Caleb could hear the mill well before he reached it.

  A wet, steady roar came through the trees. The wheel chewed river water into spray, the stones inside ground grain into flour with patient brutality. The air smelled of damp timber and sour mash, of oil rubbed into axles, of flour dust that clung to your insides if you breathed too deeply. Caleb wiped his hands on his trousers out of habit, though he’d washed at the pump before leaving the garden. The smell of thyme still clung to his fingers anyway.

  He stepped out onto the packed earth yard, and a fine white haze drifted past his boots like morning fog that had lost its way.

  “Careful!” someone shouted.

  Caleb glanced up just in time to see a sack swing overhead on a rope, carried by a boy older than him and twice as proud. The sack bumped a beam, flour puffing out in a soft cloud that rained down on everything. Caleb tilted his head away and blinked.

  From somewhere inside the mill came laughter loud enough to be heard over the wheel. Caleb knew that laugh all too well.

  “Still alive, are you?” Tomas’s voice followed, bright and insolent. “I was starting to think the garden finally swallowed you.”

  Tomas appeared in the doorway a heartbeat later, backlit by the dim interior. His hair was a mess, dusted white at the temples like he’d gone gray overnight. Flour streaked his cheek in a handprint. He had his sleeves rolled and his hands on his hips like he was king of the mill.

  “You look even pastier than usual, like a ghost,” Caleb said.

  Tomas spread his arms. “Behold. The spirit of hard labor. Come to haunt Appleford.”

  Caleb smiled, despite himself. “Appleford could use some excitement.”

  Tomas stepped closer, and the flour smell grew stronger. He jabbed a finger at Caleb’s shirt. “You’ve got dirt on you.”

  “I work in a garden.”

  “That’s no excuse,” Tomas said solemnly. “You could at least make it look like you were raised properly.”

  Caleb snorted. “Says the man who’s half flour, at this point.”

  Tomas leaned in and lowered his voice as if sharing something sacred. “Aye, at this rate if I work up a sweat I’ll turn into bread.”

  “Then you’d finally be useful,” Caleb said.

  Tomas clutched at his chest. “Cruel. Truly cruel. Your mother should wash your mouth out with nettles.”

  “She has,” Caleb said. “You and I both. Didn’t seem to change much.”

  Tomas’s grin softened at that, not much, but enough to show that he did know. Elin’s sharp tongue and sharper eyes were famous in Appleford, especially among boys unfortunate enough to misbehave in her presence.

  A man’s burly shout from inside the mill cut through them. “Tomas! If you’ve got time to flirt, you’ve got time to stack sacks!”

  Tomas turned and raised his arms. He called back, “I’m not flirting! I’m being oppressed!”

  Caleb couldn’t help but chuckle.

  Caleb leaned against the outer wall where the mist cooled his face. He watched Tomas for a moment. Tomas looked like he belonged here, loud and impossible to ignore, as if the mill wheel turned because it enjoyed listening to him complain.

  “I got word that some trout in the river are eager to be dinner. You coming?” Caleb asked.

  Tomas glanced over his shoulder toward the doorway, weighing his duty at the mill the way he weighed everything else. Lightly. “I might,” he said. “Depends if my father grows a second head in the next minute.”

  “Don’t tempt the gods,” Caleb said.

  Tomas’s eyes brightened. “Speaking of tempting. How about those riders?” Tomas leaned closer, dropping his voice again. “Clean cloaks. Real horses. Not our sorry cart nags. When they came through yesterday they went right up to the manor like they owned the road.”

  Caleb’s fingers tightened on the strap of his pack. He kept his voice steady. “I remember. They left earlier today.”

  “I didn’t get a good look at ‘em.” Tomas said. “Did they have swords? Fancy ones? Did they seem the sort that’d cut a man in half for fun?”

  “They looked like they didn’t need to,” Caleb said.

  Tomas blinked. “That’s a grim answer for a boy who trims plants.”

  Caleb shrugged. “It’s true.”

  Tomas made a face. “I liked it better when they were mysterious. Now they’re just...”

  “Men,” Caleb said. “Men who don’t look around because they already know what they want.”

  Tomas scoffed and tried to turn it back into a joke, because that was what Tomas did when something came too close. “Maybe they just heard Lady Bramblewick makes an excellent pie.”

  “Lady Bramblewick’s never made a single pie in her life,” Caleb said. “And they didn’t come for pie.”

  Tomas sighed theatrically. “You’ve got no imagination.”

  Caleb watched a worker haul another sack across the yard, muscles straining, face set in that dull patience people got when the day was going to be long and the body already knew it. The sack bumped the beam again. Flour drifted. Tomas reached up and wiped it from his forehead, smearing it worse.

  Tomas leaned back against the wall beside Caleb, shoulder touching shoulder, easy as breathing. “When they rode by they didn’t so much as glance our way. Like the mill was invisible.”

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  Caleb glanced at him. “That bother you?”

  Tomas considered, then shrugged. “Not really. If they looked, they’d see notice how nice this mill is. Might decide they want it. And I’m not in the mood to be owned by anyone.”

  Caleb huffed a laugh. “As if you aren’t already.”

  Tomas pointed a floury finger at him. “This is what I mean. Oppressed.”

  The gruff voice from inside the mill barked again. “Tomas!”

  Tomas grimaced. “That’s the sound of my father’s affection.”

  Caleb pushed off the wall. “Come on. If we’re going, we have to go now.”

  Tomas hesitated just long enough to make it look like he was mulling it over. Then he snatched up his rod and his small pack from where he’d hidden them behind a stack of split wood.

  “I’ll be back in an hour,” he called toward the doorway.

  His father’s answer was immediate. “You’ll be back when I say you’re back!”

  Tomas didn’t bother replying. He just grinned at Caleb, bright and shameless, and started walking.

  Caleb fell into step beside him, the mill’s damp roar at their backs. As they walked, the air changed from flour and oil to leaf and river. The sound of the wheel faded behind them, replaced by birdsong and their own footsteps on the path.

  Tomas swung his rod like a sword. “If those riders were knights, do you think they have a set of plate? The knights I’ve seen only have chain and cloth.”

  Caleb glanced at him. “They might. I didn’t get a chance to ask.”

  “Shame,” Tomas said. “I’d like to ask one how they scratch their arse through plate.”

  Caleb laughed, quick and real, and Tomas looked quite pleased with himself.

  They walked on, leaving the mill behind. Behind them was work and parents and orders, the ordinary weight of the day. Ahead of them was the river, and for a little while, that was enough.

  Coolness slid over Caleb’s skin like a clean cloth, carrying the smell of wet stone and leaf rot and something sharper beneath it. The cold iron tang of moving water. Sunlight filtered through the willows in broken coins, flickering across the surface. The noise of the mill was gone now, replaced by the low, steady talk of the river as it bent around the stones. It was not silence, but it was close enough to feel like peace.

  Tomas stopped at the bank and stretched, arms high, rod bumping against his shoulder. “There she is,” he said. “Still running. Still ignoring our many fine qualities.”

  “She’s rude like that,” Caleb said.

  They moved without speaking after that, slipping into habits learned young. Tomas unhooked his line, checked the knot with his teeth, spat, and tied it again anyway. Caleb crouched to rinse his hands in the shallows, letting the cold bite at his fingers. He picked his place with care, just downstream of a rock where the current slowed and deepened. Tomas took the spot upstream without argument. They had never needed to argue over it.

  The first cast cut cleanly through the air. The line kissed the water and vanished. They stood there for a time, the river doing what rivers did, their world narrowing to water and waiting.

  Tomas broke the silence first, as he always did. “When I leave Appleford,” he said, “I’m joining a caravan.”

  Caleb glanced sideways. “You can barely sit still for an hour, and you want to travel by caravan?”

  “I’ll learn to,” Tomas said. “Or at least learn to tolerate it for money. I hear caravans go all the way to Thalassar. They have ships there with sails taller than the mill roof.”

  “Have you ever even been on a ship?”

  “There was that logboat we built that one time,” replied Tomas.

  “The one you tipped over in? You’d get seasick if you ever stepped foot on a real boat,” Caleb said.

  “Only once,” Tomas replied. “Then I’d be cured forever.”

  Caleb snorted. “That’s not how sickness works.”

  Tomas waved a hand. “Details. Or I’ll go north. Join one of the clans in Varheim. They respect a man who can drink and complain.”

  “You’d freeze.”

  “So I’d either complain louder or drink more.”

  Caleb smiled, but his eyes stayed on the water. “You ever think about staying?”

  Tomas’s line twitched. He ignored it on purpose. “Sometimes,” he said. “Mostly when father’s in a good mood. Which is rare, but memorable.”

  Caleb felt the pull then, a quick tug that went straight to his wrist. He tightened his grip, waited, then lifted the rod in a smooth motion. The trout broke the surface in a flash of silver and muscle, fighting hard before yielding. Caleb drew it in and dispatched it cleanly on the stone at his feet.

  Tomas whistled. “That didn’t take long.”

  “The river likes me,” Caleb said.

  “Pities you, more like.”

  Caleb unhooked the fish and set it in the basket. It had a decent weight to it. “You talk about leaving like it’s a story to tell the young ones and laugh about when you’re old.”

  Tomas shrugged. “That’s what stories are for.”

  Caleb cast again. “I can’t say I think about grand places like Thalassar or Varheim or even Valedorn,” he said. “Just somewhere that’s not Appleford. Places where no one knows who you were yesterday or where you’ll be next.”

  Tomas grinned without looking at him. “That sounds lonely.”

  “Maybe,” Caleb said. “But at least it’d be something.”

  Tomas glanced over then, just a flicker, like checking the weather. “You’d hate caravans then,” he said. “Too many people with too much time to know your business.”

  “Probably,” Caleb said. “But I wouldn’t know till I tried.”

  They fished in companionable quiet for a while after that. The river offered another trout, then another. Tomas whooped when he finally landed one of his own, nearly slipping into the water in his excitement.

  “Did you see that?” he crowed. “Perfect form.”

  “You nearly fell in after it,” Caleb said.

  “Worth it.”

  They laid the fish out on a flat stone, their shining bodies still twitching faintly. Tomas crouched and poked one with a finger. “We could sell these,” he said. “Or trade them for some real meat.”

  Caleb shook his head. “Mum will want them.”

  Tomas sighed. “Can’t upset your mum. My ear still hurts from the last time I did.”

  “Then we shouldn’t disappoint her,” Caleb said.

  They cleaned the fish together, hands working in rhythm. Tomas talked the whole time about nothing and everything. About a man in Redmere who supposedly ate nothing but eels. About a rumor that the lord’s daughter could read faster than a priest. About the riders again. About the upcoming harvest and festival.

  They divided the fish without speaking. Two for Caleb. Two for Tomas. It felt right that way.

  Tomas slung his over his shoulder. “Tell your mother I caught one,” he said. “She likes me better when I provide.”

  “She likes you better when you don’t track flour into her house.”

  Tomas puffed up his chest. “Flour is part of who I am. No avoiding that.”

  They parted at the bend in the path, easy as always.

  “See you tomorrow?” Tomas asked.

  Caleb nodded. “Tomorrow.”

  Tomas turned back toward the mill, already calling out to no one in particular, his voice carrying. Caleb went the other way, the weight of the fish solid against his side, the smell of river and clean blood in his nose.

  Caleb took the narrow path that cut up through the lower orchards, the ground soft underfoot where fallen leaves had begun to rot into the soil. The fish knocked lightly against his leg as he walked. He imagined the steady weight was a sword at his side, though he’d never had a sword to know if it was accurate. Somewhere above him, apples thudded softly as the breeze shook the branches, ripe and ready.

  The house came into view between two hawthorn trees. It was small and square and stubborn, its stones still warm from the day’s sun. Smoke drifted from the chimney, thin and blue, carrying the promise of fire and supper. He slowed without thinking, letting the moment stretch. From here, everything looked settled. The path. The patchy roof. The door that always creaked open.

  Caleb shifted the fish in his grip and started up the last rise, the river’s voice fading behind him as his stomach growled in anticipation of something other than apples or bread or cheese.