The workshop smelled faintly of smoke, oil, and tanned hide. A single candle burned low on the table, its flame bending with the drafts that slipped through the old wood beams. The letter lay open beneath that flickering light, the green wax seal already broken, but the parchment still crisp.

  The royal sigil gleamed faintly.

  Maruzan stood with both hands resting on the edge of the table, looking at it for a long time before speaking. His eyes were steady, though a quiet spark had taken hold behind them, something rare for him.

  He wasn’t one to be overburdened with joy. For Maruzan, joy wasn’t loud. It was patient. It lived in his work, in a perfect seam, a flawless stitch, a piece of armor that fit its wearer like a second skin. But tonight, that quiet joy was joined by something deeper: purpose.

  He had been waiting for this.

  When he finally spoke, his voice was calm but carried weight. “It’s official,” he said. “The King has granted us favor. A royal letter, permission to form an official warband.”

  There was a pause, then a loud clatter as Bram rolled a small keg into the room and slapped it with his palm. “Then I say this calls for a drink! Three months and a day aged, cooled by mountain stone, and sealed by optimism!”

  The dwarf’s grin was wide, his brown beard braided loosely, his sleeves rolled up. He moved like a man who had already decided that the world was meant to be faced with good company and good ale.

  Farrin, who stood nearby, gave him a look of quiet disbelief but didn’t stop him. She crossed her arms and leaned against the far table, her expression softer than her words. “You’ll use any excuse to drink, Bram.”

  “That’s not true,” Bram replied, unrolling a few cups from a pack. “Sometimes I drink because there’s no excuse at all.”

  The tension broke a little, and Maruzan allowed himself a faint smile.

  They were gathered in the back room of his workshop, a place that had grown more like a meeting hall than a business. The walls were lined with finished pieces of armor, each burnished and strong, made from hides that Xonya had risked her life to bring back from the wilds. The floors were swept, the benches scarred from years of use.

  This was home to him now.

  Ennett sat off to the side, sharpening her sword with slow, careful strokes. Sparks hissed against the whetstone. She was quiet as always, her now short hair tied back, her basilisk-scale armor gleaming faintly in the candlelight.

  She hadn’t said much since Maruzan read the letter aloud, but her stillness wasn’t disinterest. It was focus.

  She looked up briefly, meeting his eyes. “It’s a good thing,” she said simply. “We’ll make something of it.”

  Maruzan nodded. That was as close to praise as Ennett ever gave, but he took it to heart.

  Bram poured a round, his thick fingers moving with a craftsman’s ease. He handed the first cup to Farrin, then raised his own. “To the warband,” he said, his tone more serious now. “To the work ahead. To us.”

  Farrin hesitated before clinking her cup against his. “To us,” she agreed quietly. Her voice held a note of something else, pride, maybe, or resolve.

  Of all of them, Farrin had the most to prove, though she rarely admitted it. Back in Kellen-Tir, her family had mapped out her future before she’d even finished her first apprenticeship, a husband, a forge, a predictable life under stone. But she had walked away from all that, crossing the mountains alone.

  Arnathe had given her freedom. It had also given her a purpose she hadn’t expected, a reason to believe again.

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  Bram, on the other hand, had found joy in the simplest part of the life they shared: the road, the camaraderie, the work. He had always been the first to laugh and the first to fight, and though he pretended not to notice it, the others often looked to him to keep spirits high.

  As the cups clinked together, Maruzan stayed still. He didn’t drink. His hand rested lightly against the table, thumb brushing the edge of the parchment.

  “I’ll pass on the ale tonight,” he said quietly. “I’ve got a meeting.”

  Bram arched an eyebrow. “A meeting? Already?”

  “Already,” Maruzan said. “Mylor sent word this afternoon. I’m to meet with Princess Phoebe.”

  The room fell silent.

  Even Bram stopped smiling for a moment. Farrin’s gaze sharpened. “You’re serious?”

  Maruzan nodded. “At the Evening Terraces. Alone.”

  That word, alone, carried weight. Royal summonses didn’t happen in solitude unless they were delicate. Or dangerous.

  Ennett slid her sword into its sheath with a soft click. “Then this isn’t just formality,” she said.

  “No,” Maruzan agreed. “It’s not.”

  He looked around the table at the faces of those who had stood beside him, each of them scarred in their own way, yet unbroken.

  He thought of Xonya, who wasn’t here tonight but had already sworn her loyalty when he’d told her about the letter earlier in the week. She would have laughed at the idea of bowing before royalty, but she would have come anyway, because she believed in him. She’d been born in the low quarter, and she never forgot it. Every bounty she took, every arrow she loosed, was for the ones who couldn’t fight for themselves.

  He admired her for that.

  He also thought of Nethira, her calm voice, her quiet counsel. She’d told him once that the world had ways of choosing its servants long before they realized it. Maybe this was his turn to be chosen.

  Farrin finally broke the silence. “You should be careful. The crown doesn’t offer trust freely. They’ll test you first.”

  “I know,” Maruzan said. “But if this goes well, it could open doors. For us. For the Guild. Maybe even for the city.”

  Bram leaned back, the chair creaking beneath him. “Doors are nice,” he said, “but I’d rather we get a roof first. And a steady contract.”

  That drew a quiet laugh from Farrin, though her eyes didn’t lose their edge. “He’s right, in his way,” she said. “We’re not nobles. We don’t have banners or bloodlines. Whatever favor you’ve earned, it’ll only last as long as your next success.”

  Maruzan understood. He’d thought the same thing.

  He straightened, folding the letter carefully and tucking it into his coat. “Then we’ll make sure our next success counts.”

  Bram raised his cup again, more softly this time. “To Maruzan,” he said. “And to something bigger than ourselves.”

  The others lifted theirs in return.

  Ennett nodded once, her face unreadable. Farrin’s expression softened just slightly. For a moment, they were all silent, not the heavy kind of silence, but the kind that came from understanding what this moment meant.

  Maruzan looked at them, these people who had become his second family.

  He thought of his real one, too, his grandmother and aunts, Rinia among them, who had finally made their way to Arnathe after years of hardship. He’d visited them often. They’d found shelter in the high quarter, living with a kindly merchant family who treated them as their own. Seeing them safe had healed something in him he hadn’t realized was still broken.

  He had lost too much already. His mother’s death still sat heavy in his memory. But here, in this room, surrounded by those he trusted, he felt something he hadn’t in a long time, hope.

  It wasn’t loud. It didn’t burn. It hummed quietly beneath his ribs, steady and real.

  He looked down at the folded parchment once more, then slipped it inside his waist pocket. “Whatever happens next,” he said softly, “we do it together. That’s how this works.”

  Bram grinned, raising his cup again. “Then together it is.”

  They drank.

  Maruzan didn’t stay long after that. He cleaned his hands, adjusted the leather strap on his coat, and stepped out into the night air.

  The city was quiet, the lamps along the street glowing with soft yellow light. The sound of the river drifted faintly through the alleys, mingling with the clop of distant hooves.

  He walked slowly, the letter pressing lightly against his chest.

  This wasn’t just a summons. It was a test. Maybe even a turning point. He could feel it.

  When he reached the edge of the royal garden, the moon had risen high above the Terraces. The air carried a faint chill, and the leaves whispered gently in the breeze.

  He stopped for a moment, taking it all in, the stillness, the glow of the lanterns, the distant sound of the city beyond the walls.

  Then, quietly, he whispered to himself, “Let this be a beginning worthy of them.”

  And with that, Maruzan stepped forward toward the gardens, toward the meeting that would change the shape of everything to come.