Last watch always made the morning feel late. By the time the sky even thought about changing color, Toby felt as if he’d already spent a day’s worth of patience listening to the dark. The morning came pale and washed-out. Clouds still dragged slow across the sky, but their bellies no longer sagged with rain. The plains steamed gently in places where the sun found gaps.

  “Up,” Maxwell called to the others. “Storm’s done what it’s going to. Time for us to do the same.”

  From the way he said it, Toby knew he didn’t just mean getting out of bed. He looked toward the stone as the others crawled out into a world rearranged. The creek had carved itself wider and deeper, its banks raw and freshly bitten. The bison carcass was farther gone than before—hornets or no, the storm had helped the wild in its work. Loose scraps of hide clung to bone like old flags. No meat remained—not edible, anyway.

  The fang still stood, unchanged. If anything, the cleaned surface made it look even more impossible. After a quick, cold breakfast, Maxwell pointed them toward it with all the mercy of a drillmaster back in Highmarsh.

  “Hands only,” he said. “Same rules. Storm or no, the wall doesn’t care. Neither should you.”

  Toby went first this time. His right palm met the stone. The surface was cool, damp in fine patches, but drying where the breeze reached. He breathed, reached, pushed. The faint drag came slower than before—like something half-sleeping that didn’t want to be disturbed. He coaxed it into thickening, into that strange, borrowed grip.

  It held and he pulled himself up. His boots left the ground again. An inch. Two. His arm burned. His shoulder barked complaint. He tried for the second hand, felt nothing, and dropped with a grunt that rattled his teeth.

  “Better,” Maxwell said. “Again.”

  Reece managed his two-hand hang again, and this time got three clear steps before the stone dismissed him. Zak swore his way through a dozen failed attempts and came away with more new blisters than progress. They flailed. They panted. They kept going. The sun climbed, cautious and pale behind the cloud cover. The fang watched with its usual lack of interest.

  Then Maxwell said, “Enough.”

  Toby turned, breathing hard. “Already?”

  “My turn,” Maxwell said. He rolled his shoulders, the motion easy in a way that made Toby’s own stiffness feel twice as loud. “Watch.”

  He stepped up to the stone—no flourish. He laid his palm against the white surface and stood for a moment, eyes half-lidded, as if listening to something no one else could hear.

  Toby felt it before Maxwell moved, but it was different, faint, like a gentle breeze caressing his skin. He’d almost missed it—he had assumed it was the wind, but there wasn’t so much as a peep right now. It was strange and soft, not the usual crushing, suffocating pressure when used in battle. The air didn’t shimmer at Maxwell’s hands either.

  Then his feet left the ground, and it was obvious to the three of them that he was using all fours to climb. Toby hadn’t even seen him take off his boots. Maxwell rose in smooth, unhurried increments, as if the wall itself were lifting him up. One hand, then the other, crawling upward in a rhythm that felt almost slow until Toby tried to imagine matching it. Muscles shifted under gambeson and cloak, a controlled, coiled strength that came from more than flesh. In a handful of breaths, he was above their heads. In a few more, he was twice that.

  Zak craned his neck back. “Show-off,” he muttered, not quite under his breath.

  “Good,” Reece said softly. “We need something to aim at.”

  Toby watched every movement, every small adjustment, trying to map them onto his own body. He couldn’t feel the pull of the Art around Maxwell anymore; even at this distance, the old knight was too far away. Maxwell reached the top of the fang and swung one leg over with the ease of a man mounting a horse. For a heartbeat he balanced there, a dark shape against the brightening sky. Then he straightened, and was hard to see.

  The fang was as thick as a cottage at the bottom, and didn’t taper off very much. From below, Toby saw only his outline—cloak tugged by the wind, head turning slowly as he scanned the plains. Toby barely made out what he shouted into the endless plains. Maxwell gripped the edge of the stone again, tested his grip, then swung his feet down. He made it look as easy as climbing a ladder. When he finally got down, he told them to get ready—as soon as his boots were back on, they were leaving camp again.

  “Game?” Zak asked.

  Flint snorted at Zak and tried to bite his hand with the bit as if to say, Why’d you leave me in the rain?

  “Maybe,” Maxwell said. “We’ll see when we get closer. For now…” He looked at them, and Toby had the strange sense that those sharp eyes found him first. “For now, remember that it’s possible. We’ll see each of you up there.”

  Toby swallowed. “Could you see the marshes?” he asked before he could stop himself.

  “Not from this far,” Maxwell said. “But I could see where the land starts to sag that way. We’re riding that way. Today, we hunt. The stone will still be here when we get back.”

  Toby looked from Maxwell to the gleaming height above them. His arms ached. His palms burned. The storm had scoured the world, left everything sharper. He flexed his fingers once, feeling the ghost of that strange, half-made grip. Soon, he told himself, he’d stand where Maxwell had just stood—plains below, no wall left between him and what waited.

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  The plains had changed clothes, but not their temper. Where the storm had been all noise and fury, the noon that followed was a slow, baking grind. The ground, still swollen with yesterday’s water, sweated it back up under a sun that seemed offended by the clouds it hadn’t burned through. Humidity clung to them like another layer of gambeson.

  Oak’s hooves made soft, sucking sounds with every step. The mud wasn’t the sloppy, ankle-deep kind, but each patch of damp earth grabbed and let go in a way that made Toby’s knees complain. His cloak stuck to the back of his neck. The air smelled of wet dirt, hot grass, and the faint sour of things the storm had half-buried instead of cleaned.

  They rode with their cloaks thrown back and their collars loosened. Steam lifted from the low places where water still pooled. The creek they’d camped beside had cut itself deeper and run on behind them; ahead, the land began to sag in the slow, subtle way Maxwell had pointed out from the fang.

  Reece spotted them first. “There,” he said quietly, lifting his chin.

  Ahead and a little to the right, a small herd of deer grazed in a shallow hollow where the grass grew long and gold. Not the great red stags Toby had heard hunters boast of, but lean, narrow-faced creatures with sharp ears and thin legs, their hides dappled pale and brown. A few lifted their heads as the riders crested a gentle rise, dark eyes flicking toward them, ears twitching.

  “Should be another easy hunt for you, Ser,” Zak said, keeping his voice low but not bothering to hide the grin. Sweat had plastered his hair to his forehead; his smile looked glued on by habit rather than comfort.

  Maxwell’s mouth curved. “Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe it’s your turn.”

  He loosened the bow from where it lay across his saddle and, with a casual flick, tossed it toward Zak. Zak yelped and fumbled, barely catching the stave before it smacked him in the chest. Flint tossed his head in protest, the gray gelding sidestepping as Zak clutched reins and bow both.

  “Ser—” Zak stared down at the weapon as if it had grown teeth. “We’ve barely had any practice with this thing.”

  “Better now than never,” Maxwell said. “They’re not going to stand there politely forever.”

  Toby watched Zak’s face go from cocky to cautious in the span of a breath. He’d seen Maxwell only use the bow once—seen what it did to the bison. Up close, the weapon looked even more unreasonable. The stave was thick, the string a pale, tight line, the whole thing carrying the quiet menace of something that had been used well for a very long time. Zak licked his lips, settled the lower limb against his boot, and got a grip on the string.

  “Just like Sire Kay showed us,” he muttered. “Only heavier. And scarier. And with a Ser breathin’ down my neck.”

  He pulled. Nothing happened. The string twitched, barely. The wood didn’t seem to notice his effort at all. Zak’s arms stood out in hard lines, jaw clenched, teeth bared, but the bow might as well have been a carved bit of the fang. Reece’s shoulders started to shake.

  “Don’t,” Zak ground out. “Say. A word.”

  Reece failed. A snort escaped him, then a small, helpless laugh. Daisy flicked an ear back at the sound.

  “You try, then,” Zak snapped, red-faced.

  He let the bow go with an exasperated huff and all but shoved it across the gap between their horses. Flint danced sideways again, annoyed at being dragged into his rider’s humiliation. Reece caught the bow more cleanly, his expression sobering as he felt the weight of it. He set the tip against his boot, gave the deer a quick, apologetic glance—as if they might forgive him for what he was about to fail at—and took hold of the string.

  Reece drew in a breath and pulled. Veins stood out along his neck. His shoulders bunched and locked. The string crept back the barest finger-width, maybe two, then held. Reece let it go with a hissed curse, rubbing at his fingers.

  “You were serious,” he said. “I thought you were joking because you’re a bad shot.”

  Zak brightened. “Of course I’m a bad shot,” he said. “We haven’t practiced.”

  “You’ve only practiced excuses,” Reece shot back automatically, even as he handed the bow across to Toby. “Go on, then. Maybe you can show off again.”

  “Split the deer in half with a single shot. That would be a sight,” Zak said.

  Toby took it with both hands. The weapon felt heavy and unyielding in his palms. He recognized the wood that had been cared for. He’d handled scythes and hoes and yokes and awkward bundles his whole life; this was just another stubborn weight, he told himself.

  Oak snorted as Toby shifted in the saddle. Toby set the lower limb carefully against his boot, mindful of the horse’s dancing discomfort, and wrapped his fingers around the string. He pulled. The resistance met him like a wall. For a heartbeat, nothing moved. He dug in, arms and back and all that hard-earned farm strength straining in a single line.

  The string crept back. An inch—maybe two. Every muscle in his shoulders screamed about the unfairness of it. His breath sawed in and out between his teeth. Sweat trickled down his spine. Oak stamped, shifting his weight. The tiny movement wobbled Toby’s balance enough that the world tilted. For a moment he felt the humiliating certainty that he was about to topple backward off the gelding like a sack. He let the string go before it could drag him down. It snapped back into place with a sharp, angry twang that made Oak toss his head and dance sideways with a snort.

  “Easy,” Toby muttered, patting the horse’s neck with his free hand. Oak’s skin twitched under his palm, offended ears flicking.

  Toby flexed his fingers, feeling them tremble. The bow had given him less than a handful of inches and taken most of his dignity. Before Zak could find something clever to say about that, a sound broke across the plains. A crackle—low at first, like distant fire snapping through dry wood. It ran along Toby’s ears and down his spine, wrong in a way he couldn’t name. The hair on his arms prickled.

  All three younger knights glanced up automatically, scanning the sky for dark clouds, for some new storm rolling in. There was barely a smear of gray up there. The sun still burned through thinning cover, hard and white. The crackle came again—closer now, sharper, as if the air itself were tearing along some invisible line.

  “Ser?” Reece said, unease flattening his voice.

  Maxwell had already turned. “Bow,” he said.

  The word was flat, stripped of humor. His hand was out before Toby fully understood. Toby shoved the weapon back across the space between them. Maxwell caught it one-handed, as if it weighed half what it did in anyone else’s grip, and slung it to his saddle without taking his eyes off the horizon.

  “Saints help us,” Maxwell said softly.

  The way he said it made Toby’s stomach turn. What could Maxwell possibly need the saints for?

  Maxwell’s voice came up hard and clear, carrying over the steaming grass. “Blades out. Now. Prepare yourselves.”

  Toby’s hand went to Falreth’s hilt before the words had finished. Steel whispered free beside him as Reece and Zak drew in the same breath, three swords catching the washed-out light while the plains held their breath around them.