Boscastle was not a large town, nor was it a quiet one.

  It was a place forever at the edge of something greater—where ambition flickered but never took hold, where dreams were like candle flames, snuffed before they could catch.

  The sea ruled here, shaping lives with the pull of the tide, dictating when men worked, when they rested, when they set their eyes on the horizon with wary eyes.

  Fishing boats rocked in the cove, their hulls creaking as they knocked against the wooden piers. The cries of gulls tangled with the rhythmic clang of a blacksmith’s hammer, and the scent of salt and hot iron mingled in the air. The streets, narrow and winding, never stood empty.

  But it was not the sea that cast the longest shadow over Boscastle.

  That belonged to Tintagel.

  The fortress loomed beyond the cliffs, unseen but always present—a name that hushed voices in the tavern, that turned a careless jest into something sharp-edged and uneasy.

  High stone walls and heavy doors. Wind howling through halls that were never warm.

  A place where loyalty was a currency and those who could not afford it learned to live beneath its weight.

  And behind those walls, a woman watched the waves but was not free to follow them.

  They said Duchess Ygraine lived well, wrapped in fine cloth, her tables heavy with silver dishes and summer fruit. But a gilded cage was still a cage, and a wife given to an old warrior-lord with more land than kindness had little room to fly.

  And Lord Gorlois—

  He did not rule as he once had.

  Once, men spoke his name with respect. Once, he led with the cold, unyielding precision of a soldier who had lived and bled on the battlefield.

  But time had ground him down. War, ambition—too many years spent chasing power had stripped him bare, until only the steel remained.

  And even that was rusting at the edges.

  The years had turned him cruel.

  Where once his punishments had been fair, now they were swift and unrelenting. A man who spoke out of turn was dragged to the stocks for the amusement of his betters—or worse, never seen again. He ruled not with loyalty, but with fear, and it spread through Tintagel like oil through water, thick and cloying.

  Some said it had begun with whispers, brought to him in the dark by men who did not belong to Uther’s court. Men who carried words like knives, who knew how to carve fear into the marrow of a man’s bones.

  Others blamed the dreams.

  Dark things clinging to him like rot, dragging him from sleep with breath like smoke and eyes hollowed by restless nights. His wariness had turned to paranoia, his sharp mind to suspicion. Treason lurked in every hall, every hushed conversation, in the glance of every servant who moved past his door.

  So he struck first.

  He struck often.

  The halls that had once carried the laughter of his household now carried silence, save for the whispers that slithered through the stone like rats. The fortress had grown colder, its fires burned low, its great doors opening less often.

  And still, The Dark came creeping in.

  Men had begun to vanish from Tintagel’s ranks—knights, stewards, merchants who had served him for years. Some fled, though few made it past the fortress walls. Others simply… disappeared, their names slipping from the tongues of those who had once called them friends.

  And Ygraine—

  Ygraine, the prize he had once carried home, the golden treasure he had won with blood and steel. He observed her now as if she, too, might betray him.

  She had learned caution. To step with care. To speak only when bidden. She moved through Tintagel as if it were a nest of vipers, each one waiting, fangs poised, ready to strike.

  And where there is weakness, there are always men ready to feed.

  Men like Vortigern’s ilk.

  They had passed through Boscastle enough times—envoys with too much coin, men with smiles too sharp, men who carried words like blades. They never stayed long. They never had to.

  Boscastle did not belong to Gorlois. It did not belong to Vortigern.

  But it knew how to survive beneath them both.

  Men here worked hard. But they listened harder.

  The forge sat at the very edge of the land, where the world seemed to end and the sea dared men to hold their ground.

  The wind battered the thick stone walls, but the building stood firm—as if daring the sea to come any closer.

  Dinadan dismounted, leading Bracken to a nearby hitching post. The scent of burning coals curled from the open doorway, thick with iron and oil, the weight of metal being shaped.

  Inside, the armorer worked without pause. His hammer rose and fell, slow and steady. Each strike deliberate, each silence between them weighted.

  Dinadan leaned against the doorframe.

  He did not speak.

  Not out of patience. Out of habit.

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  He had learned long ago that a man deep in his craft would finish his work before acknowledging another.

  The armorer completed the shaping of the metal before setting his tools aside. He did not turn at once, but when he did, his gaze swept over Dinadan like a man taking the measure of steel before deciding how to temper it.

  "Took your time getting here."

  Dinadan huffed. "I wasn’t aware Uther had an exact schedule for when I should ride to my own inconvenience."

  The armorer snorted, wiping his hands on a cloth.

  "He does. He just doesn’t share it."

  Dinadan stepped inside.

  No armor waited for him. No steel laid out for a knight’s approval.

  Just measuring cords, waxed linen, and the beginnings of something not yet made.

  He frowned. "I thought the armor was already forged."

  The armorer gestured for him to stand still.

  "Armor’s made for the man who wears it. Some men already know their place. You?"

  He looped the measuring cord over Dinadan’s shoulder, tugging it firm.

  "You’ll need fitting."

  Dinadan smirked.

  "A poor insult, but a fair one."

  The armorer grunted. "Hold your arms out."

  Dinadan sighed and let the man work.

  The cord wrapped around his chest, his arms, his shoulders—each measurement quick, efficient. No wasted movement. No wasted words.

  "It’ll take days to shape," the armorer said, adjusting the cord. "You’ll stay in Boscastle until it’s done."

  "And here I thought Uther only meant to send me away. Didn’t know he meant to keep me."

  The armorer did not look up.

  "If you think you’ve been sent away, you’re not as clever as they say."

  Dinadan lifted a brow. "And what am I, then?"

  The armorer’s mouth set. "Being set into place."

  Dinadan had been given lodging in a small inn near the harbor. The kind of place meant for passing through, not for staying. The room was clean, the bed sturdy, the walls thick enough to keep out the worst of the wind that howled through the narrow streets at night.

  It would do.

  His morning had been spent standing half-naked in the forge, enduring the armorer’s measuring, shaping, and muttered complaints about his shoulders.

  By midday, he had been sent away.

  "Come back tomorrow. The steel won’t bend itself."

  Which left him with nothing to do but wait.

  And Dinadan hated waiting.

  So, he walked.

  The market stretched along the harbor road, a winding, uneven line of carts, stalls, and low stone buildings where voices tangled over the cry of gulls.

  Men called their wares with the cadence of habit rather than enthusiasm, their voices rising and falling in time with the shifting tide.

  Fish, fresh from the morning catch, glistening with salt.

  Woven goods, rough-spun and dyed in colors pulled from inland fields.

  Knives and trinkets of beaten tin, polished just enough to fool a dull eye into seeing silver.

  Dinadan had no interest in any of it.

  Because markets were never about the goods.

  They were about the people.

  A king could hang his banners high, but a market spoke for itself.

  The stalls told one story—the voices behind them, another.

  Dinadan moved through the press of bodies, pausing here and there, tilting his head toward conversations that weren’t meant for him but weren’t being kept secret either.

  A fruit seller shook his head as a well-dressed noble extended a coin.

  "I sell to my own, not to his kind."

  Dinadan let the moment land, quiet and unspoken.

  The noble’s hand hovered a breath too long before withdrawing. No argument. No protest.

  Because they both knew this was not about coin.

  A woman bent over a child’s cloak, stitching charms of rowan and iron into the hem.

  "There’s sickness in the land," she murmured. "But not the kind that fevers can burn away."

  Dinadan’s lips pressed into a line.

  He had seen sickness. He had seen fear.

  This was not fear of death.

  This was fear of something standing at the door, waiting to be let in.

  A smith sharpened a blade—not a farmer’s sickle, not a fisherman’s gutting knife, but a sword.

  "Nothing wrong with being prepared," he said.

  The young man watching him nodded.

  "Nothing at all."

  But his hands clenched at his sides.

  Not in readiness.

  In waiting.

  Dinadan drifted between the stalls, pausing where the crowd thickened. Not to buy. Not to speak.

  Just to listen.

  To the hum of quiet deals, to the weight of unspoken worries, to the shifting of wealth in hands that had learned to keep hold of it.

  Near the ale carts, a small man hunched over a worn wooden table, counting coins with quick, clever fingers.

  Dinadan did not stop, but his eyes tracked the movement.

  Coins turned, stacked, shifted.

  And clipped.

  The edges were too smooth. The weight too light.

  A silver penny, shaved just enough to slip unnoticed from one hand to the next.

  Not enough for most men to see.

  But Dinadan did.

  He let the moment settle, then moved on.

  Some men made their way with steel.

  Some, with words.

  And some, like the man at the table, shaved the world down piece by piece, hoping no one knew what had been taken.

  A dagger caught his eye. Simple. Clean. Balanced. A weapon meant for work, not show.

  Dinadan ran a thumb over the pommel, cool metal pressing back against his skin.

  And he felt it.

  The weight of eyes.

  Not the idle glance of a passing merchant sizing up a potential sale. Not the quick flick of interest from a pickpocket scanning for an easy mark.

  This was different.

  Heavier. Sharper.

  He turned —nothing.

  The market moved as it had before. Merchants haggled, the wind tugged at the edges of cloaks, boots scuffed against stone. A fisherman argued over the price of a salted cod. A woman bartered for thread, her fingers testing the weave.

  Nothing had changed.

  Except it had.

  Dinadan’s gaze flicked across the crowd, searching for the break in the pattern, the place where something was watching but did not want to be seen.

  A merchant leaned across his stall, his hands smoothing the worn wood, but his eyes—they were on Dinadan.

  "It is unwise to ask too many questions in a place like this."

  Dinadan smirked, shaking his head.

  "Lucky for me, then. I don't often ask."

  The merchant did not smile.

  "No." His voice was careful. Pointed." But you listen."

  Dinadan held the merchant’s gaze for a moment, then let his smirk widen—just enough to be unreadable.

  He tapped the hilt of the dagger once against the stall’s wooden edge, then stepped away, slipping back into the moving crowd.

  The market carried on around him, voices rising, boots shifting, hands exchanging coin.

  But the weight of unseen eyes never quite left his back.

  So he walked.

  The alley was narrow, caught between the leaning walls of two shops. The scent of salt and damp stone clung to the air, but no one paid it any mind. They were listening.

  A storyteller sat on a low wooden crate, a small crowd gathered close. His voice was steady, practiced—rich in the way of men who knew how to make silence lean forward.

  Dinadan did not stop.

  He let himself drift toward the edge of the gathering, boots light on the worn cobbles.

  A good story pulled its own audience.

  A dangerous one held them like a blade at their throats.

  And this was a dangerous story.

  The man leaned forward, his voice lowering just enough to make the crowd press in.

  "A farmer in Greystone Hollow woke to find his land blackened, his animals dead. And when he went to his lord for aid?"

  A pause.

  A breath.

  "Do you know what he was told?"

  Someone muttered. A woman folded her arms tight across her chest. A man shifted his weight, hands curling at his sides.

  But no one answered.

  Because they wanted him to say it.

  The storyteller smiled.

  "He was told he owed the same tithe as always. That the land dying was not the lord’s concern. That loyalty was worth more than hunger."

  A sharp exhale.

  Someone spat onto the ground. Another man shook his head, his jaw tight.

  They did not ask if the story was true.

  They did not need to.

  It had been spoken.

  And once a story was spoken, it became something more.

  A truth men did not question.

  A wound that demanded vengeance.

  A blade sharpened before it had even been drawn.

  Dinadan exhaled, stepping back.

  He recognized what was happening.

  The fruit seller refusing coin. The smith sharpening blades that no one admitted to needing. The woman stitching rowan wards into her children’s cloaks.

  Fear was taking shape.

  And stories were shaping it.

  A single story was enough to shape an army.

  And somewhere, someone was already preparing for war.