Nolan Orvyn split his last log of the morning and knew the axe would not save him this time. Twenty years he had lived as a woodcutter on the ridge, patched coat, grey beard, boots worn thin. Twenty years since the fire that was supposed to kill him. The signet ring on his finger stayed turned inward, the crest pressed against his palm. He was old now. He needed to give the ring to someone before his enemies down the valley learned that a dead man was still cutting wood. The trouble was simple. The ring alone proved nothing. Any thief could wear a band of dragon hide and diamond and claim a dead lord's name. Without a paper, a seal, a witness, the ring was a trinket. No ally of his old house would kneel to an heir he named on his word alone. His word had been buried with him. He walked down to the blacksmith house at the foot of the ridge, the one with the red brick chimney. He had hidden something there the night he ran. He needed it now. Inside, the sweeper was working the hearth ash into a pile. The stitched girl who kept the place. A seam ran up her neck to her jaw. Her glass eyes caught the forge light and held it. She stopped sweeping when he came in. "You're not here for shoeing," she said. "No." Nolan crossed to the chimney and knelt. He counted three bricks up from the floor and pried one loose with his knife. Behind it lay an oilcloth bundle he had not touched in twenty years. He drew it out. The girl watched. "That's been there longer than I have." "Longer than most things." He unwrapped the cloth on the anvil. Inside lay a folded parchment, a wax disk stamped with the same crest as his ring, and a small turquoise sword and shield, matched, weathered, the badges of his old guard. Proof. Enough proof that any man who had served the house would know the ring was his and his to pass. He pressed the ring's face to the wax. The crests matched. He exhaled. The girl set down her broom. "Whoever you are, they'll come for you now." "They will." He looked at her. Steady hands. Eyes that missed nothing. A girl the town treated as furniture. "You know every face that walks through this door." "Every one." "Then I need you." He wrapped the parchment and seal again and held the bundle out. "Keep this. Don't open it. If I don't come back in three days, burn it." She took the bundle in both hands. Her fingers closed on it as if she had waited her whole short life to be handed something that mattered. Outside, a rider was working up the ridge road toward his cabin. Nolan saw the horse from the doorway. He had proof now. He also had, at last, been seen.

Nolan watched the rider crest the ridge from the blacksmith's doorway. One man, riding easy. That meant scouts, not soldiers. A scout meant a report, and a report meant a company on the road by dusk. He had hours, not days. He could not walk the ridge road as himself. Grey beard, patched coat, the limp in his left knee — any old guardsman from the valley would know him in a glance. He stepped back inside. The sweeper girl still held the bundle against her apron. "I need clothes that aren't mine," he said. "And I need to be off this ridge before dark." She set the bundle on a shelf behind the bellows and covered it with a rag. "The smith keeps a trunk in the loft. Traveler's things. Left by men who didn't come back for them." "Show me." She climbed the ladder first. He followed slower. In the loft stood a suit of old armor on a wooden frame, plates dented, straps cracked, a helm with a narrow slit for the eyes. Beside it, a cedar trunk. She opened the trunk and pulled out a drover's cloak, a wide felt hat, a stained scarf, and boots larger than his own. Nolan looked at the armor. "Whose was that?" "A man who paid to have it stored. Ten winters back. He never came." He almost reached for it. Armor would answer the blade in his back. It would also announce him from a mile off. A woodcutter in plate was a story that traveled faster than he could ride. He took the cloak and hat instead. He pulled the scarf up over his beard. He stuffed rag into the toes of the borrowed boots and stood. The girl looked him over. "Walk," she said. He walked the length of the loft. She shook her head. "Your back gives you away. Bend it. You're a drover, not a captain." He bent it. He tried again. She nodded once. "There's a farmer taking a cow elk and her calf down to the market road at dusk," she said. "He owes the smith money. He'll take a quiet man on the cart and not ask." "Send me with him." She went down the ladder. He heard her cross the yard, speak low to someone, come back. When she climbed up again, she carried a mug of ash from the forge. "Your hands," she said. He held them out. She rubbed ash into his palms and up his wrists until the skin looked like a working man's who had never held a seal. She stopped at the ring. She did not touch it. She only glanced up at him, and he turned the band further inward with his thumb. At dusk he climbed onto the cart behind the elk and her calf. The rider from the ridge passed them going the other way. He did not turn his head.