The Chapterhouse had not smelled of food in weeks. For the initiates who had crawled out of the wild with frost still in their bones, the scent was dizzying: roasted boar dripping with fat, kettles of spiced venison stew, fresh loaves of bread glazed with butter until they gleamed, and wheels of cheese so sharp they pricked the tongue just to smell them. Casks of dark ale had been rolled up from the cellars, their froth spilling as mugs slammed and laughter rose.
The great hall roared with firelight. Braziers burned higher than Shithead had ever seen them, their flames painting banners of Aureon with white-gold glow until the stone walls themselves seemed alive. The feast was for the living — but its weight sat side by side with silence for the dead.
Long tables groaned beneath the weight of the spread. Survivors pressed close on the benches, cloaks mended hastily, armor scrubbed enough to hide frostbite and blood. Every bench throbbed with chatter and laughter, the clink of mugs, the scrape of knives on wood. And yet, between bursts of noise, shadows lingered. Too many benches sat empty. Too many mugs had been left untouched.
Shithead sat at the center of his company's table. His ribs still ached faintly, though the clerics had sealed the wound smooth with Aureon's light. He could breathe freely now, but the ache lived in his bones like a memory that wouldn't leave. Across from him, Eryk tore bread into exact halves, his pale eyes steady on the steam curling up from his bowl of stew. Talia sat on his left, already stacking her plate high, cheeks flushed from wine, talking with her mouth full as though the gods themselves might snatch her food away.
"By Aureon's own light," she said through meat and steam, "if someone tries to steal my bread, they'll get the serving fork through the hand."
Mara's new plate catching firelight like poured metal, arched an eyebrow. "Forks are for eating."
"Everything's for fighting if you try hard enough," Talia said, and snatched a lump of cheese with a little flourish as if to prove it.
Joren ate the way he did everything: calm, deliberate, no wasted motion. He drank sparingly, listening more than speaking, as if peace itself could be an act of watchfulness.
The bench filled with clatter and heat; the hall shook with a marching song, off-key but heartfelt. The first roar of the feast rolled on and then settled into a rhythm. When the servers refilled mugs for the third time, Eryk lifted his and spoke without raising his voice.
"We should drink. Not for ourselves." He let the sentence hang just long enough to turn heads. "For those who didn't return."
The laughter around them thinned. Even Talia's grin faltered. Shithead raised his mug. The others followed. The clink was not loud, but it carried.
"To the fallen," Eryk said.
They drank.
Warmth spread through Shithead's chest, though it didn't ease the heaviness. He set his mug down slowly, staring at the dark liquid clinging to the rim. Across the hall, laughter rang, mugs slammed, songs rose. But he felt the silence more. Empty benches. Faces he would never see again.
Brina found them only after the toast had settled, swaggering between benches with a grin that looked like it would have cut her if she'd tried to swallow it. She slammed her mug down hard enough to froth it over the rim and rapped knuckles twice on Shithead's shoulder.
"Still breathing, orc-blood? I figured a pine tree had your tusks nailed to it by now."
He didn't bother to look up from his trencher. "You'd have tripped on your braid before you made it to the shrine."
Brina threw her head back and laughed, loud enough to turn nearby faces toward the sound. "Good! That's what I want to hear." She cocked a finger at Mara's new armor, whistled low. "You'll blind raiders with that shine, sister."
Mara's mouth twitched. "If they're shielded by their own vanity, it will do nicely."
Brina snatched a crust from Talia's pile with criminal deftness, dodged the inevitable swipe, and moved on still laughing, trailing muttered threats from Talia and a ripple of amusement in her wake.
Calder had gone quiet while they ate, the old crooked grin on his mouth without the heat of it in his eyes. He turned his mug slowly by the handle, watching foam cling and slide.
"She covers it with noise," he said, still looking at the ale. "Not a sin. Better sometimes. Laughter's lighter than memories."
"And you?" Shithead asked.
Calder's mouth tilted. "I laugh too. I just don't shout."
Across the hall, voices rose in song. A marching tune, sung off-key but carried by enough throats to become a roar. Mugs pounded against tables, benches shook, and for a time the great hall throbbed with life. But even as Shithead listened, he felt the silence beneath it all. The feast was for the living, yes — but survival had a cost.
He looked down the table. Talia had leaned back in her seat, shoulders brushing his now and again. She hadn't moved away, and when he glanced sidelong, she caught his look and smirked faintly before shoving half a loaf of bread toward him.
"You've been staring into your mug like it'll sprout answers," she said. "Eat something before I start thinking you really are made of stone like Eryk."
"I was eating," he said, though his plate was nearly untouched.
"You were brooding," she corrected. Her voice softened just slightly, enough for only him to hear. "Don't let tonight sour on you. We made it back. That's worth more than sitting here chewing on shadows."
He took the bread. Their fingers brushed — just a moment — before she pulled her hand back and stuffed cheese into her mouth with exaggerated ferocity. "See? Already better," she said, grinning with her mouth full.
Shithead shook his head, but warmth spread beneath the heaviness.
What followed was a tide of heat and salt and smoke; voices rose and sank, knives rang against trenchers, mugs slammed time to the old marching meters. The new knights—Mara, Joren, and the three from the other companies—passed through the hall twice to greet Preceptors and accept embraces from their own, and both times conversation paused by instinct, not command. For a few beats, every head tipped just enough to catch the shimmer on a pauldron, the faint inner glow along a fuller, the way an oath can change the way a person carries their weight.
It didn't last long; even reverence loses to hunger. But it left small ripples. When the rush of eating slowed, the talk returned different. It spoke less of wolves and more of what comes after wolves.
Talia leaned back, the edge off her voice, her gaze fixed where the knights had been. "All right, I'll say it: I'm jealous." She pointed at the dais as if accusing it. "They walked out of there like somebody poured the sun into them. Plate, runes, holy light. And us? We've still got mud in the seams of our boots."
"Boots hold lines," Eryk said. "More than plate."
"Easy for you to say," she muttered. "You look like someone carved you out of frost and told you not to blink. I trip over my own straps."
"You complain loudly," Mara said. "You do not trip."
Talia turned pink and took that as a victory.
Shithead studied the rim of his mug with his thumb, remembering the voice of the High Preceptor like weather. "They didn't look like… us. Not exactly. Like Mara and Joren weren't only Mara and Joren anymore."
"Something more," Talia said.
Eryk said, "Something given over," at the same time.
They looked at him. He didn't flinch.
"Once you swear, it belongs to the Order," Eryk went on, eyes on the candle flame guttering near the salt. "The strength. The light. Yourself. It's still you. But more. And less."
Calder made a face and let his chair tip back on two legs, catching it with a boot heel when it wobbled. "So that's the prize? Endure twice and hand yourself over like a sword at a forge? Maybe I've had my share."
Shithead lifted his head at that. "Serious?"
Calder swirled what was left of his ale. "I brought my company back. We took the frost, killed the wolves, bled, and came out breathing. That's not something to pretend was easy. If Aureon wanted me to prove something, maybe I already did."
"You'd quit?" Talia said, sharper than she meant to. "After this?"
"I'd choose," Calder said, and there was a small iron in his voice under the grin. "Maybe I come back. Maybe not. But I decide when, and why."
Joren had listened without looking like he listened. Now he set his mug down. "Choice isn't the same as leaving," he said. "You'll all have it soon. The Chapterhouse will grant leave. Go home. See your kin. Remember what you protect. Decide if your feet still know the way back to our gate."
Shithead felt the sentence land in him like a thrown hook. He had known, of course, as rumor and as logic. It was different as truth. "They'll… let us go," he said, half a question.
"They will," Joren answered. "The Oath binds what's willing. Walls built from unwilling stones crack in the first thaw."
That drifted through the table like a change in weather. Talia's fingers slowed on the crust in her hand. Eryk looked down into his stew like a scryer into a pool. Mara didn't blink, but the line of her mouth thinned—not in disapproval, but in the recognition of weight.
From the far benches came a burst of clatter—Durin arguing cheerfully with two of Dorian's, gesturing with a bone like a pointer, proclaiming something about the proper angle to split a skull. Naia sat quiet behind them, polishing the winged crossguard of her new blade in small sure strokes. Dorian himself walked the length of the hall once, stopped at Shithead's end of the table long enough to set his mug down.
"You look less intolerable tonight," he said, which for Dorian was near to a compliment. "Try not to ruin it tomorrow."
Shithead met his eyes. "Try not to sprain your pride."
A muscle jumped in Dorian's cheek. Then he nodded. Respect. Not friendship, not yet—but not what it had been.
When he had moved on, Naia lifted her gaze toward Talia, having clearly heard more than Shithead thought she had. "You fight like fire," she said. "It's good. But fire eats itself if no one feeds it."
Talia's eyebrows went up. "And what are you? Snow?"
"Stone," Naia said simply. "Fire dies. Stone remains."
"Stone cracks," Talia muttered.
"Not easily," Naia said, and offered her mug. Talia hesitated, then knocked it lightly with a crooked grin.
Durin, still arguing, leaned back far enough to address them across his shoulder. "Stone's best with mortar," he rumbled. "One brick's rubble. Ten together makes a wall you can sleep behind." He lifted the bone in a mock toast in Shithead's direction. "You lot learned that in the frost."
Shithead gave him a short nod. "Yes."
"Good," Durin said, and went back to instructing someone in the science of bashing.
The hall warmed and softened. The first edge of hunger dulled into satiety; laughter got slower and deeper. The memory of wolves did not vanish, but it padded back a few steps out of the light. For a while, there was simply heat and noise and the comfortable graze of shoulders along a bench.
Kaelen had taken little for himself and wasted nothing. He'd left his helm elsewhere; without it, the lines of wear and weather at the corners of his eyes were more visible than the new shine to his armor. He'd been quiet through most of the feast, content to let the younger voices fill the space. When he finally spoke from just behind Shithead's shoulder, it was in the tone he used on the road when he had pointed at a horizon and named it.
"Eat," he said. "Drink. Laugh if you can." His mouth tugged, faint and fond. "Tomorrow the work is still here. No medallion waiting at the end of it."
That took some of the shine off the mugs. Calder ducked his head and pretended he hadn't heard it; Talia rolled her eyes and took another ostentatiously enormous bite; Eryk breathed once through his nose, approval or resignation. Mara's lips moved around a sentence she did not say.
Kaelen put a hand on Shithead's shoulder and squeezed once. "Walk."
It was not a question. Shithead wiped his hands on the hem of his cloak and rose.
The noise flattened against stone as they left it behind. The cloister smelled of damp and smoke and iron; torches hissed and spat in their brackets. The night had the brittle, held-breath cold of midwinter, and Shithead could hear the courtyard's eternal flame before he saw it, a low steady rush like the sound of blood in the ears.
They walked without speaking. Kaelen had never been in a hurry with words. When he chose them, they felt set.
"The first time I saw you," he said at last, "you had the look of a cornered pup. Teeth first. Fear right after it."
Shithead huffed. "Still feel like that sometimes."
"Good." Kaelen glanced sideways. "Fear's honest. Men without it step wrong." He let that sit, then added, "You did what I hoped you would. You learned to hold the line. To bleed with it rather than around it. Not because you swing harder. Because you stayed."
Shithead swallowed. The praise dug deeper than a cheer would have. "And if I hadn't?"
"The wild strips men down to what they are," Kaelen said. "Sometimes it shows a wall. Sometimes a door. Sometimes a cliff." The corner of his mouth twitched. "Sometimes a hole where a wall ought to be."
Shithead snorted despite himself.
They reached the flame. Its light was not warm like a cook's fire; it was clean. It made edges sharper. Shithead stood in it and felt both smaller and straighter.
"You have another Trial before you swear," Kaelen said. "Don't mistake survival for strength. Endurance isn't just not dying. It's knowing why you want to live."
The words landed and stayed. Shithead thought of his parents, of the willow at the river's bend, of the pact sworn beneath its shadow; of Calder's charm carved into a wolf's head; of Brina's laugh; of Mara's iron; of Eryk's exact hands; of Talia's sharpened jokes that hid a lit fuse; of Joren's quiet way of putting a spine into the air around a table. The Chapterhouse was stone and hunger and rules. It was also those faces.
Kaelen's hand squeezed his shoulder again, a steadiness more than a comfort. "You're not alone."
Shithead nodded and surprised himself by saying, "I know."
When they reached the brazier of eternal flame, Kaelen's words fell heavy and stayed there. Shithead felt them settle in him like a stone in water.
"You're not alone," Kaelen said, his hand firm on his shoulder.
The words burned brighter than the fire. Shithead nodded, though the truth of it was still finding its place inside him.
When they returned to the hall, it was quieter, the feast gone to embers. Near the central coals, Calder and Joren sat opposite one another, words low, the wolf charm spinning between Calder's fingers.
Kaelen's hand lingered on Shithead's shoulder for a moment longer. "Go," he said, his voice carrying the weight of choice. "Some truths aren't for me to answer."
Shithead understood. Kaelen had walked him this far; the rest belonged to the ones who shared the Trial. He crossed the room toward the coals, the warmth on his shins mingling with the heat still in his chest.
Shithead slid in beside Calder, feeling the last shallow bite of the cold off his cloak and the faint comfort of the coals against his shins.
Calder tried a grin, and almost made it mean. "Another night survived. I should be snoring like a bear." He glanced at the charm and huffed a laugh. "Can't find the strength, apparently."
"It isn't your body that's restless," Joren said, kindly.
Calder let the charm go so it spun once and settled. "You ever think about it?" he asked the coals more than either of them. "Just… walking away? No drills. No sermons. No old men measuring you like you're the thin part of a wall." He reached for the mug, didn't drink. "Just home."
Shithead answered before Joren could. "Every night," he said, because there was no use lying here. "But my family never looked at me like I was one mistake from cracking. I was their son first, everything else second. And I had friends. We swore the Willow Pact by the river. We didn't know what it meant then, not really. But it still means something." He rolled his shoulders, feeling a memory like warmth. "It's not the same as this. It's… different stone."
Calder shot him a sidelong glance. "Warmer."
Shithead's mouth tipped. "Usually."
"The Chapterhouse gave me something my willow never could," he added after a beat. "It gave me a wall bigger than me. I don't know if that makes it better. It just makes it heavier." He tapped the mug with his thumb. "Some days I want to carry that. Some days I don't."
Calder nodded slowly. "That's the thing, isn't it?"
They let the quiet fill the spaces between the words. The coals settled with a soft hiss; the hall wore the smell of fat and smoke and wool.
"Many feel it after the first Trial," Joren said. "The wild pulls the masks off. Sometimes you like the face you see. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you realize that whatever face you bring back doesn't belong to the Order anymore. That's not shame. But it is a decision."
"Choice," Calder said, almost to himself. He set the mug down, leaned forward, forearms on his thighs. "Maybe I'll come back. Maybe I won't. But I'll make the choice. Not have it made for me."
Shithead stared at the red bellies of the coals and found the right words the way one finds a splinter—by feel. "If you leave," he said, "I hear it from you."
Calder looked up.
"Not from whispers," Shithead said. "Not from a knight shaking his head with pity. From you."
Calder's grin, when it came, was proper this time—small, and without the armor on it. He thrust out his hand.
"Brothers' pact."
Shithead clasped wrists with him, hard. "Brothers' pact."
They held, once. Let go.
The fire made no ceremony of it. The hall did not murmur. No banner shifted. But the air around the three of them felt as if it had found its level again.
Joren leaned back, stretching his fingers as if a cramp had left them. "In the morning," he said, "the High Preceptors will name leave. Some of you will go home. Some already know you won't. Some think they won't and will find their feet walking anyway. The Order wants men and women who choose their chains."
"Chains?" Calder said, a thread of his old mischief back in it.
"Vows," Joren corrected. "The kind you're grateful to wear because you remember why you picked them up."
Calder made a face. "Just say chains. It'll keep the poets honest."
Shithead found himself laughing in a way he hadn't all night, a short bark with room around it. Talia's laughter, from somewhere in the dark off to their left, answered it without knowing the joke.
And when Shithead glanced back toward the benches, Talia was watching. She quickly turned away, pretending to fuss with her mug, but not before he caught the flicker of something in her eyes — worry, yes, but warmth too.
They sat until the coals turned from red to dull orange. The last of the ale went flat, and the taste on the air was more smoke than spice. Somewhere near the doors, someone snored like a contented ox. Somewhere above, a draft spoke down the banners in a voice that was only cold.
When they parted—Calder to a bunk he'd abandon at dawn without making, Joren to whatever place a new knight chooses to sleep the night after his oath, Shithead to a corner where his shield could rest against his hand—no one said the big words. There would be time for those, or there wouldn't. The wall endures or it doesn't. Either way, it is made from smaller things: bread, and a hand on a shoulder, and a promise that if a path ends, truth will walk it to the end with you.
In the blue hour before dawn, bells would speak, and leave would be granted, and the gate would open onto more than one road.
But for a little while longer, the Chapterhouse was only stone and heat and the steadying hush of people who had bled together and were, for tonight, allowed to breathe.