The damp chill of mid-morning settled into the taproom like wet wool. Outside the leaded windows, the town of Harth was stirring into the reluctant, brittle activity of a third day under siege. Cael Ardent had not left the threshold after all; he had paused with his boot upon the stone sill, his hand resting flat against the jamb, watching the cold mist roll up from the river willow beds. When he turned back inside, his cape dripped gray rainwater onto the floorboards.
“You speak as though command were a privilege one could lay aside on a shelf like an empty pewter bowl,” Cael said, his voice flat as he walked back toward the table. “You sit behind this counter, Master Hale, measuring out grain and dried peas, and you imagine that power is something a man hoards out of pride.”
Jon Hale remained seated, the quill resting across the lip of the stoneware inkstand. “I measure what people need to survive the night. An innkeeper does not imagine power; he cleans up after it.”
“Then understand this,” Cael said, leaning both hands upon the rough oak grain of the trestle. “The authority granted to the Returner is not a title of honor. It is an unyielding duty to the Crown. The High Chancellor did not place the Returner Seal at my collar to make me a magistrate or a father. He placed it there so that when the wall fractures, the kingdom does not lose its southern gate. If…
