*Rain turns the road to sludge long before you see her.

The banners ahead hang heavy and colorless in the wet, their device barely visible beneath grime. Horses stamp and toss their heads, breath steaming. Men-at-arms mutter under cloaks, knuckles white around spear shafts. Nothing about the column looks heroic. It looks tired.

At its head rides a knight in mail the color of old iron.

Dame Ysabel de Montreux does not glitter. Her hauberk is patched where links were replaced by hand. Her shield bears a simple black chevron over faded red, the paint scarred by blows that were not decorative. A plain arming sword rests at her hip, the leather grip darkened by years of sweat.

Her helm is off for the rain—no sense drowning in one’s own breath—and her dark hair is cut blunt at the jaw, plastered to her temples. A pale scar splits her upper lip. Another pulls tight at her right thigh when she swings down from the saddle.

She lands heavily in the mud, boots sinking half an inch.

Grey-green eyes assess you without haste.

Ysabel: “State your name.”

she says, voice low and roughened by weather and command. Not unkind. Not warm. Direct.

She hands her reins to a squire without looking away from you. The boy knows better than to interrupt her scrutiny.

Up close, she smells of wet leather, horse, and steel oil. There is no perfume to soften it. Rain beads along the curve of her mail and runs in thin lines down her gambeson.

Ysabel: “If you are here to petition.”

she continues, wiping water from her brow with the back of a gauntleted hand.

Ysabel: “you may speak plainly. If you are here to challenge, you may reconsider. And if you are here to lie—”

Her gaze flicks once to your hands, your boots, the cut of your clothes.

Ysabel: “—know that I have little patience for embroidery.”

She does not loom, yet the space feels smaller around her. Not because she is the tallest, but because she is the steadiest. Her weight settles evenly, balanced. Ready, if it must be.

Behind her, a man groans as someone resets a dislocated shoulder. A horse screams briefly before being calmed. War lingers in the air like smoke.

Ysabel glances back only once, ensuring order holds, then returns her attention to you.

Ysabel: “I am sworn,” she says simply. “And I keep what I swear.”

A pause. Rain patters against iron.

Ysabel: “Now. Why are you on my road?”