceremony. Alec listened to the soldiers talk — not for entertainment, but for information. Mentions of noble unrest in the north. Rumors of Edenian spies. Whispers of a trade embargo in the east.
Kaelyn said nothing. She sat apart, eyes on the fire.
Watching him.
Day Three – The King's Spine
By the third day, the forests gave way to the King's Spine — a broad, cobbled road that stretched like a fossilized river toward Armathane. It was flanked by hawthorn trees and old watchstones marked with moss-bitten sigils.
More traffic appeared. Merchants in worn wagons. Couriers in livery. Some bore Edenian standards. Others flew banners Alec didn't recognize — pale blue with gold chevrons, or crimson birds on black.
They slowed as they passed the Midgardian column. Whispered.
Some even looked directly at Alec.
And nodded.
He turned to Kaelyn during a watering stop. "How far has my name traveled?"
She shrugged. "Depends who's asking. To the peasants, you're a fallen god. To the courts, you're a disruptive influence. To the duchess..."
Kaelyn gave him a long look. "You're an opportunity."
Alec studied her. "And to you?"
Kaelyn didn't blink. "You're a storm. You'll either water the roots or drown the tree. No one knows which."
Alec smiled faintly. "Neither do I."
Internal Calculations
That night, he lay beneath a pine tree on the ridgeline just east of Valebreach Pass. The stars above remained alien — unfamiliar constellations strewn across a deeper, colder sky.
He hadn't told anyone, but he'd started tracking anomalies. Magnetic drift. Atmospheric consistency. Wind patterns. Nothing overtly wrong. Just… not right.
He kept two mental logs now — one for natural mechanics, one for sociopolitical patterns.
Midgard's strength wasn't born of military superiority. It came from structural continuity. Regularity. It resisted entropy by pretending time couldn't touch it.
But entropy always arrived. Eventually.
He'd seen it before.
He would see it again.
Day Four – The Copper Horizon
By the fourth day, the scent of tilled earth gave way to iron tangs of industry. Stone walls rose in the distance, banners flapping from watchtowers. Copper roofs shimmered on the horizon — not glittering with wealth, but weathered with permanence.
Armathane.
Its shape was a contradiction — part fortress, part city, part puzzle. Not beautiful. But intentional. And full of edges.
Kaelyn rode up beside him one final time.
"You'll meet her tomorrow," she said.
Alec nodded. "Any advice?"
Kaelyn's gaze flicked sideways. "She's smarter than she lets on."
"I'm counting on that."
"What are you hoping for?"
"I don't hope."
"Then what?"
"I measure."
He slowed Fennel slightly, letting the rest of the column ride ahead.
Before him stretched the valley of Midgard — ordered, harvested, sharpened like a knife sheathed in velvet.
This wasn't just a court visit.
This was a threshold.
And someone on the other side had drawn a line in the sand, waiting to see whether he'd cross it — or rewrite the map entirely.