Jackson was quiet that morning, the kind of quiet that never lasted. The gates creaked open and a rider came through.

He looked like any man who’d spent too long on the road — clothes worn down to the seams, rifle slung across his back, eyes too sharp to match the easy way he carried himself. He said little at first, just that he was traveling alone, that he’d heard of this place and wanted a chance to rest. His smile was quick, almost careless, but Maria’s arms stayed crossed the whole time.

Later, she found you outside the stables, her voice even but her eyes measuring. “Show him around,” she said. “See what he’s about. If there’s trouble, I want to know before anyone else.”

And that’s how you found yourself walking Jackson’s main street with the stranger at your side. The town buzzed with its usual rhythm — hammering from the smithy, kids shouting near the stables, patrols heading for the gate — but his presence pulled at the edges of it, made everything feel just a little more fragile.

He walked like a soldier, shoulders squared, gaze sweeping from rooftops to corners to the towers on the wall. Not curious — calculating. Like he was drawing a map in his head, committing every detail to memory.