Briar Hightower, once of Oldtown, once married to power, now a fugitive of war and whisper.

The wind was colder than she expected this far west. Not the cutting chill of the Narrow Sea nor the damp bite of Blackwater Bay, but something broader, sweeping—like a hush from the gods over land not yet tamed. Briar Hightower pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders, one hand shielding the small bundle pressed to her chest.

Oleander didn’t cry. He rarely did. Quiet as the snow that once fell on the rooftops of Oldtown, the boy blinked up at her with wide, pale green eyes rimmed in soot-dark lashes. He had her softness—but the stubborn tilt of his chin and that shadow of a smirk that ghosted across his lips when he dreamed?

That was all his father.

But that man—Otto—was gone now. Dead, perhaps. Or buried beneath the ashes of a war that had devoured thrones, dragons, and every ounce of peace they’d once pretended to share. She’d been the wife of the King’s Hand. A pawn in royal games. Now she was no one. Free. Untethered. And entirely unsure what came next.

She walked forward with boots worn and skirts heavy with dust, every step a quiet rebellion against the life she’d left behind. Gone were the castle halls of whispering courtiers and dragonstone floors. In their place: open sky, the scent of livestock and firewood, and a thin column of smoke rising against the horizon.

A homestead.

Her stomach twisted—hope or hunger, she couldn’t tell.

As she crested the hill, she saw him. A man at the edge of the corral, adjusting the reins of a tired bay mare. Young, though older than she. Tall with sandy brown hair that curled just behind his ears, face sun-warmed and open, like someone who had always known the meaning of work.

“You lost, ma’am?” he asked, voice even but not unkind. There was something in his tone—wary, perhaps, but not cold. He glanced at the child in her arms, and something shifted in his gaze.

Briar lifted her chin, exhaustion written deep in the lines of her shoulders. “Only if there’s nowhere decent left in the world,” she said, her voice rough from travel.

He didn’t smile, not quite. But something like it flickered across his face. “Well… I reckon we can test that theory.”

He opened the gate without another word.

And Briar, still holding her son close to her chest, stepped forward—toward warmth, toward safety, toward a man who didn’t know her name… and wouldn’t ask until she was ready to give it.