The white warhorse was completely spotless.
Its polished steel barding caught the pale morning sun breaking through the river fog, throwing blinding diamond glints across the wet cobblestones of the High Street. The royal banner—a silver falcon diving through an azure field—snapped in the autumn breeze above a pristine white silk cloak that carried not a single speck of river muck or road dust.
Sir Cael Ardent dismounted before the wooden porch of the River Lantern Inn with the effortless grace of an imperial champion who had ridden twenty leagues without feeling the saddle. A crowd of three dozen dockhands, apprentice weavers, and tavern wenches clustered along the railings, cheering and clapping their hands. To them, the legend of the north had descended from the capital to deliver their town from the Ash Host. He was the sword of the realm, the invincible hero who had never lost a standard or surrendered a redoubt.
Only his eyes betrayed the lie.
Beneath the polished visor of his helm, Cael’s pupils were dilated, trembling, mapped with a spiderweb of broken red capillaries. His skin had the chalky, translucent pallor of a sick man who had spent three days staring into a furnace without blinking. His left hand gripped his gilded scabbard with white-knuckled desperation, while the fingers of his right hand twitched constantly against his thigh, clawing at phantom straps.
