After the session, Morr found Bram in the corridor. "I meant what I said. Don't make me regret the kind of loyalty that isn't blind."
"I won't," Bram said. "And thank you—for the map of your limits, that first morning. It helped me draw mine."
Morr nodded once and went back to being a captain, which was its own kind of courage.
---
Winter came early to Veldorn.
The revised Compact was copied, sealed, and sent to every high house and garrison. Some burned their copies. Some obeyed. The world did not become kind overnight. A law is a seed, not a harvest.
Bram lived in a keeper's loft near the wyvern yard rather than the guest wing. He learned the names of the wall guards. He taught a few stablehands—Tilda among them—the sitting-and-waiting method, and laughed when a small green yearling wyvern from the western clutch chose Tilda's quiet over a knight's command voice. Tilda cried, then swore, then asked Yarrow for a raise.
"You're corrupting my staff," Yarrow told Bram, not displeased.
"I'm employing my mother's methods," he said.
Elowen visited the loft infrequently. When she did, she brought questions about training schedules and, once, a bottle of ordinary river wine instead of palace vintage. They drank from tin cups. The conversation stayed practical until it didn't.
"I still see her tomb in my dreams," Elowen admitted. "The empty one. I lay flowers on a lie for years. Finding you did not fix that. It only gave the lie a living consequence."
"I don't forgive the lie," Bram said. "I wasn't there to be owed that forgiveness by the people who told it. I can work with you anyway."
"Working is not healing."
"No," he agreed. "Healing might take longer than either of us gets."