The afternoon sun in Merriton bore down gently over the stone courtyard of the newly restored town hall. Jack stood beneath its modest archway, his sleeves rolled up and his hands dusted with earth. Sweat clung to his brow, and the beginnings of a sunburn were forming on his neck. He didn't mind. He preferred this honest fatigue over the suffocating silence of the Valorin estate or the veiled sneers in the court.
Damon approached with a purposeful stride, his armor clinking softly. "A royal courier, milord. From the capital."
Jack wiped his hands on a cloth and blinked. "Royal?"
Damon handed him a scroll bound in red-and-gold thread.
Jack stared at it.
For a long moment, he didn't move. This could be anything. A rebuke. A summons. A punishment.
He finally opened it.
The seal of the king shone faintly in the parchment's upper corner. The message was short.
> "The Crown acknowledges your stewardship of Merriton. The results of your agricultural experiment have reached us. As such, a royal grant of grain and tools shall be delivered to support further cultivation.
Continue your efforts. The realm is watching.
—King Edric of Elenath."
Jack reread it.
Then a third time.
He let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
Damon studied his face. "Good news?"
Jack folded the letter. "The king... acknowledged me."
He half-expected thunder to strike or the sky to split. Nothing did.
He chuckled dryly. "I didn't even think he remembered my name."
Damon, ever the reserved shadow behind him, actually smiled. "He didn't. Until now."
---
The town buzzed with murmurs that evening. News traveled faster than rats in the grain stores. Some didn't believe it. Others began whispering new titles under their breath. Lord Jack. Farmer Lord. Soil Baron.
Jack ignored them all.
He took the letter and returned to his quarters. He read it again, sitting at his simple desk.
Then his eyes wandered to the other note. The one from Laina.
It was still the only message he'd received from his children in months. Serin hadn't written. Caelum hadn't asked. They were told not to. And perhaps... they didn't want to.
He traced the faint crayon smudge Laina had accidentally made in the corner.
"I'm still just a ghost in their lives," Jack murmured.
He folded the king's letter and tucked it into the drawer.
---
Meanwhile, far away, in the private hall of Marquis Rook, candles flickered over an open map of the kingdom.
"Grain grants?" Rook snorted. "The king plays a dangerous game... lifting a man like him. He was supposed to remain a fool."
His steward, a sharp-eyed woman named Selice, replied, "But fools who become competent? They're the most dangerous of all. They owe no one. And they remember everything."
Rook leaned over the map. His fingers tapped over Merriton.
"We need to stop him before he becomes something permanent."
---
Back in Merriton, Jack stepped out into the night.
The wind was cooler now, brushing gently over fields he helped replant. He stood in silence.
"I don't want medals," he whispered. "I just want to stop being the shadow they wish they never knew."
But somewhere inside, a small ember of hope had lit.
The king saw him.
It was a start.