Rowan Ashfield's Arc

Chapter 1 of 5

Rowan Ashfield was setting a corner stone when the fairy landed on the trowel. She sat on the handle and folded her wings like wet silk. Rowan froze with mortar dripping from the blade. The cottage foundation had taken three months so far, one stone at a time, most mornings before the sun cleared the ridge above Hogwallow. Rowan had promised themself a roof by winter, a hearth by spring, and a quiet life beside someone who could laugh at a fairy landing on a trowel. The fairy did not laugh. She pointed down the cart track and said, "He's waiting for you. He said you'd know." Rowan followed the track past the goat pen. Halfway to the road, driven into the dirt like a fence post, stood an old shield. Three swords crossed on its face, the iron pitted, the paint worn to rust. Rowan had carried the same mark on their shoulder for nine years. Seeing it planted in Hogwallow's mud felt like finding a grave marker with their own name on it. Beyond the shield, at the edge of the common pasture, a man sat on a broad tree stump with a satchel across his knees. Rowan knew the shape of him before they saw the face. Cato. They had pulled each other out of three sieges. Cato had been at the river the day Bram died, the day Rowan walked off the field and did not look back. Cato stood up slow, favoring his left leg, and held out a rolled parchment sealed with red wax. "Read it before you say no," he said. Rowan broke the seal. It was a decree, stamped and signed, ordering the muster of every veteran of the old company. Cato watched Rowan's face. "They're marching on the pass in six days," he said. "We need eight swords. We have seven." He nodded back toward the shield in the road. "I planted that so you'd know I came openly. If you turn me away, the next ones through won't. They'll come looking, and they'll find your cottage first." Rowan looked at the half-built wall behind them, at the fairy still perched on the trowel, at the mortar going hard in the bucket. Six days. A partner they had not met yet. A hearth that did not exist. Rowan rolled the decree back up and handed it to Cato. "I'm not going," they said. "Tell them I died at the river with Bram. Tell them whatever you need to." Cato held the parchment a long moment, then tucked it into his satchel. He did not argue. He pulled the shield from the mud on his way out, so no one else would read the sign. Rowan watched him limp down the track until the dust settled. Then they went back to the foundation and set the corner stone crooked, because their hands were shaking, and they had six days to decide what to do when the next man came who would not leave so easily.