The gates of the Chapterhouse groaned shut behind them with the sound of iron grinding stone. The echoes lingered in Shithead's chest longer than they should have, as though part of him had been caught in those hinges.
The road stretched out before them, pale beneath the weak winter sun. Frost glittered in the ruts where wagon wheels had passed weeks ago. The horizon seemed impossibly wide after months hemmed in by walls of stone and cloisters of rule.
Kaelen rode at the front, as he always did, his frame straight-backed in the saddle, cloak snapping faintly with the pace. Joren matched him stride for stride, his new mail muted in the light, the rune-etched sword at his hip catching faint flashes of gold. Behind them came Shithead, Talia, and Eryk, their horses close together, breath steaming in the cold.
For a time, none of them spoke. The rhythm of hooves on frozen earth was its own language, steady, unyielding. The Chapterhouse fell smaller behind them until it was no more than a gray smudge against the winter sky.
Shithead let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. The air tasted sharper here, freer. And heavier.
Talia broke the silence first. "Feels strange, doesn't it?" Her voice carried from the saddle beside him, pitched low as though she feared the frost might eavesdrop. "Like we're deserters sneaking off in the morning."
"We were told to go," Eryk said simply. His tone wasn't sharp, only certain. "There's no desertion in obedience."
Talia snorted softly. "Leave it to you to make freedom sound like another rule."
Shithead glanced sideways at her. She rode with her cloak drawn tight, dark hair tucked beneath her hood, but her eyes were restless, watching the horizon as though it might shift beneath them. "Feels more like exile than freedom," he admitted.
Kaelen's voice carried back without him turning in the saddle. "It's neither. It's remembrance. The wall means nothing if you don't know what it protects."
The words settled heavy, but not unkind.
They passed the first of the mile-markers by midday — a weathered stone carved with Aureon's sunburst, half-buried in snow. Shithead remembered it well; Kaelen had pointed it out on the ride to Westmarch just over a year ago. Back then, the marker had felt like the edge of the world, as if crossing it meant stepping out of his old life and into something entirely unknown.
Now, looking at it again, it was just stone. What had changed was not the marker, but him.
"Strange," he murmured.
Talia, riding close enough that her cloak brushed his boot, cocked her head. "What is?"
"Last time I saw this, it felt like the edge of everything," Shithead said. "Like the start of a story. Now it feels… smaller."
Kaelen slowed his horse a pace as they passed the stone. "I remember you the first time you crossed this marker," he said without looking back. "Your eyes were wide as a foal's. You asked me if the world ended past it."
Shithead snorted. "I remember. You told me the world never ends — it just tests whether you can walk farther."
Kaelen's mouth tugged faintly at the corner. "You remembered the words. That's what matters."
Eryk's pale gaze flicked toward him. "Edges only exist until you cross them. After that, they're steps."
Talia snorted. "You're full of poetry today."
"It's not poetry," Eryk said. "It's fact."
Kaelen, riding ahead with Joren, chuckled low in his throat without turning. "Careful, lad. That's how poetry starts."
Talia grinned at that, then leaned forward in her saddle, her voice dropping so only Shithead could hear. "I know what you mean, though. When I left home, I thought I'd never see it again. Every mile marker might as well have been a knife, cutting me further away. But now…" She shrugged, the gesture tugging her cloak tighter. "Now it's just a road. The same dirt, only I know where it leads."
"Home," Shithead said.
She glanced at him, the grin softening for a heartbeat. "Yeah. Home."
For a while, they rode in silence, the crunch of hooves the only sound. But Shithead carried the weight of her words like another pack across his shoulders.
The sun fell quickly, as it always did in winter, dragging the cold with it. By the time Kaelen called a halt, their horses' breath steamed thick in the air and frost had crept over their cloaks like lace. They set camp in a hollow between two low ridges, the kind of place that caught wind but not snowdrift, and soon a fire cracked to life, snapping loud in the silence.
They worked with the ease of people who had lived through worse — Eryk gathering what dry wood he could find, Talia cursing softly as she tried to coax a stubborn spark, Joren steadying the horses with a quiet word. Kaelen said little, but the way he moved made the work flow.
When the stew pot finally bubbled, thick with salt pork and beans, the five of them huddled close around the fire. The flames painted their faces in copper and shadow. The night pressed close beyond its reach.
Talia stretched her hands toward the heat, fingers pink from cold. "I'd forgotten how much colder it feels without the Chapterhouse walls."
"You forget quickly," Eryk said, pale eyes reflecting the fire.
She shot him a look. "You don't forget anything, do you?"
"Not things that matter."
Kaelen stirred the pot with the tip of his knife. "You'll remember soon enough. The road has a way of grinding memory back into you."
That silenced them for a while, broken only by the hiss of sap in the firewood. Shithead leaned back on his pack, staring up through the smoke at the stars pricked across the black sky. They seemed sharper here, away from the cloisters, as if Aureon had polished them himself.
Joren spoke first, voice low, measured. "Greystone lies another six days' ride, if weather holds. The villages along the way are small, but they'll have need of healers. And order. Always order." He glanced across the fire at Shithead. "When we pass through, you'll see it — the cracks that creep in when law is only what a strong man can hold with his fists."
Shithead nodded slowly. "It wasn't like that when I left."
"Time makes cracks wider," Joren said simply.
Talia stabbed a stick into the fire, sending sparks into the night. "Sounds like a grim road."
"Most roads are," Kaelen said.
Eryk blew on his stew, steam curling past his pale hair. "And yet, we walk them anyway."
The fire popped. For a time, that was enough.
When the bowls were scraped clean and the pot rinsed, they settled in for sleep. The ground was hard, the air sharp, but it was better than snow and hunger.
Talia lay closest to Shithead, her cloak pulled over her shoulders, her breath fogging faintly in the cold. After a long while, when she thought the others were asleep, she spoke softly.
"You really think it'll feel like home? Greystone, I mean."
Shithead turned his head on his pack to look at her. Firelight traced the edge of her face, half-hidden by her hood. "I don't know. Feels smaller in my memory now. Like I grew and it didn't."
Her eyes met his in the dark. "Maybe that's what going back is for. To see if it's the place that changed, or you."
He thought about that long after she closed her eyes.
Frost clung thick to their cloaks when dawn came. The fire had burned down to nothing but blackened stones, and their breaths fogged as they packed their gear in silence. Horses stamped the ground, eager for movement, snorting plumes into the chill air.
Kaelen was the first to mount, his cloak drawn tight, his helm slung at his side. "Seven days if weather holds," he said again, as if the repetition itself could keep storms at bay. "Let's not lose time."
The road stretched out before them in a ribbon of frost, flanked by bare trees whose branches clawed at the gray sky. Their horses' hooves struck steady rhythm on the frozen earth. The sound carried in the still air, a drumbeat that reminded Shithead of marches through Chapterhouse yards — only now, the line of initiates had been whittled down to five.
For a long while, no one spoke. The quiet was heavy, but not uncomfortable. Only when the sun had climbed higher, painting the frost with dull silver, did Talia break it.
"I can't decide if the road feels longer or shorter with fewer of us," she said, tugging her cloak tighter around her shoulders.
"Shorter," Eryk answered at once. "Noise makes roads longer."
"Then it should feel twice as long with me," she shot back.
He tilted his head. "It does."
Talia scoffed, though the corner of her mouth twitched. She kicked her horse forward a few paces so she rode even with Shithead. "At least you don't look like you're about to freeze into a statue," she muttered toward Eryk's back. "One day he'll blink and shatter."
Shithead smirked faintly. "I'd rather he not blink when I'm standing behind him."
Talia grinned. "Fair."
Joren's voice came from just ahead, measured as always. "He doesn't blink because he sees more when he doesn't. You'll learn that in time."
Talia groaned. "Is everything a lesson with you now?"
"Everything always was," Joren said. "You just didn't listen before."
That drew a laugh from Kaelen, dry and quiet. "You'll find out the truth of that one, girl."
The horses settled into rhythm again, their breaths puffing steady in the cold. The world around them was stark and empty, save for the occasional crow wheeling overhead or the distant mark of smoke from a village chimney.
As they rode, Shithead let his gaze drift to the horizon. He thought of Greystone — the bend of the river where he had sworn his Willow Pact, the smell of woodsmoke in winter, his parents' faces. It felt close enough to touch, and yet strange, like remembering a dream.
"Feels different," he murmured aloud before he could stop himself.
"What does?" Talia asked.
"Going home," he said. "It's not the same road I left on."
Kaelen turned his head slightly, his voice steady. "It never is."
The road carried them through rolling ground, scrub and frost-burned grass stretching wide to either side. A year ago, when Shithead had ridden this way under Kaelen's watch, it had been emptier — seven days of forest, fields, and wild places that gave way only near Greystone itself.
Now, midway through the morning, a thread of smoke marked the sky where none had been before. As they crested a low rise, the village came into view: a scatter of log cabins, roofs raw with fresh-cut shingles, and a palisade half-built from green timber. Chickens scratched near the edge, dogs barked at the riders, and a handful of villagers turned their heads as the horses clopped down the frozen track.
It wasn't much. Barely more than a camp with ambition. But it was new.
Talia whistled low. "When did this sprout up? Looks like they planted it yesterday."
"Closer to a year," Kaelen said, guiding his horse toward the road that cut through the middle. "Farmers from the south marches. Too many mouths, not enough land. They came north and staked this out."
Eryk eyed the half-finished palisade. "Too few hands for the wall they need."
"That's how every wall starts," Joren said. His tone was quiet but carried. "One timber at a time."
A boy, no more than ten, darted from between cabins to stare wide-eyed at the riders. His face and hands were red with cold, his boots clearly too big for him, but he didn't run. Shithead caught his gaze as they passed, and for a heartbeat he saw himself there — the boy he had been, before Kaelen found him. Small. Watching knights ride by.
The boy's gaze didn't waver even when his mother called him back from the cold. He just stood there, hands balled into fists too big for his frame, watching every swing of the horses' legs as though memorizing them.
Shithead remembered doing the same, once. Waiting at the bend in the river road for any rider in a cloak, wondering if they would look at him. Wondering if they would stop.
Talia nudged her horse closer to his. "Careful, or he'll start carving a wooden sword tonight and calling himself your heir."
Shithead snorted. "One of me is more than enough."
Her grin softened. "Not so sure about that."
They rode through the center of the village. A smith hammered at a makeshift forge, sending sparks flying. A pair of women hung laundry stiff with frost. The air smelled of woodsmoke, manure, and stew — the scents of survival, not comfort.
Kaelen inclined his head toward the villagers who watched in silence. "Places like this are why the Order exists. No walls but what they raise. No guards but their own backs. Bandits see timber instead of stone, and they smell weakness. Wolves too."
Joren's eyes swept the cabins, the road, the half-built palisade. "And when the Order is absent, it falls to men like me to walk these borders. To remind them they're not forgotten."
"You'll be good at it," Talia said, surprising them all with the blunt honesty in her voice. "Too good, maybe. You've got that look that makes people want to sit straighter."
Joren only dipped his head, acknowledging without pride.
Shithead let the rhythm of the horse carry him past the last cabins. He looked back once, at the boy still standing in the cold, staring until distance blurred him into smoke and frost. Something in his chest tugged — not regret, not longing, but recognition.
The woods closed in after the village, pines crowding tight on either side of the road. Frost clung to every branch, turning the undergrowth brittle, so that each hoofbeat echoed sharper than it should have. The riders settled into rhythm: Kaelen always a horse-length ahead, Joren steady beside him, Talia restless at Shithead's flank, Eryk in silence just behind.
For a time, no one spoke. The forest had a way of pressing down on words.
By noon, they stopped at a stream where the ice had been broken by deer hooves. The horses drank while the riders chewed cold bread and hard cheese. Talia stretched until her joints cracked, groaning.
"Six more days of this," she muttered. "We survive wolves, trials, and sermons, and the real test's going to be riding myself saddle-sore."
Shithead grinned faintly. "You could always walk."
She shot him a look, half a glare, half a smirk. "Don't tempt me."
Kaelen's voice came calm from his saddle. "A day on foot, you'd beg the horse back."
"Not if I fell and froze face-first," she muttered, but she climbed back up without further complaint.
They pressed on until dusk, when the trees thinned just enough for a fire. Their first camp was plain — dried venison, stale bread softened in broth — but the flames cut the chill, and that was enough. Words were few. They were still shaking the road back into their bones.
Shithead lay back on his cloak, watching sparks vanish into the black. For the first time in weeks, there were no walls around him. He wasn't sure if it felt like freedom or exposure.
The third day began with frost so thick it cracked underhoof. The road stayed level, winding through flat country where the trees grew dense and unbroken. Sunlight caught on the ice and turned the branches into a forest of glass, dazzling but cold.
Talia tried to whistle an old marching tune, but the notes came thin through the air. "Supposed to make the horses step lighter," she said after a while. "Feels more like I'm calling crows."
Eryk's voice cut in, quiet but sharp. "Crows follow armies for a reason."
"Don't ruin it," she said, wrinkling her nose. But she stopped whistling.
They ate a noon meal on horseback, Kaelen setting the pace. By evening, the horses were blowing hard, and they found a sheltered dip in the trees for camp. The food was no better than the night before, but Talia waved her spoon dramatically. "If Calder were here, he'd complain this stew was missing salt, meat, and about three extra hours of roasting. Then eat three bowls of it anyway."
Eryk stirred his portion with deliberate calm. "Food is for fuel, not indulgence."
"That's because you've never eaten food worth indulging in," Talia shot back.
Eryk looked at her over the rim of his bowl, pale eyes unblinking. "And yet, I endure longer than most."
Talia muttered something into her stew, but her grin betrayed her.
When she finally wound down, she pointed a finger at Shithead. "You're too quiet."
"I'm eating."
"You're brooding."
Joren set down his bowl. "He broods because he listens. Most men fear silence. He's learning not to."
Talia blinked at him, thrown for a second. Then she grinned. "Well, now I have two philosophers to put up with."
Shithead muttered, "You'd complain if we were quiet."
"Exactly," she said, satisfied, and poked at the fire until sparks jumped.
Shithead shook his head, but warmth crept in under her teasing, small as it was. The night settled heavy, but not unfriendly.
The fourth day stretched longer. The trees broke now and again into open fields, wide sweeps of frost-silvered grass where new farmsteads had taken root. They passed one such holding near midday — a single cabin with smoke thin from its chimney, a family splitting logs while children chased one another through the rime. The parents straightened when they saw the riders, axes in hand until they noticed the cloaks. Then they waved.
Kaelen raised his hand in return, but didn't slow.
"Do you think they know who we are?" Talia asked once they'd ridden on.
"They know what you carry," Joren said. "Steel, cloaks, Light. To them, that's enough."
"They'll tell stories tonight," Kaelen added. "Even if it's only that five riders passed their field. Stories are what keep winters from swallowing people whole."
That thought carried them quiet until camp.
They found shelter near an old shepherd's hut, its roof sagging but one wall solid enough to break the wind. Their fire burned low and steady, throwing long shadows. They ate in relative silence, each tired in their own way.
Shithead stretched out on his cloak, staring at the frost-painted branches overhead. He thought of Greystone — the willow by the river, the pact sworn there, the way home had always seemed smaller than the rest of the world. Now, after all he'd seen, he wondered if it would feel smaller still, or if he would.
Sleep came slowly, carried on the crackle of fire and the steady breathing of those around him.