The night after the wolves, Shithead dreamt of light. A sword, bright as the sun, cutting through shadows. A cloak snapping in the wind. Words, deep and steady: Bravery is not in victory. It is in standing when others would fall.
He woke with the taste of those words still in his mouth.
Days passed, but the memory didn't fade. The paladin's image lingered with every task. When he fetched water from the well, he imagined carrying a shield instead of a bucket. When he hauled wood with Maren, he pictured himself marching in armor that gleamed like the man's. Even while sweeping the floor for Elira, he caught himself standing straighter, shoulders square, as though he bore a sword across his back.
The others felt it too.
Mira poked him with a stick one afternoon by the willow. "You've been walking like you swallowed a lance. Stop it before you poke someone's eye out."
Alan grinned. "He's training. Practicing to be a knight."
Tomas sprawled in the grass. "More like pretending. No one from Greystone becomes a knight."
Shithead didn't argue, but the words lodged like splinters. He remembered the crest of the silver sun, the easy strength in the paladin's stride. Knights weren't born in Greystone, true. But why couldn't one rise from here?
Lysa must have sensed his unease. She reached for his wrist, touching the ribbon still tied there, now frayed and fading. "Dreams start small. Don't let them scare you."
That evening, as the sun bled red over the fields, Shithead asked his father a question that had been gnawing at him since the clearing.
"Maren… what does it mean to be a paladin?"
His father paused over the plough blade he was oiling. "A paladin?" He rubbed the cloth slow against the steel, thinking. "It means more than fighting. More than strength. They swear themselves to gods, to laws, to vows higher than themselves. They carry burdens most men would drop."
"Could anyone become one?" Shithead asked, voice low.
Maren looked at him long, weighing the tusks, the broad frame, the eyes that burned with both fear and hope. "Anyone can want it. But not everyone is chosen for it. Some paths are harder to walk, son."
Elira joined them, laying her mending aside. "Harder paths often lead to higher ground," she said softly. She touched Shithead's cheek, the way she always had since he was a baby. "Don't be afraid to climb."
He swallowed, throat tight.
The next morning, he rose early, before chores. He went to the edge of the forest with his knife, found a fallen branch, and stripped it down to a rough length. He practiced with it until his arms ached — thrusting, swinging, blocking shadows only he could see. Birds scattered at his shouts, sweat soaked his tunic, but he kept at it until the branch split in his hands.
Mira found him there, breathless and dirt-streaked. She tilted her head. "Training already?"
He didn't answer, just wiped his brow and grinned.
She smirked. "Well. If you're going to dream, at least dream big."
By week's end, word of the wolf encounter had spread. Some villagers whispered admiration, others suspicion. Old Garrick sneered that wolves didn't belong so near Greystone until "orc blood" lured them. Widow Tamsin, by contrast, pressed a sweet into Shithead's palm and said, "Not many lads your age would stand. Keep standing."
Praise and suspicion, warmth and cold. He walked between them, never sure which he'd meet. But at night, when the village slept, he held his knife and traced the shape of a sword in the dark. He whispered the words the paladin had left him.
Courage without wisdom is wasted. Choose when to stand.
And he promised himself that someday, when the choice came, he would.