Aldric stepped onto the high stone balcony of Wrathspire and looked down at the field below. A glowing star-shaped structure had been raised in the night by the foreign envoy's retinue, its points humming with cold light. The relic of his bloodline was gone, stolen, and he meant to get it back. But first this. At the foot of the keep stood a massive rune-marked hammer, driven head-first into the earth. It marked the meeting ground. The envoy waited beside it, hands folded, patient as a creditor. Aldric descended. The envoy lifted a weathered sword wrapped in a torn banner and laid it across the hammer's haft. "The debt your grandfather signed," the envoy said. "Pay it, or we march." Elara stood at Aldric's shoulder. She studied the blade, then the star, then the distant towers of Ironcrest Castle on the horizon. "The coffers are for the search," she said quietly. "Empty them here and the relic stays lost. Refuse and Wrathspire burns." Aldric did not flinch. He drew a ring from his finger, then another from his cloak, and set them on the torn banner. "Half now," he said. "The rest in a season. My son Kael rides as surety." The envoy weighed the offer, then bowed once and lifted the bannerblade away. The star dimmed as the retinue struck camp. Aldric watched them go. War was bought off, but the treasury was halved, and his son was now a hostage to a clock he could not stop.