The messenger who arrived that night bore more than just news—he carried the weight of destiny itself. Sir Gareth Blake, a knight of the royal household, stood in the great hall with rain still dripping from his sodden cloak. His horse had been ridden to near-collapse, foam still clinging to its mouth when the stable boys led it away. The urgency of his mission was written in every line of his exhausted frame.

  "Viscount Roderick Gothsend," Sir Gareth announced formally, though his voice carried the weariness of a man who had ridden hard for days. "By order of His Majesty King Aldwyn, Third of His Name, you are commanded to raise your banners and march to the defense of the realm."

  Roderick stood silent for a long moment, his brown eyes reflecting the dancing flames of the magic stone lamps. Alec watched his father's face carefully, noting the subtle shift in expression—not surprise, for they had all known this day would come, but a kind of resigned determination settling over his features like armor.

  "The terms of service?" Roderick asked, his voice steady.

  Sir Gareth unrolled a parchment bearing the royal seal, its wax still gleaming despite the rain. "You are to raise no fewer than two hundred men-at-arms, fifty cavalry, and whatever additional forces your lands can provide. The muster point is Thornfield, where Count Gareth Gothsend already commands the northern auxiliary. You are to march within the fortnight."

  Uncle Gareth. Alec felt a mix of pride and worry knowing his uncle was already in the field, holding the northern passes while the rebellion tore at the kingdom's heart.

  "And the enemy?" Elenora asked quietly, her voice barely audible over the crackle of the fire. She held baby Clarisse against her chest, the infant mercifully asleep despite the late hour and commotion.

  "Duke Aldric has declared himself regent for the 'true king,'" Sir Gareth replied, his tone making clear what he thought of such claims. "He has perhaps twenty-five thousand men now, and more lords declare for him each day. Prince Marcus..." He paused, pain flickering across his weathered features. "Prince Marcus lives, but his injuries are grave. Command of the loyalist forces has fallen to Duke Blackmont and Count Warwick."

  The messenger delivered additional orders—supply requirements, timing for the march, rendezvous points. But Alec found himself watching his mother's face more than listening to military details. Elenora's composure remained intact outwardly, but he could see the way her fingers tightened on Clarisse's blanket, the slight tremor in her hands that spoke of barely controlled emotion.

  When Sir Gareth had been shown to guest quarters and the hall emptied of servants, the family sat in heavy silence around the dying fire. The magic stones in the lamps seemed dimmer somehow, as if reflecting the somber mood that had settled over them.

  "How long will you be gone?" Elenora finally asked, her voice steady but small.

  Roderick moved to stand behind her chair, placing his hands on her shoulders. "I don't know. Civil wars... they don't follow neat timetables."

  "The manor will be defended," she said, not really a question but needing reassurance nonetheless.

  "Sir Marcus will remain as captain of the guard, with thirty men-at-arms. The walls are strong, and most of the fighting will be far to the east." Roderick's voice carried conviction, but Alec caught the slight hesitation that suggested his father understood how quickly the theater of war could shift.

  Alec remained silent, processing the enormity of what was happening. In his previous life, he'd watched wars on television, distant conflicts that affected other people in other places. This was different. This was his father preparing to ride into battle, his family about to be torn apart by forces beyond their control.

  "I want to come with you," Alec said suddenly, the words escaping before he could stop them.

  Both parents turned to him with expressions of surprise and something approaching horror.

  "Absolutely not," Roderick said firmly. "You're six years old, Alec. Your duty is here, protecting your mother and sister."

  "But I could help—"

  "You could help by staying alive and keeping our family safe," Roderick interrupted, but his tone softened. "War is not an adventure, son. It's death and suffering and choices no one should have to make. Your time for such things may come, but not yet. Please, not yet."

  The raw emotion in his father's voice silenced any further protest. Alec nodded, understanding that his place was indeed here, but feeling the frustration of helplessness all the same.

  "Will you write to us?" Elenora asked.

  "When I can. Ravens fly both ways—I'll want to know how you all fare." Roderick kissed the top of her head, then bent to touch Clarisse's tiny hand. "Keep them safe."

  The next two weeks passed in a blur of frantic preparation. The manor transformed from a peaceful household into a military staging ground. Blacksmiths worked day and night repairing armor and weapons. Servants helped organize supplies—grain, salt pork, medical supplies, spare bowstrings, arrowheads, and a thousand other necessities of war.

  Alec watched it all with fascination and growing dread. He helped where he could, carrying messages and small items, learning the names of weapons and the purposes of various pieces of equipment. The romantic notions of war that might have lived in a six-year-old's imagination died quickly when faced with the practical realities of preparing men to kill and die.

  The bannermen arrived throughout the week, each bringing their own contingent of fighters. Sir Aldric Hale rode in with twenty mounted knights from the eastern villages. Ser Marcus Trent brought forty infantry from the mining settlements in the northern hills. Lord Garrett's nephew arrived with thirty archers who could put an arrow through a silver coin at a hundred paces.

  Each arrival brought more energy to the manor, but also more uncertainty. These were men leaving families behind, farmers and craftsmen who would now carry sword and spear in service to their lord. Alec listened to their conversations around the campfires that sprang up in the manor's courtyard, learning more about the nature of war than any six-year-old should.

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  "My boy's just turned sixteen," one grizzled sergeant was telling his companions. "Old enough to hold a spear, he says. Old enough to die for king and country." The man spat into the fire, making it hiss and spark. "War's a young man's game, but it's the old who know what we're really fighting for."

  "And what's that?" a younger soldier asked.

  "Home. Family. The right to grow old and complain about your aching joints." The sergeant's laugh was bitter. "Glory's for the bards. The rest of us just want to come back to what we left."

  On the final evening before departure, the entire household gathered in the great hall for a farewell feast. The long tables groaned under the weight of roasted meat, fresh bread, and the last of the good wine from the cellars. The magic stone lamps burned bright, casting warm light over faces that tried to maintain cheer despite the circumstances.

  Roderick stood to address the assembled company, his mail hauberk gleaming beneath the blue and silver surcoat bearing the Gothsend arms. He looked every inch the lord and warrior, but Alec could see the man beneath the armor—a father about to leave his family, a husband trying to be strong for his wife.

  "Tomorrow we ride for Thornfield," Roderick announced, his voice carrying clearly across the hall. "We go to serve our king and defend our realm. But we also go to protect what we hold dear—our families, our homes, our way of life."

  He raised his cup, and every person in the hall did the same. "To victory, to honor, and to safe return!"

  "To victory! To honor! To safe return!" the response thundered back, cups raised high.

  But as the evening wore on, the forced cheer began to crack. Alec watched wives holding their husbands closer, children clinging to fathers they might never see again. The smell of roasted meat and spilled wine mixed with the scent of oil from newly polished armor and the underlying tang of fear-sweat that even the heartiest ale couldn't mask.

  Elenora retired early, claiming exhaustion but really unable to bear the sight of so much forced merriment masking genuine sorrow. Alec followed soon after, but sleep eluded him. He lay in his bed listening to the sounds drifting up from below—laughter growing more desperate as the night progressed, songs that started brave and ended melancholy, and eventually the quiet sobbing of those who had drunk enough to let their composure slip.

  Dawn came gray and cold, with a fine mist rising from the valley floor. The courtyard filled with the clatter of hooves on stone, the creak of leather harness, and the low murmur of men checking weapons one final time. The smell of horses, metal, and leather filled the air, along with something else—the indefinable scent of departure, of lives about to irrevocably change.

  Roderick emerged from the manor dressed for war. His mail was polished to a silver gleam, his surcoat bright blue with the silver star of House Gothsend. His sword hung at his hip, its pommel worn smooth by generations of Gothsend hands. Most striking of all was his helm—an open-faced design that would allow him to command while offering protection, decorated with a silver star that matched his eyes.

  Elenora stood on the manor steps wearing her finest dress, deep blue silk with silver thread that caught the morning light. She held Clarisse against her shoulder, the baby unusually quiet as if sensing the solemnity of the moment. Her face was composed, but Alec could see the redness around her eyes that spoke of a sleepless night spent weeping.

  The final farewells were private, conducted in the small chapel adjacent to the great hall. Alec waited with the other family members as his parents spoke their last words in relative privacy. When they emerged, both wore expressions of careful control that threatened to shatter at any moment.

  Roderick knelt before Alec, placing his gauntleted hands on his son's shoulders. "You're the man of the manor now," he said, his voice thick with emotion he couldn't quite hide. "Protect your mother and sister. I know you'll be brave, but sometimes the bravest thing is knowing when not to fight."

  "I will, Father. I promise."

  "I know you will." Roderick pulled him into a fierce embrace, and Alec caught the scent of leather and metal and something deeper—the smell of the man who had taught him to read, to ride, to understand duty. "When I return, we'll begin your proper training. Sword work, statecraft, all of it."

  When Roderick stood, his eyes were bright with unshed tears. He moved to Elenora and gently took baby Clarisse in his arms. The infant cooed softly, reaching up to touch his face with tiny fingers. For a moment, the hard lines of the warrior's face softened completely.

  "Grow strong for your father," he whispered to Clarisse. "I'll tell you stories of the war when I come home."

  He handed her back to Elenora with visible reluctance, then cupped his wife's face in his hands. What passed between them in that moment was private, spoken too low for others to hear, but the intensity of it was clear to anyone watching.

  The final kiss was gentle, almost reverent, as if each was trying to memorize the feel of the other. When they separated, Elenora's composure finally broke.

  "Come back to me," she whispered, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Promise me you'll come back."

  "I promise," Roderick said, though they both knew such promises were beyond any man's power to keep in war. "I'll come back to you. To all of you."

  He mounted his destrier, a massive black warhorse that had been his companion in tournaments and border skirmishes for years. The animal sensed the occasion, prancing nervously but responding to his master's firm hand. Around the courtyard, two hundred men mounted horses or fell into formation for the march.

  Banners unfurled in the morning breeze—the royal dragon of Valethia, the silver star of House Gothsend, and the various devices of the minor houses and free companies that would follow Roderick to war. The sight was magnificent and terrible, a display of martial power that spoke of glory and death in equal measure.

  Roderick raised his hand, and a horn sounded—long, low, and mournful. The great gates of Gothsend manor swung open, and the column began to move. First the scouts, then the mounted knights, followed by the men-at-arms on foot, and finally the supply wagons.

  Elenora climbed the stairs to the manor's highest tower, Alec and Clarisse with her, to watch the procession disappear into the mist. From that vantage point, they could see the entire column strung out along the valley road like a great serpent of steel and leather.

  The sound of their passing carried on the morning air—the thump of boots on packed earth, the jingle of mail, the creak of wagon wheels, and over it all the sound of men singing an old marching song. Their voices grew fainter as distance swallowed them, until finally only the mist remained.

  Clarisse began to cry then, as if finally understanding that something fundamental had changed. Elenora wept openly, making no attempt now to hide her grief. Alec found his own eyes burning with tears he was too proud to shed.

  They stood there long after the last echo of hoofbeats had faded, looking out over an empty road that had swallowed their world whole.

  The manor seemed impossibly quiet now, despite the servants and guards who remained. Everything felt different, diminished somehow, as if the departure of the men had taken more than just their physical presence.

  "When will Father come home?" Alec asked, though he knew his mother had no answer.

  "When the war is over," Elenora replied, her voice barely a whisper. "When there's peace again."

  Peace. The word seemed as distant as the mountains on the horizon, as fragile as morning mist. As Alec looked out over the empty valley, he made another silent vow. He would grow strong in his father's absence. He would protect his family, learn everything he could, and prepare himself for whatever the future held.

  The war had taken his father away, but it would not take his family's strength. Not if Alec Gothsend had anything to say about it.

  Below in the courtyard, the remaining servants began the task of cleaning up after the departure. Life would go on at Gothsend manor, but it would never be quite the same. The war had touched them now, marked them as surely as if the enemy had laid siege to their walls.

  In the distance, thunder rumbled—or perhaps it was the sound of armies marching. Either way, it spoke of storms to come, of trials that would test them all in ways they could not yet imagine.

  Alec wiped his eyes, straightened his shoulders, and headed back into the manor. There was work to be done, lessons to learn, and a family to protect. His father had entrusted him with that duty, and he would not fail.

  The first real test of who Alec Gothsend could become had begun.