Log Town didn’t announce itself with walls.

  It announced itself with work.

  Saw-teeth screamed somewhere ahead like metal chewing bone. Hammers rang. Chains clanked. Smoke hung low over the roofs like the town was exhaling and didn’t care who breathed it in.

  Even the road into town was scarred—ruts from overloaded wagons, muddy grooves where iron wheels had carved the same path a thousand times.

  When the caravan came into view of the gate, the guards stiffened.

  Not because of the tools.

  Not because of the crown-stamped crates.

  Because they saw crimson.

  A man at the front watch stepped forward, careful with his voice.

  “A Crimson Knight,” he said. “What brings the king’s order to Log Town?”

  Titus didn’t even look like he was listening.

  He sat on a supply crate like it was a throne that bored him—cloak loose, posture lazy, one knee bent. But the air around him had weight to it, the kind that made men choose their words like they were choosing whether to live.

  Titus yawned.

  Then spoke without raising his head.

  “Open it.”

  The gate opened.

  Log Town swallowed them.

  Inside, the town didn’t soften.

  It got louder.

  It got tighter.

  Streets were carved for wagons and work, not comfort. Wood dust lived in the air. Sap clung to doorframes. Mud grabbed at boots and didn’t apologize. Men shouted over machines that didn’t care if your fingers were attached.

  And eyes tracked the caravan.

  Not hatred.

  Attention.

  Because attention meant trouble.

  Titus lifted two fingers.

  The caravan slowed.

  Soldiers peeled off with practiced efficiency. Ropes came free. Stakes clinked. Canvas rolled out. Tools shifted from cargo to purpose.

  Vincent slid from his saddle with theatrical suffering.

  “Oh no,” he said. “Labor. My mortal enemy.”

  Amira didn’t respond. She was already mapping the ground with her eyes—perimeter line, sight angles, where a man could sprint from the treeline and be dead before his second step.

  Titus remained seated, watching it all like a bored god.

  Damien stood near him, posture straight, eyes sharp.

  Titus finally tilted his head.

  “Forward base,” he said, as if saying it made the land obey. “Here. Tonight.”

  Vincent saluted with two fingers. “Yes, sir. We’ll build you a throne.”

  Titus’s eyelid lifted a fraction. “Make it sturdy.”

  Amira snorted—barely.

  Stakes went in. Rope pulled tight. Canvas snapped. Crates stacked into cover. A trench line dug shallow around where a fire would sit—smoke discipline, not comfort. Men moved faster because Titus was watching.

  Then Titus’s gaze drifted to Damien.

  “Go into town,” Titus said. “Notify House Apricot. Let them know the king’s attention has arrived.”

  Damien nodded once. “Yes, sir.”

  Titus’s eyes slid past Damien and landed on Garn and Zamora.

  “Take them,” Titus added lazily. “They should see what a border eats.”

  Damien didn’t hesitate.

  He turned.

  And because Damien turned, Garn and Zamora followed.

  The town streets pressed around them like a throat.

  Not threatening.

  Just crowded with survival.

  Log Town had mills, workshops, warehouses, taverns, tool stalls, and men who carried knives like they carried keys. Lumber wagons rolled by with chains clanking, logs bound down like prisoners. Workers moved angled away from danger out of habit, eyes hard from living next to spinning teeth.

  Damien kept them in a line that looked casual but wasn’t.

  “Eyes,” Damien said once. “Both of you.”

  Zamora forced her shoulders down and stayed present. Garn looked bored—until he wasn’t. A pair of men near a plank stack stopped talking when Damien passed, boots too clean for their hands.

  Akash stirred faintly in Garn’s mind, amused.

  They smell authority, she murmured. Like wolves smell blood.

  Damien didn’t look at the men. He simply changed his path by half a street, and their attention followed a heartbeat late.

  “Someone’s watching,” Garn muttered.

  “Good,” Damien replied. “Let them watch the wrong thing.”

  Even the bigger homes wore the town’s grit.

  House Apricot proved it.

  A mansion in size, not in spirit—thick beams, wide halls, storage rooms, ledgers, and a yard packed with lumber stacks and tool racks. A wagon sat half-repaired under a tarp. Buckets of nails and rope coils lined the wall like the house itself was ready to build another house if the town demanded it.

  Its crest was carved into the front beam: fruit-and-branch worn smooth where too many hands had touched it on the way in and out.

  A servant opened the door before Damien knocked.

  Her sleeves were rolled. Her hands had faint ink stains and resin on the fingertips.

  She looked at Damien’s crimson mark and stiffened.

  “A Crimson Knight,” she said carefully. “What brings you here?”

  Damien didn’t waste breath.

  “Lady Carmen Apricot,” he said. “Report.”

  The servant swallowed, then stepped aside. “This way.”

  Carmen Apricot met them in a hall that ran like a workshop pretending to be a home.

  The floors were scrubbed, but scarred. Lanterns hung neat, but there were oil rags on a shelf. A hammer rested beside a stack of ledgers like no one in this house was too proud to fix their own problems.

  A chair sat at the head of the map table—used enough to be familiar, empty enough to be loud. Above it, a simple nameplate was set into the wall wood: Zachary Apricot. No portrait. No poetry. Just a name that had once meant “home,” and now meant “missing.”

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  Carmen didn’t look at it. She didn’t have to. The absence was built into the room.

  Carmen’s hair was pinned back practical. Her sleeves were rolled. Black cloth, but not mourning finery—work cloth. Widowhood that didn’t bend her posture.

  Her husband’s absence lived behind her eyes like a weight she refused to set down.

  “Damien,” she greeted, voice steady. “Titus sent you.”

  Damien nodded once. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Carmen’s gaze slid to Zamora and Garn.

  “And you brought young ones,” she said.

  “Students,” Damien corrected.

  Zamora’s breath caught at the word like it mattered.

  Garn looked around like he was measuring exits.

  Carmen didn’t smile. She stepped aside.

  “Then let them learn,” she said.

  Two young men waited near a long table with maps pinned beneath glass.

  One had the posture of a trained blade—broad shoulders, callused hands, sword worn from use.

  “Andrew Apricot,” he said. “Honed stage.”

  The second looked quieter—not weak. Focused.

  Ink smudged faintly at his cuff. Calluses built by practice that wasn’t with steel.

  “Finn Apricot,” he said. “Two-circle mage.”

  Zamora froze.

  A mage.

  A real mage.

  Her eyes widened in honest awe.

  “A mage…” she whispered before she could stop herself.

  Garn didn’t react.

  Not impressed.

  Not jealous.

  Just blank.

  Damien’s gaze sharpened on Finn immediately—like he’d noticed something the moment Finn spoke.

  He stepped closer, measured.

  “You awakened,” Damien said.

  Finn swallowed. “Yes, sir.”

  Damien watched him for a breath—his posture, the way mana gathered near him like it wanted to listen.

  “Show me,” Damien said.

  Finn blinked. “Sir?”

  “Not a battle spell,” Damien replied. “Control.”

  Finn swallowed and lifted his hand. He didn’t chant. He didn’t posture. He simply breathed, and the air responded like it had been waiting for him to ask.

  Mana gathered over his palm in a thin thread, then rounded into a small orb of light—steady, clean, bright without heat. It hovered there, not shaking, not flaring, like the world had agreed to hold it.

  Zamora stared like she’d forgotten how to blink.

  Andrew’s jaw tightened, protective and proud at once.

  Carmen didn’t move, but her body angled half a step in front of Finn without making it obvious.

  Finn held it for three breaths—long, careful—then let it fade gently. Not snuffing it like a torch. Releasing it like releasing a thought.

  Damien nodded once, satisfied.

  Then Damien nodded once.

  “Congratulations,” Damien said, flat but real. “You’ve become one of the few mages in this kingdom.”

  Finn’s face flickered like he wanted to smile but didn’t dare. He lowered his head instead.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Zamora looked like she’d just seen a myth walk into a room.

  Andrew stood steady, pride held behind his ribs like discipline.

  Carmen’s eyes stayed calm, but she was positioned slightly in front of Finn without making it obvious.

  Damien noticed.

  Of course he did.

  “Your son will be a target,” Damien said.

  Carmen didn’t flinch. “He already is.”

  Andrew’s jaw tightened. “Let them come.”

  Finn didn’t speak. Mana stirred faintly around him like a quiet tide—then settled again, controlled.

  Garn still didn’t care.

  Akash did.

  Strange, she murmured in Garn’s mind.

  Garn didn’t answer.

  You don’t care, Akash continued, amusement thinning. Not even a little.

  Garn’s jaw tightened. So what?

  Akash sighed—ember-dry, old.

  Listen.

  And for once she sounded less like a predator and more like a teacher who hated repeating herself.

  Out of a thousand births, she murmured, maybe one is born loved by mana.

  Loved.

  Not trained.

  Not earned.

  Just… leaned toward.

  Mana answers them easier, she continued. It gathers without being forced. It listens without being threatened.

  Garn’s eyes stayed flat.

  Akash’s voice lowered.

  Most live their whole lives without knowing. They work. They bleed. They die ordinary—because no one ever told them the world would answer if they asked the right way.

  Garn didn’t like that thought. Not because it was sad.

  Because it sounded unfair.

  A thousand lives for one miracle. And even the miracle could spend a lifetime swinging an axe, never realizing the air would have listened if he’d spoken the right language.

  Garn’s fingers flexed once. He didn’t want to be chosen by mana.

  He wanted to take what he needed and make it obey.

  Zamora kept staring at Finn like she was trying to understand what “loved by mana” looked like.

  Finn shifted under the attention, uncomfortable.

  Carmen’s tone cut clean.

  “My son is not a trophy,” she said calmly. “He’s a worker. Same as the rest of this town.”

  Damien didn’t argue.

  “Then give me the truth,” Damien said. “No stories.”

  Carmen stepped to the map table and tapped the glass with two fingers.

  “Supplies vanish,” she said. “Quiet ones. Rope. Nails. Oilskin. Tar. Ax heads. Things that don’t make noise until you need them.”

  Damien’s eyes narrowed. “Bandits?”

  Carmen shook her head. “Bandits steal what shines. This is deliberate.”

  She pulled open a drawer and slid out a bundle wrapped in oilcloth. Inside was not gold—just a broken wax seal from a crate. The mark impressed into it wasn’t any mill crest or town stamp. Two lines crossing like a crude star.

  “Found near the river crossing,” Carmen said. “It’s the only thing they left behind. Like they wanted us to notice, but not understand.”

  Damien’s eyes narrowed. “New faces?”

  Andrew answered before his mother could. “A few. Men who ask too many questions and work too little. They don’t stay in one place long.”

  Finn spoke quietly, eyes down. “And they buy rope in small amounts, from different stalls, so no one sees a pattern.”

  Carmen’s mouth tightened. “We tried tightening escorts. The mills screamed about delays. People screamed about wages. The town keeps moving even when it knows it’s walking into teeth.”

  Her gaze didn’t waver. “I didn’t call the crown because I like begging. I called because my husband is dead, and I won’t pretend the town can outwork a knife forever.”

  Andrew leaned forward. “They’re starving us without a siege.”

  Finn’s fingers flexed once. “And they’re doing it where we can’t prove it.”

  Damien looked at the map.

  “Show me where,” he ordered.

  Carmen took charcoal and circled three points.

  A river crossing.

  A road bend where wagons had to slow.

  And a stretch near the treeline where the forest pressed close like a shadow.

  Damien stared at the marks like he was reading a sentence he already hated.

  Zamora’s grip tightened on her staff.

  Garn’s attention finally woke up—not because of mages, but because of problems.

  Damien turned toward the door.

  “I’ll inform Titus,” he said.

  Carmen nodded once. “And I’ll prepare my house.”

  Andrew’s voice was hard. “Let me come.”

  Damien didn’t even look at him.

  “You protect your mother,” Damien said. “That’s your mission.”

  Andrew’s jaw worked, but he nodded.

  Finn spoke quietly. “Please… be careful.”

  Damien paused for half a heartbeat.

  Not soft.

  Acknowledging.

  Then he left.

  Zamora and Garn followed him out into Log Town’s smoke and noise, back toward the half-built camp where Titus sat like boredom wearing a crown.

  On the way, Zamora kept glancing at her hands like she expected mana to bloom there just because she’d seen it happen once. She looked up every time someone bumped a cart wheel or raised a voice, nerves trying to turn wonder into fear.

  Garn watched the crowd instead. Twice he caught the same pair of too-clean boots. Not following openly—just appearing again at corners like they knew the route.

  Damien didn’t acknowledge it. He only kept moving, forcing anyone watching to keep choosing between staying hidden and staying close.

  And somewhere deep behind Garn’s eyes, Akash watched the town like it was a puzzle with teeth.

  This place is being prepared, she murmured.

  Garn’s gaze narrowed toward the treeline.

  For once, he agreed.

  They reached the forward base at dusk.

  Vincent was tying a rope line too tight just to prove he could. Amira checked the perimeter like the forest owed her money. Titus sat on a crate as if the camp existed to serve as his chair.

  Damien stopped in front of him.

  “Report,” Titus said.

  Damien’s voice stayed clean. “House Apricot confirms quiet losses. Supplies. Tools. Rope. Nails. Tar. Missing at three points—river crossing, road bend, treeline route. They suspect preparation, not theft. Finn Apricot is a two-circle mage.”

  Vincent whistled low. Amira’s eyes narrowed.

  Titus’s eyelid lifted a fraction. “Good.”

  Vincent’s grin thinned into interest. Amira’s posture tightened like a blade being drawn.

  Titus looked past Damien at the dark line of trees.

  “Low fire tonight,” Titus said. “No drunk singing. No torch parade. Two watches on the road. One on the river. If anyone thinks they can test us, I want them to learn what ‘Crimson’ means before sunrise.”

  Amira nodded once. “Yes, sir.”

  Vincent saluted, suddenly less playful. “Yes, boss.”

  Titus’s gaze returned to Damien. “And the mage stays behind a locked door. If Orion is preparing, they’ll try to take what the kingdom can’t replace.”

  Then Titus looked at Garn and Zamora.

  “Tomorrow,” he said, “we walk the river line first. If the town is being prepared, it starts where wagons slow and men get quiet.”

  His voice went lazy again, but the order didn’t.

  “Sleep,” Titus added. “You’ll need your bodies when your minds decide to panic.”

  The camp settled.

  Log Town screamed in the distance.

  And the Forest of Log waited beyond the treeline—quiet as a mouth holding its breath.

  Somewhere out there, a wagon wheel creaked once in the dark, then went still.

  Damien didn’t look away from the trees.

  Neither did Garn.