The palace rose from the hills like something that had grown there.
Stone walls, green with age, climbed toward towers that had watched this valley for centuries. The stone was golden in the afternoon light, worn smooth by wind and rain, softened by moss that clung to the lower courses. Gardens spread below the walls, formal and ordered, the work of generations of gardeners who'd shaped hedges into animals and flowers into patterns that could only be seen from above.
Grog stared at it.
He'd seen fortresses before. Border keeps built for war, with walls thick enough to stop catapults and towers designed for archers. He'd seen the rough palisades of frontier camps, thrown up in a day and abandoned the next. This was something else. This was a place built to be looked at.
Lira rode beside him, her mouth slightly open.
"It's huge," she said.
"It's a palace."
She looked at the towers, the gardens, the servants who were already hurrying to meet them. A delegation had formed at the gates—stewards in matching blue coats, soldiers in polished armor, a man who looked important enough to be the Duke himself but wasn't.
"I've never been in a palace," she said.
"Neither have I."
She glanced at him. "You've been alive for two lifetimes."
"Neither of them were the kind of lifetimes that ended up in palaces."
She considered this. "Fair point."
Aldric rode up beside them. His face was carefully blank, the way it got when he was nervous. "There are a lot of people watching us."
"There are," Grog agreed.
"Is that normal?"
"For us? No. For people arriving at a duke's palace?" He shrugged. "Probably."
Aldric's hand drifted to his sword. He caught himself, forced it back to his side. "I don't like being watched."
"Get used to it," Lira said. "We're heroes now."
"That's what I'm afraid of."
---
The steward who met them was young, polished, his voice smooth as oiled wood. He introduced himself as Master Hollis, though Grog forgot the name as soon as he heard it. There were other names too—the captain of the guard, the head of the household, a thin woman who said she was in charge of "guest accommodations" and looked like she'd rather be anywhere else.
Hollis led them through gates that were more decorative than defensive, into a courtyard where fountains played and peacocks wandered. Real peacocks. Lira stared at them.
"Those are birds," she said.
"They're peacocks," Aldric corrected.
"I know what they are. Why are they here?"
Hollis turned, his smile fixed. "The Duke is fond of them. They add a certain—" He searched for the word.
"Flamboyance," the thin woman supplied. Her voice was dry as dust.
"Indeed."
One of the peacocks spread its tail. The feathers caught the light, a cascade of blues and greens that made Lira stop in her tracks.
"That's ridiculous," she said.
"It's very expensive," Hollis said, as if that explained everything.
Lira looked at Grog. "We could have fed a company for a year on what that bird's tail costs."
"We still can," Grog said. "If you want to pluck it."
The thin woman's mouth twitched. It might have been a smile. It might have been indigestion.
---
Their rooms were in the east wing, overlooking the gardens.
Hollis led them through corridors lined with portraits—Dukes past and present, their wives, their children, their hunting dogs. All of them stared down with the same expression: we are important, and you are not.
Grog's room was large. Too large. A bed that could sleep four, windows that stretched from floor to ceiling, a fireplace already crackling. A bowl of fruit sat on a table. Fresh flowers stood in a vase.
He stood in the middle of the room, not sure what to do with any of it.
Lira appeared in his doorway without knocking.
"Your room is bigger than mine," she said.
"Trade?"
"No." She walked in, looking around. "I like mine. Smaller. Easier to defend."
He almost smiled. "Always thinking."
"Always." She picked up an apple from the bowl. Examined it. Bit into it. "This is the best apple I've ever eaten."
"It's an apple."
"It's a palace apple." She held it up. "It was grown in soil that's been tended for generations. It was picked by a servant whose job is picking apples. It was placed in this bowl by someone whose job is arranging fruit. It's been waiting for someone important to eat it."
She took another bite.
Grog watched her. "Are you going to be like this the whole time we're here?"
"Probably."
He sat on the edge of the bed. It was very soft. "This is going to be a long visit."
---
Aldric found his room and immediately left it.
He walked the corridors, looking for something familiar. The portraits watched him pass. The carpets muffled his footsteps. The air smelled of beeswax and flowers. He passed a servant carrying a tray of silver dishes, a woman in silk who looked at him like he was something she'd found on her shoe, a man with a sword at his hip who nodded once, professionally.
He found a door that led outside.
The gardens were quieter than the palace. Formal paths wound between hedges shaped into spirals and arches. A fountain played somewhere he couldn't see. He walked until he found a bench tucked behind a wall of roses.
He sat.
The bench was stone, cold, the kind of thing that had been here for a hundred years. He leaned back and looked at the sky.
"You're hiding."
He sat up. An old man was standing at the edge of the roses, a pair of shears in his hand. He was dressed in simple clothes, his hands dirty, his face weathered.
"I'm sitting," Aldric said.
The old man snorted. "Same thing." He knelt beside a bush, began snipping dead blooms. "The new heroes always hide. The first day. Sometimes the second. Then they get used to it."
Aldric watched him work. "Used to what?"
"Being looked at. Being wanted. Being something you didn't ask to be." He looked up. "You didn't ask, did you? To be a hero."
Aldric shook his head.
The old man nodded like he'd expected that. "None of them do. The ones who ask are the ones you need to watch out for." He went back to his roses. "You can sit here as long as you want. I won't tell anyone."
Aldric settled back against the bench. "Thank you."
The old man shrugged. "Everyone needs somewhere to hide."
---
Mirena found the library without asking.
She'd smelled it—old paper, old leather, the particular dust of books that had been waiting for someone to open them. She followed the scent through corridors and past doors until she found a room that was taller than it was wide, its walls covered in shelves that reached toward a ceiling lost in shadow.
She stood in the doorway, staring.
A woman was inside, old, her hair white, her eyes sharp. She was sitting at a table covered in open books, and she looked up when Mirena entered.
"You're the mage," she said.
Mirena nodded.
The woman gestured at the shelves. "The old texts are here. The ones the Duke doesn't show visitors. The ones about the things that happened before anyone kept records." She paused. "I've been waiting for someone to ask."
Mirena stepped into the room. "I'm asking."
The woman almost smiled. "Good. Sit. We have work to do."
---
The Duke's reception was that evening.
The great hall was full. Nobles in silk and velvet, officers in dress uniforms, servants moving through the crowd with trays of wine. Candles burned in sconces, their light reflecting off the gold thread in the tapestries, off the jewels in the ladies' hair, off the silver on the tables.
Grog stood at the edge, watching.
He'd been given clothes. Fine clothes, dark wool, cut to fit someone who'd never worn fine clothes. They were uncomfortable in ways he couldn't name. The collar was too tight. The sleeves were too long. The fabric made sounds when he moved, soft rustling sounds that reminded him he wasn't wearing armor.
Lira appeared beside him. She'd been given a dress. Dark green, velvet, with sleeves that ended at her wrists and a skirt that didn't quite touch the floor. She looked like she wanted to kill someone.
"I'm wearing a dress," she said.
"You are."
"I haven't worn a dress since I was twelve."
She pulled at the collar, adjusted the sleeves, shifted her weight from foot to foot. The dress moved with her, swishing in ways that clearly annoyed her.
"You look—" Grog stopped. Searched for the right word. He'd never been good at this.
"Ridiculous?"
"No. Fine. You look fine."
She stared at him. "That's the best you can do? I'm wearing a dress for the first time in years and all you can say is 'fine'?"
He considered this. "You look like you're about to murder someone."
She blinked. Then, slowly, she smiled. "That's better. That's much better." She looked around the hall. "Fine. Let's go murder some nobles."
---
Aldric was cornered by a lady in blue silk.
She was young, pretty, and clearly bored. She'd been talking at him for several minutes. He wasn't sure what she was saying. Something about hunting parties. Something about a Viscount who'd said something about something. His mind had wandered somewhere around the second sentence.
"—and then the Viscount said that the hunting party couldn't possibly—are you listening?"
He blinked. "Yes."
She looked at him. Her eyes were sharp, amused. "What did I say?"
He opened his mouth. Closed it.
She laughed. It was a good sound, genuine. "You're terrible at this."
"I'm a soldier."
"A soldier who killed a hundred Vargr." She tilted her head. "That's what they say, anyway."
"It wasn't a hundred."
"How many?"
He didn't answer. He'd never counted. Couldn't count. Didn't want to.
She smiled. "I thought so." She leaned closer, her voice dropping. "I'm Gwen. I'm the Duke's niece. I'm supposed to be charming you."
Aldric frowned. "Charming me?"
"Making you comfortable. Asking questions. Finding out if you're useful." She shrugged, the blue silk shifting on her shoulders. "I'm terrible at it. Too honest."
He looked at her. "Why are you telling me this?"
She smiled again. It was different from before. Smaller. Realer. "Because you're honest too. I can see it." She took a glass of wine from a passing tray. "Don't worry. I'll tell him you're very heroic and very mysterious. That's what he wants to hear."
She walked away, leaving him standing there with the taste of wine in his mouth and the feeling that something had just happened that he didn't understand.
---
Mirena was deep in conversation with the Duke's librarian when Grog found her.
"—and the references to the old stones appear in three separate texts," the woman was saying, her voice low and quick. Her hands moved over the pages, tracing lines that Mirena had been trying to find for weeks. "All of them dated to before the kingdom. All of them warning about the same thing."
Mirena leaned forward. "The door?"
"The thin places. The cracks in the world." The woman met her eyes. "They've been here longer than we have. They've been waiting."
Grog cleared his throat.
Mirena looked up. Her eyes were bright, focused, the way they got when she was close to something. "Grog. This is Lady Amara. She's been—"
"The Duke's librarian," the woman said. She was old, her face lined, her hands steady. Her eyes when she looked at Grog were sharp as blades. "And the only person in this palace who reads the old texts." She studied him. "You're the berserker."
"I'm a soldier."
She shook her head slowly. "You're more than that. You've been touched by something. Something old." She didn't ask. She stated, like she was reading a fact from one of her books.
Grog said nothing.
She nodded slowly. "We'll talk later. All of us." She turned back to her books, already reaching for another volume. "There's more in the archives. Things I've been waiting to show someone who would understand."
Mirena gave Grog an apologetic look. He waved her off. Let her work.
---
The Duke appeared as the candles began to burn low.
He was younger than Grog had expected. Forty, maybe. Dark hair, dark eyes, a face that was handsome in a soft, comfortable way. He wore velvet and silk, but without the weight of someone trying to impress. The clothes sat easy on him, like he'd been wearing fine things his whole life and had stopped noticing them.
He moved through the crowd with easy familiarity, greeting nobles by name, remembering children, laughing at jokes that weren't very funny. He touched elbows, patted shoulders, made people feel seen in a way that seemed practiced but not false.
When he reached them, his smile was warm.
"The heroes of the valley," he said. His voice was smooth, warm, the voice of someone who'd been trained to put people at ease. "I've heard so much about you." He looked at each of them in turn. "You've done the kingdom a great service."
Grog nodded. "We did what we had to."
The Duke's eyes lingered on him. "So I've heard." He gestured at the hall, the nobles, the servants, the whole spectacle of it. "Tonight, you rest. Tomorrow, we talk. About what comes next." He smiled again. "I hope you'll find the palace to your liking. The rooms are comfortable. The food is good. And the peacocks are, I'm told, very impressive."
Lira made a sound. It was somewhere between a cough and a snort.
The Duke's eyes flickered to her. Something like amusement crossed his face. "You don't care for the peacocks?"
"I'm sure they're very—" she started.
"Ridiculous," Grog said. "She called them ridiculous."
Lira's head snapped toward him. Her eyes promised violence.
The Duke laughed. It was a real laugh, warm, surprised. "They are. Terribly. My grandfather loved them. I keep them because he did." He shrugged, the velvet shifting on his shoulders. "It's the kind of thing we do, I'm afraid. Keep things because our ancestors kept them. Long after they've stopped making sense."
He nodded to them, a small bow that acknowledged their status without pretending they were equals.
"Tomorrow, then."
He moved on.
Lira turned to Grog, her face a mask of fury that didn't quite hide the smile underneath. "You didn't have to tell him I called the peacocks ridiculous."
"You did call them ridiculous."
"That was private."
"You said it in front of a hundred people."
She glared at him. "I hate you."
He almost smiled. "No, you don't."
She looked at him for a moment. Then, reluctantly, she smiled back.
"Fine. I don't." She looked at the Duke, moving through the crowd, laughing at something someone had said. "He's not what I expected."
Grog followed her gaze.
"What did you expect?"
"I don't know. Something worse." She shrugged. "Something more like the stories."
Grog watched the Duke shake hands with an old woman, kiss the cheek of a young girl, ruffle the hair of a boy who'd been staring at him with wide eyes.
"The stories aren't always true," he said.
Lira snorted. "That's rich. Coming from you."
He almost smiled again. "I know."