Prince Aelindor Silverleaf knelt in the mud outside the guardhouse and counted the coins the road had left him. Four. He needed a witness before nightfall, or the knighthood board would strike his name from the trial roll and send him home to his father's hall in silks. No highborn of his house had ever returned alive from the quest he meant to swear. That was the point. But a claim without a sworn companion to witness it was called a boast, and boasts did not ride out. He stood, brushed his knees, and walked toward the living tree-house at the edge of the grove. Its roots swallowed the path. Balconies coiled up the trunk. Lantern light hung in the branches like fruit. The steward at the door told him what three stewards had already told him that day. No hedge knight would swear to a prince he did not know. No merchant guard would risk the road for four coins. The names on the board's roll list would be read at dusk. On the low balcony above the door, an elven mage sat cross-legged, stripping bark from a piece of wood with his thumbnail. Moss grew along the seams of his robe. An antler crown rested on his brow. His staff lay across his knees. Aelindor had seen him once at the ring gate, arguing quietly with an archdruid about a rot in the roots. "You," Aelindor said. "Mage. I need a witness." Thornwick Mossweaver looked down. "For what." "A quest. The board closes the roll at dusk." "Which quest." Aelindor named it. The old ruin in the black water. The tower no son of his house had walked out of. Thornwick set the wood down. "North of here?" "Three days." "The forests north of here are going silent. Tree by tree." He watched Aelindor's face. "You knew that." "No." "Then you know now." Thornwick stood. He was small under the antlers. "I need to walk that road. I will swear to you as far as the tower. Not past it." "Agreed." "One more thing." Thornwick came down the ladder and stopped a pace from him. "I saw a human at the ring gate. Black robes. He hid his sleeve when I looked. He is going north too." Aelindor's hand went to where his sword should have been and found belt. "Then we go faster." They walked to the guardhouse together. Thornwick pressed his thumb to the roll and spoke the oath in six words. The clerk wrote Aelindor's name above the quest. The board closed. Aelindor had his witness. Outside, the light had gone red. Thornwick was already looking north, at the line of trees where the birds had stopped calling. Aelindor understood, standing there with his four coins and his sworn companion, that he had bought his place on the roll by tying his road to a man who was hunting something else.

They left the guardhouse at first light. Aelindor walked with his hand on an empty belt and his eyes on the road. Thornwick walked half a pace behind, staff tapping soft against the packed dirt. The trees along the path stood quiet. No birds. No wind through the leaves. Aelindor did not know what waited three days north, and he did not know what the tower would ask of him when he reached it. He knew only that walking blind had killed every cousin who tried this quest before him. "You have been to the tower," Aelindor said. It was not a question. "Once. From the ridge. I did not go down." Thornwick did not look at him. "Then tell me what is there." "Black water around the base. Roof half gone. Arrow slits with nothing behind them." Thornwick tapped the staff. "And frogs." "Frogs." "Bigger than dogs. Skin runs poison. They sit in the water and wait." He glanced at Aelindor's belt. "You have no blade." "I have four coins." "Keep them." Thornwick stopped in the road. He pressed his thumb to the staff and spoke three words Aelindor did not catch. A green shoot climbed the wood and split into a short, straight branch as long as a forearm. Thornwick snapped it off and held it out. "Blackthorn. It will take poison better than steel. Aim for the throat pouch, not the eye. The eye is armored." Aelindor took the branch. It was warm. "There is also the door," Thornwick said. "The frame is set with runes. Old ones. Do not touch the frame. Step through the middle or do not step through at all. A prince from your grandfather's time put his palm on the stone and left his hand behind." Aelindor felt the road tilt under him. "Anything else." "The floor inside is rotten. Boards split. Blood in the grain that never dried. Walk the walls, not the middle." Thornwick started walking again. "That is what I saw. That is what I will tell you. Past the tower I will not go." Aelindor followed. He turned the blackthorn in his hand and counted what he had been given. A weapon. A door he could not touch. A floor he could not trust. It was not a map, but it was more than his cousins had carried. At the top of the next rise, Thornwick stopped and looked north. Aelindor followed his eyes. A thin figure in black robes moved along the road below them, a full day ahead already, staff dark against the pale dust. The figure did not turn. One sleeve hung heavy at his side. "He is faster than I thought," Thornwick said. Aelindor closed his hand on the blackthorn. He was no longer walking blind. He was walking second.

They reached the tower on the third day at dusk. Aelindor stopped at the treeline and looked down. Black water ringed the base of the blackstone tower in a flat, still moat. The roof gaped where stone had fallen in. Green slime ran down the walls in long streaks. Lily pads sat unmoving on the water. Nothing moved on them either. Thornwick stopped a pace behind him and planted his staff. "This is as far." "I know." "Aim for the throat pouch. Not the eye." "I remember." Thornwick did not wish him well. He sat on a root and watched. Aelindor went down the slope alone. He held the blackthorn branch low and kept his steps light on the loose stone. At the edge of the water he crouched. The moat was maybe ten paces across. The tower door stood on the far side. He could not see the bottom. He picked up a rock and threw it wide. The water broke. A frog the size of a hound heaved up onto a pad. Its back was slick green, striped yellow and pink, two short horns above the eyes. Beads of poison stood on its skin like sweat. It blinked at the splash. A second one surfaced closer, then a third. Their throats worked, filling and emptying. Aelindor counted three. He could not fight three in the water. He stepped back and looked at the moat wall. The stone rim stood a hand's width above the surface, cracked but wide enough for a foot. It ran the whole way around. He could walk it. He put one boot on the rim and shifted his weight. The stone held. He took the second step. The nearest frog turned its head to follow him. He kept the branch pointed at its throat pouch and moved sideways, heel to toe, eyes on the frog, not the stone. Half way across the rim crumbled under his back foot. His leg dropped. His knee cracked against the ledge. The branch swung wide for balance and the tip brushed the water. The frog jumped. He drove the blackthorn up as it came down. The point went into the throat pouch and out the back of its jaw. The weight carried them both sideways. He caught the rim with his free hand. The frog thrashed once, then hung on the branch, still. The other two slid off their pads and did not surface. Aelindor pulled himself up. His knee bled. His hands shook. The branch was slick with frog blood and clear poison ran down toward his fingers. He held it away from his skin and finished the rim one careful step at a time. He reached the door. He set the fouled branch down on the stone. He still could not touch the frame. And he had no weapon now that he could hold.