For a moment, the only sound in the room was the faint crackle of the brazier and the muted life of the Landing below.

  Knuckles struck the door — one sharp rap, the second still forming —

  “Come in.”

  The guard pushed through on the rest of the motion, snapping to attention just inside the threshold. “My Lord, the Thorn—”

  “I know,” Harold said, already on his feet.

  The chair scraped back. The loose stacks of reports were swept into a single, brutal line with the edge of his forearm. He caught the cup before it tipped into the map this time, set it aside, and pulled the leather baldric from the back of the chair in one practiced movement.

  The man who had been hunched over charcoal marks and token disputes was gone before the guard finished his breath.

  Harold shrugged into the harness, fingers moving without hesitation, settling the weight across his shoulders. The clasp found its mate on the second try — he didn’t look down to check it. He dragged his coat from the peg near the door and swung it around himself, rolling his shoulders once to seat everything properly.

  Margaret stepped out of his way as he crossed to the basin. He dipped his hands, ran wet fingers through his hair, pushed it back from his face, and straightened.

  When he turned, the fatigue was still there, but it had been locked behind something harder. His jaw clenched subtly, a muscle twitching at the corner of his mouth as if tethering a sigh before it could escape. His breathing slowed, each inhale deliberate, as though he was gathering whatever reserves he still had to face what was next.

  His back was straight and his gaze level.

  Hale watched the transformation without comment, one corner of his mouth tightening in what might have been approval.

  The guard was still standing there, report forgotten in the shift of presence.

  Harold adjusted the cuff at his wrist, a small, precise motion.

  “Send them in.”

  The guard stepped aside, and the Thornwalkers came through in a loose knot that only tightened when they reached the center of the room.

  Tresh was saying something under his breath to Dorrin as they crossed the threshold.

  “—told you it wasn’t that deep.”

  “It was waist-deep and moving quickly,” Dorrin shot back.

  “You fell in!” Tresh exclaimed.

  “I slipped,” Dorrin complained.

  “You screamed!”

  “I saw a monster.” He deadpanned.

  They stopped talking the moment they were properly inside, but the tail end of the argument hung in the air like heat.

  Lynn came in behind them, practically vibrating. Her eyes went everywhere at once — the table, the window, Harold — then back to the others as if she had to physically restrain herself from speaking first. She rocked once on her heels before locking her knees and clasping her hands behind her back, a grin threatening to break through anyway.

  Maggs moved to her place with the same flat, deliberate stillness she always had, gaze forward, already at attention before anyone had finished adjusting.

  Vera entered last.

  She walked in with her usual easy confidence, shoulders back, chin level, every line of her posture saying she belonged in whatever room she chose to stand in.

  Only Harold, who had shaken her to her core the last time he saw her, saw the fraction of a pause when her eyes met his.

  The memory of their last conversation lived there — awareness of how much he knew and how much he had not said.

  She stopped, squared herself, and inclined her head.

  “My Lord.”

  The room settled.

  Harold let his gaze move across them in a single, measured pass.

  Tresh’s bandage was fresh. Dorrin favored his left leg by a hair. Lynn looked like she was physically restraining herself from vibrating apart. Maggs was already stone.

  Harold let his gaze move across them in a single, measured pass, allowing a moment of silence to stretch. The suspense lingered in the air, a shared unspoken concern evident in the quick glances exchanged between them, each member subtly assessing the others' injuries.

  "Why is it every time I see you, you need healing?" Harold said. "The report can wait." He stepped away from the table and crossed to the crate against the wall, flipping the lid back with his thumb. Glass clinked softly as he pulled the potions free and began tossing them out one at a time without looking.

  Tresh caught his cleanly. Dorrin snatched his out of the air a heartbeat later. Lynn nearly fumbled hers because she was watching Harold instead of the bottle. Maggs took hers without moving anything but one hand. Vera came last.

  “Didn’t you take a full stack with you?” Harold went on. “There shouldn’t be much in the Basin that’s a threat to you at this point. What happened?”

  For the first time since she had entered the room, something moved across Maggs’ face.

  It wasn’t quite a smile. It was the memory of one, dragged into existence against her will.

  Tresh made a choking sound and turned it into a cough. Dorrin’s shoulders began to shake in a way that had nothing to do with injury.

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  Lynn lost the fight completely.

  “It was not our fault,” she blurted, the words tripping over a laugh she was trying and failing to kill. “The things pe—”

  Maggs’ elbow moved.

  Lynn snapped her mouth shut, still leaking amusement through her nose, but her hands moved in a way that said she was measuring something that was very large.

  Vera closed her eyes once, very briefly, then opened them and stepped forward half a pace.

  “We diverted closer to the mountains on the return,” she said, voice level, professionalism intact even as she shot the others a look that promised later consequences. “There are vipers and birds in that area with a couple of perks we wanted. We judged the risk acceptable.”

  Hale made a low sound in the back of his throat that might have been approval.

  “And?” Harold asked.

  “We encountered a fully grown stone troll,” Vera continued.

  “So big,” Lynn added before she could stop herself, then clamped her lips together again, eyes bright.

  “We only brought it down because of the healing potions,” Vera went on. “We had to attack it, withdraw, re-engage. Without them, we would have broken contact.”

  Tresh nodded, still trying to keep his expression under control. “It hit like a falling wall, and our arrows don't penetrate enough.”

  Dorrin wiped at his face, losing the battle with a grin. “You should’ve seen her,” he muttered, jerking his chin toward Maggs.

  Maggs’ stare did not move.

  “We were beaten up after we killed it,” Vera said, cutting across them without raising her voice, “and we could not secure the body. I know you wanted organs from it, but we weren’t in a position to stay there.”

  Harold watched them as they drank.

  Color returned almost immediately. The stiffness bled out of Tresh’s stance. Dorrin rolled his shoulder and blinked like the pain had been a distant thing. Lynn straightened as if someone had reset her joints. Even Maggs’ weight shifted back to perfect balance.

  “Should have taken its heart, with that I could have made you all a good potion as a reward. Did any of you get the perk?”

  Maggs raised her hand, while this time even Margaret cracked a smile. “Course it was you,” Harold murmured. "Is it stone skin or the healing?"

  For her reply, her skin turned a stony grey, and even across the desk, Harold could imagine how hard it would be to penetrate that defense.

  “I’m assuming the other matter is settled?” He asked.

  Vera’s mask slipped back into place, and the Ice queen returned. She nodded. “I tried to approach and talk to them, but they attacked immediately.”

  Hale grunted in approval from her side, but didn't say anything. Harold looked her in the eyes for a moment, and Vera tried to maintain the look but looked away a moment later.

  “Good, I’m sorry I asked you to do that, but it couldn't be helped.” He went back over to the shelves and searched through the files for one in particular. “I have another job for you, but take your time preparing for this. You need to leave within a couple of weeks, because it’s probably about a month and a half's walk to get there. Congrats. You will be the first people from the basin to leave the basin.”

  Off to the side, Harold saw Hale raise his hand to his face and groan in frustration. He looked at him, confused, and looked back at Vera. “Take a look at this.”

  Harold slid the scroll across the table.

  Vera stepped forward to receive it, but she didn’t get more than a glance before Lynn was at her shoulder and Tresh leaned in from the other side, Dorrin crowding close enough that Maggs had to shift half a step to keep them all in her peripheral vision.

  For a heartbeat, they held it together — the professional line, the stillness.

  Then Vera’s eyes moved across the first section, and that was the end of it.

  Tresh let out a low whistle.

  Dorrin swore under his breath.

  Lynn actually bounced once.

  “Another relic?” she blurted, the words bursting out of her before she could stop them. “That’s another relic, that’s definitely a relic—”

  Maggs leaned in just far enough to see the engraving on the slate, and her brows came together in something that might have been concentration and might have been excitement, carefully strangled.

  Lynn looked like someone had just gave her a pink pony.

  “We’re leaving the Basin,” she said, turning to the others as she needed them to confirm she had heard correctly. “We’re actually leaving the Basin.”

  Tresh tapped the scroll with one finger. “Month and a half on foot,” he muttered. “Through terrain nobody’s mapped.”

  Vera’s eyes were still moving across the details — route estimates, supply projections, the notation in Harold’s hand along the margin, Harold’s marks where the objective shifted from exploration to acquisition, and rough locations they had determined there were Lords from the forum and memory.

  When she finally looked up, the earlier annoyance was gone.

  Hale made a soft, pained sound from near the wall and dragged a hand down his face.

  “You’re sending the only unit that makes sense for that distance into unmapped territory for three months,” he said. “Of course you are.”

  Lynn turned back to Vera, eyes bright. “We’re going to be legends.”

  Maggs straightened. “We’re going to need more than one stack this time.”

  That got a quiet snort out of Harold.

  “This relic was never claimed last time. I don't know much about the guardian. Its form shifts based on who is fighting it, but I do know it scales in power accordingly. It’s why it was never killed. I figure you’re the team with the most striking power against something like that. I want it done earlier, while I can still stack advantages on top of you to give you the best possible advantage. And you all picked up those stealth skills from the dungeon. The region around Silverfin Lake is dangerous. Take a couple of weeks, pick another team to help you get there, but I’ll be relying on you to get this relic and get back without the monsters and other lords stopping you.

  Vera looked at Harold a little uneasily, while Lynn practically vibrated beside her, unable to keep still.

  Then Vera asked it.

  “Why not send your sister on this mission?”

  The question hit the room like a thrown blade.

  Hale’s head came up immediately, a wide, unguarded grin breaking across his face. Margaret did not smile. Her eyes went to Harold at once, sharp and searching.

  “She’s got you there, Lord,” Hale said, pushing off the wall and stepping forward, the words coming fast and hot. “Don’t send them away for months. If that relic wasn’t claimed last time, it won’t be this time. We have time. They’d be an asset on the campaign.”

  Lynn started to say something. Tresh spoke over her while Dorrin muttered a question about timing.

  The room was filled with overlapping voices, and Harold didn’t raise his hands. He just looked tired, and then the air stopped.

  It was pressure — the sense of a storm front rolling through the room in a single breath. Every instinct that had kept them alive in the Basin screamed the same warning.

  Authority.

  His anger touched them — directed at them all — and then it was gone, withdrawn so quickly it left the space feeling hollow.

  Harold turned to Hale first.

  “If you want better scouts,” he said, voice level and controlled, “make sure Centurion Garrick trains them better.”

  Hale didn’t look away, but the smile faded.

  Harold’s gaze moved to Vera.

  “My sister and I have an agreement. She is being sent somewhere else on a mission she doesn’t know about yet.”

  “This relic was never claimed. It will only become harder to claim as time passes and it gathers power. They have a chance to take it now, and I am taking it.”

  He stepped closer to the table, one hand resting against the edge.

  “The hardest relics to gain are always the most powerful. I am not telling you to throw your lives away attempting it. But with the advantages I can stack on you, you have a good chance. Especially since I am giving you a list of monsters to hunt on your way there with perks that will help you all.”

  Vera held his gaze this time.

  Her expression had changed, the unease was gone, and calculation replaced it.

  “You will compensate my team and me,” she said.

  Her voice shook, just slightly, but she didn’t let it break.

  Harold let the last of the aura bleed away. The Lord receded, and the man who had been drowning in reports a few minutes ago stood there instead, shoulders heavy, eyes rimmed with fatigue.

  “Yes,” he said. “I will reward you. I am already working on potions. Your team will get a share.”

  A faint breath moved through the Thornwalkers.

  “I promise,” he added, “they won’t disappoint.”

  “And you’ll upgrade our gear,” Lynn blurted, unable to hold it any longer.

  Harold closed his eyes for a brief second and rolled them toward the ceiling.

  “Yes,” he said. “I want your team to come back. I will invest what I can into you.”

  ?