The world ended at the edge of the torchlight.

  Behind them, the glow of Malbork was a smudge of orange haze against the low-hanging clouds, fading with every agonizing revolution of the wagon wheels. Ahead, the King’s Road was a ribbon of hard-packed mud and frozen ruts disappearing into a throat of absolute black.

  They had been riding for three hours in silence. The only sounds were the groan of the wagon axles, the rhythmic crunch of hooves on frost, and the wet, rattling cough of Piotr. Every few minutes, the sound would tear through the dark—wet and heavy—followed by the sound of the man spitting something thick onto the frozen ground.

  Casimir pulled his wolf-fur cloak tighter around his throat. The cold out here wasn't like the drafty halls of the keep. It was a living thing—a predator that found every gap in his armor, every loose stitch in his tunic. It gnawed at his fingers and bit at his toes. His split lip throbbed in time with his heartbeat, the freezing air stinging the raw flesh like a salted lash.

  He glanced to his left.

  Roza rode with her back straight, her hands gloved in black leather and resting lightly on the pommel of her saddle. She hadn't spoken a word since the gate. She hadn't complained about the pace, the biting wind, or the smell of unwashed soldiers that drifted back from the column.

  She was a statue carved from ice and bureaucracy. It was unnerving.

  Casimir spurred his gelding, trotting up to ride alongside the wagon. Kaelen was hunched over the reins, a woolen scarf wrapped up to his nose, leaving only his good eye exposed.

  "How are the axles holding?" Casimir asked, keeping his voice low so the wind wouldn't carry it.

  "They're groaning, my Lord," Kaelen grunted, his breath pluming in white clouds. "That mining powder is heavy. If we hit a deep rut at speed, we’ll crack the wood. We need to slow down or stop."

  "We don't stop," Casimir said, looking back at the horizon where his father’s city still glowed faintly. "Not until we’re past the Miller’s Bridge. That puts ten miles between us and my father’s morning mood."

  "The men are tired, Lord Casimir," Kaelen warned, nodding toward the walking figures. "And Piotr sounds like he’s coughing up a lung. If he collapses, we’ll have to carry him."

  "If we stop now, we freeze. Movement keeps the blood warm." Casimir looked back at the line of riders. "Tell them to walk the horses for a mile. It’ll get the circulation back in their toes."

  "Aye, my Lord." Kaelen whistled sharply, signaling the change.

  The men dismounted with groans of protest, their boots hitting the hard earth with heavy thuds. As the column slowed, Casimir found Roza guiding her mare up beside him.

  "You’re pushing them," she said. It wasn't an accusation, just a detached observation. Her voice was clear, cutting through the wind.

  "I’m keeping them alive," Casimir replied, staring straight ahead. "Hypothermia kills faster than exhaustion."

  "And what of the wagon?" Roza asked. "I heard the wood splintering a mile back. If you lose the supplies, your suicide mission ends before it begins."

  Casimir turned to look at her. In the gloom, her face was a pale oval, her expression unreadable.

  "You have sharp ears for an auditor," he said. "I thought you only listened to coins dropping."

  "I listen to everything, Lord Kovac. It’s the job." She adjusted her cloak, her eyes scanning the dark treeline. "And you should know, the Justiciar didn't send me to spy on your failure. He sent me to document it. There is a difference."

  "Is there?" Casimir scoffed. "My father wants me dead. Harlon wants to ensure the Crown gets its cut of the inheritance. You are just the vulture circling the carcass."

  "Vultures are efficient," Roza said dryly. "And they survive. Which is more than I can say for your current strategy."

  "My strategy?"

  "You are angry," she said, turning to look him full in the face. "You are riding into the dark to spite your father. Anger makes you warm, Lord Casimir, but it makes you blind. The wagon is too heavy. The left rear wheel is wobbling. If you don't redistribute the weight before the bridge, you will lose the axle."

  Casimir frowned. He looked back at the wagon. It was too dark to see the wobble, but he listened. Amidst the creaks, there was a rhythmic thud-drag, thud-drag coming from the rear left.

  She was right.

  He hated that she was right. But he hated the idea of losing the explosives more.

  "Halt!" Casimir shouted.

  The column ground to a messy stop. The soldiers looked up, miserable and shivering, their breath hanging in the air.

  "Boras! Silas!" Casimir barked, swinging down from his saddle. His boots hit the frozen ground with a jarring thud that shot pain up his shins. "Get to the back of the wagon. Shift the grain sacks to the right side. The lamp oil moves to the center."

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  "My Lord?" Boras grunted, rubbing the scar where his ear used to be. "We’re stopping?"

  "We’re balancing the load," Casimir said, walking to the rear of the cart. "Unless you want to carry three crates of explosives on your back for the next three hundred miles."

  The men grumbled, but they moved. Casimir didn't just watch. He grabbed the corner of a heavy crate, his muscles straining, his boots slipping on the frost, as he shoved it across the wooden bed. He felt Roza’s eyes on him.

  He wiped grease from his hands onto his breeches and walked over to where she sat on her horse. She hadn't dismounted.

  "Why are you really here, Roza?" Casimir asked, looking up at her. "You’re young. You’re clearly competent. Why did Harlon waste you on a death march?"

  For the first time, a crack appeared in her armor. Her jaw tightened. She looked away, toward the invisible horizon of the North.

  "Competence is not always rewarded in Malbork, my Lord," she said softly. "Sometimes, it is... inconvenient. Especially for a woman who corrects her superiors."

  Casimir let out a short, harsh laugh. "So we are both exiles, then. I was too useless, and you were too useful."

  "It seems so." She looked back at him, the mask returning. "But unlike you, I intend to return to Malbork. So fix the wheel, Lord Casimir. I would hate to walk to Blackwood."

  Casimir stared at her for a moment longer. He realized then that she wasn't just a spy. She was a tool. And like the mining explosives in the wagon, she was dangerous, volatile, but potentially useful if he handled her right.

  "Kaelen!" Casimir shouted, turning back to the wagon. "Check the lynchpin on that left wheel! If it’s bent, swap it with the spare!"

  He swung back onto his horse. The cold was still biting, his lip was still throbbing, and he was riding to his death. But for the first time since leaving the solar, his mind felt sharp.

  He wasn't just fighting the cold anymore. He was playing a game. And he had just realized there was another player on the board.

  "Let’s move!" Casimir ordered. "The bridge before midnight, or we sleep in the mud!"

  They made the Miller’s Bridge a little after midnight.

  It was a rotting timber structure spanning the churning black water of the Mal River, groaning under the weight of the wagon, but it held. They pressed on for another hour until the horses were blowing hard and the men were stumbling.

  "Camp," Casimir ordered, pointing to a copse of dead birch trees that offered a sliver of shelter from the wind. "We stop here."

  It wasn't a campsite. It was just a patch of frozen dirt slightly less exposed than the road. But the men collapsed onto it gratefully.

  Casimir dismounted, his legs stiff. He watched as his "Broken Legion" went to work.

  He expected chaos. He expected incompetence. He expected the lethargy of defeated men.

  Instead, he saw efficiency born of survival.

  Kowalski, the blacksmith with the crushed shoulder, moved to the horses. He couldn't lift his right arm past his ribs, but he used his left hand and his teeth to unbuckle the tack. He checked their hooves for stone bruises with a gentleness that belied his size. He rubbed them down with dry straw before he even looked for his own blanket.

  Discipline, Casimir noted. He cares for the tools.

  Krol, the one-handed cook, had a fire going within minutes. He used a piece of flint and steel with his good hand, striking sparks into a nest of dry moss he must have gathered while walking. He didn't use a tripod; he used the hook on his stump to suspend the iron pot over the flames, moving the heavy cast iron as if it weighed nothing.

  Adaptability, Casimir thought. He turned his injury into a utensil.

  Casimir walked over to where Merrick, the archer, sat. The man was shivering violently, his hands trembling so hard he could barely hold his waterskin.

  "The cold get into your bones?" Casimir asked, squatting down beside him.

  Merrick flinched, spilling water down his chin. "N-no, my Lord. It’s... it’s the nerves. The doctors call it 'The Shakes.' Came on after the siege of High-Hearth."

  Casimir paused. High-Hearth. That was Stefan’s victory. The official reports said it was a glorious triumph. The unofficial reports—the ones Casimir had read in the archives—said the sappers had spent three weeks in mud-filled trenches, eating rats and listening to enemy drums.

  "You were with the 4th Cohort?" Casimir asked softly. "The trench-diggers?"

  Merrick looked up, his eyes widening. "Aye, my Lord. How did you...?"

  "The 4th held the southern line for twenty days without relief," Casimir recited from memory. "The supply lines were cut. You survived on boiled leather and rainwater. My brother got the medal, but the 4th held the mud."

  Merrick stared at him. The trembling in his hands didn't stop, but his shoulders dropped an inch. "We held the mud, my Lord. We surely did."

  "If you can hold High-Hearth, you can hold Blackwood," Casimir said, clapping him on the shoulder.

  He stood up and walked toward the fire. He felt Roza’s eyes on him again. She was sitting on a log, her notebook open, watching the exchange.

  "My Lord," Kaelen approached, holding a skin of wine. "We’ve set a watch. Silas has the first shift. Boras the second."

  "Good," Casimir said. "Is there a tent?"

  "One," Kaelen said. "Canvas lean-to. We set it up for you, my Lord. Near the fire."

  Casimir looked at the solitary shelter. It would be warmer. It would offer privacy. It was what a Lord was supposed to take—a visible separation between the commander and the commanded.

  He looked at the men. They were shivering, huddling together for warmth. Piotr was curled in a ball, his cough racking his thin frame.

  "Give the tent to Piotr," Casimir said quietly.

  Kaelen blinked. "My Lord?"

  "His cough is getting worse. If the damp gets into his chest tonight, he won't wake up tomorrow. And I need every man walking."

  "And you, my Lord?"

  "I have a cloak," Casimir said, grabbing his bedroll from his saddlebags. "I’ll sleep by the fire."

  He walked over to the circle. The conversation died instantly. The men looked up, shifting uncomfortably, making room for him but not welcoming him. They expected him to demand the best spot, or the first bowl of stew.

  Casimir dropped his bedroll on a patch of roots between Boras and Davin. He sat down, groaning as his back popped.

  "Krol," Casimir called out. "Is that stew edible, or are we boiling shoelaces tonight?"

  Krol stirred the pot with his hook, the metal scraping against the iron. "Little bit of both, my Lord. The laces add texture."

  A ripple of laughter went through the circle. It was small, dry, and cynical, but it was there.

  Casimir accepted a wooden bowl. The stew was grey, salty, and tough, but it was hot. He ate it without complaint. Across the fire, he caught Roza watching him over the rim of her notebook. She didn't smile, but she lowered her pen.

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