Sir Aldric Violetheart rode into the empty tournament field with no one behind him. His blue armor caught the gray light. Purple feathers drooped on his helmet, damp from the morning fog. He wanted an order of knights whose colors would rival any royal house. But an order needs knights, and he had none. His purple horse stamped the mud, and the sound echoed off the old fences. He drew the rainbow sword and held it up. Every color slid across the blade at once. He had carried it for a year, sure that its glory would draw fighters to him. But there were no fighters here. Just weathered posts and torn banners from tournaments long dead. He had chosen this ground on purpose. A grand field once meant grand champions. Now it meant weeds. "You look like a fool waving that thing at grass." The voice came from the far fence. An old man leaned on a long axe, watching him. White armor, gray beard, a red scar down one cheek. Sir Aldric knew him at once. Gareth Ironhelm. The master who had trained him. The master who had once thrown him in the mud a hundred times before dawn. "I hoped you would come," Aldric said. "I came to laugh." Gareth pushed off the fence and crossed the field. He tapped the mud with his axe head. "No knights. No banners worth the cloth. You dreamed too big, boy." Aldric lowered the sword. "I have colors no house can match. I only lack the men." Gareth stopped close. His eyes were hard, but his mouth twitched. "Men don't follow colors. They follow proof." He nodded at the ring of old fences. "You want fighters? Then earn them the old way. Hold a tournament. Right here. Beat the ones who come, and they'll kneel." "No one will come to a dead field for an unknown knight." "They'll come if I send them." Gareth shifted the axe to his shoulder. "I train squires. Rough boys. Rival houses want them next spring. Give me a reason, and I'll send them here to you first." Aldric's grip tightened on the rainbow hilt. "What reason?" "Prove you can still fight." Gareth swung the axe down and set it between them. "Me. Now. If you can hold your ground against an old man, I'll believe you can hold an order." Aldric slid off his horse. His boots sank in the mud. He raised the shining sword, and its light spilled across Gareth's white armor. They circled. Gareth struck first, fast for his age. Aldric caught the axe on his blade. Steel screamed. He twisted, shoved, and drove the old man back two steps. Gareth grinned through his beard. He lowered the axe. "Good enough." He wiped his brow. "The squires arrive in three days. But hear me, boy. My best fighter already swore to a royal house. If you want the rest, you'll have to take him from them first."

Three days passed. The squires came at dawn, six of them, boots crunching the old field. Aldric waited by the weathered fence in his blue armor. His purple feathers hung ready. He expected respect. He got laughter. "Purple," said the tallest squire. He wore a royal house's badge on his sleeve, chipped and proud. "We bled for real colors. Not a jester's plumes." The others grinned. They did not draw their swords. They did not even bow. Aldric's order needed men who believed. These boys believed in nothing but the crest already on their arms. Gareth leaned on his axe at the gate. He said nothing. He wanted to see what his student would do. Aldric knew that silence. It was the same silence from the mud, years ago, when the old man made him solve his own problems. Aldric did not argue. He walked to the center of the ring. Something clung to the old fence post there, small and bright. A snail, its shell painted in a dozen colors, tiny wings folded on its back. Then another beside it. And more, dotting the rotted wood like scattered jewels. He had never seen the like. He cupped one in his glove. The wings opened. Every color he carried on his blade and horse and helmet shone in that one small shell. He held it up so the squires could see. "You think my colors are a joke," Aldric said. "Even the smallest thing in this field wears every color at once. And it flies where dull brown things only crawl." He set the snail on his purple feather. It clung there, wings bright against the plume. The tall squire snorted. "A bug. You'd win us with a bug?" "No," Aldric said. "With this." He drew the rainbow sword. The blade threw color across all six faces. He pointed it at the tall squire. "You mock the plumes. Then knock them off my helmet. Any of you. All of you at once. Beat me, and I'll wear a royal crest and never speak of an order again." The squires stopped grinning. A challenge they understood. The tall one drew first. The rest followed. Six blades against one. Aldric fought the way Gareth taught him. He gave ground, then took it back. He caught the tall squire's swing and turned it into the man beside him. He did not swing to kill. He swung to shame. One by one he knocked them into the mud, and the last one dropped his sword rather than fall again. Silence. The tall squire wiped mud from his mouth and looked up at the feathers, still whole, the small winged snail still clinging there. "Purple," he said. This time he knelt. The others knelt with him. Six squires in the dirt, sworn now to no royal house, but to a man in blue. Gareth pushed off the gate. "Six is a start," he called. "But my best still wears another man's crest. You've earned these. You haven't earned him."