They came on the third evening.
Aldric heard them before he saw them — the creak of wooden wheels and the sound of hooves on the dirt road. He was at the well when they appeared at the edge of the village. A covered wagon drawn by two horses, with two riders flanking it on either side.
The village noticed. Doors opened. Faces appeared in windows. People who had been carrying water or mending fences stopped what they were doing and watched, the way Ashford always watched when something unfamiliar crossed its borders.
The man driving the wagon was older — not as old as Edran, but past the age where men moved quickly without reason. He had a short grey beard and a weathered face, the kind that had been shaped by years of sun and wind and sleeping in places that were not beds. A sword hung at his side, the scabbard scratched and dull from long use. His eyes moved across the village slowly, taking it in without hurry.
The two riders beside the wagon were younger. A woman carried a bow across her back and a quiver at her hip. The man on the other side had a sword on his belt, the handle worn smooth. Neither of them spoke. They rode the way people ride when they've covered long distances together and no longer need words to stay in step.
The older man brought the wagon to a stop near the well. He sat on the driving bench for a moment and let the village look at him the way he had looked at it — openly, without rush.
Then he climbed down, landed heavy, and tied the horses to the post.
"Evening," he said. His voice was rough but not unkind. "I'm looking for a boy named Aldric. Got a letter from the crown saying he's expected in Valmont."
Tomas stepped forward. "He's my son."
The man looked at Tomas, then past him to where Aldric stood by the well. He studied him for a moment — not the way the official had studied him, like a name on a list, but the way a man sizes up someone he's about to be responsible for.
"Name's Garrett," he said. "We're taking him to Valmont. We leave at first light tomorrow." He reached into his coat and pulled out a folded sheet. "I'll need to see his letter."
Tomas looked at Aldric. Aldric went inside and came back with the blue-sealed letter. Garrett took it, read it, nodded once, and handed it back.
"Pack light," he said. "One bag. The road's four days if the weather holds." He glanced at the two riders behind him. "We'll camp outside the village tonight. No need to trouble anyone for beds."
He said it simply. No ceremony, no weight. This was a job and he was doing it the way he had done it many times before.
They led the wagon to the edge of the village and began setting up camp in the grass beyond the last house. The woman gathered wood. The swordsman unrolled bedding. Garrett sat on a stone and watched the road behind them, as though even here, even in a place as quiet as Ashford, old habits did not let him stop watching.
Aldric looked at the wagon. The canvas flap at the back was drawn shut, but as he watched, it shifted — just a little — and a girl's face appeared in the gap. She looked at him for a moment. Dark eyes, steady and curious. Then the canvas fell back and she was gone.
The village talked about nothing else for the rest of the evening.
* * *
Aldric didn't sleep much that night.
He lay in the dark and listened to Corbin's breathing through the wall. He listened to the house settle. He listened to the wind outside and tried to imagine what it would sound like somewhere else — in a city, on a road, in a place that wasn't this.
He couldn't.
He got up before dawn. Maren was already in the kitchen. Of course she was.
She had packed a cloth bundle — bread, cheese, dried meat, a small jar of honey wrapped in a rag so it wouldn't break. She pressed it into his hands and held on a moment longer than she needed to. She didn't say be safe. She didn't say come home. She looked at him with steady eyes and said, "Eat before you get hungry, not after."
Then she pulled him close and held him. She smelled like bread and woodsmoke, the way she always smelled, the way the house always smelled. When she let go, her eyes were bright but she did not cry. She turned back to the counter because that was how she stayed strong — by moving, by doing, by not standing still long enough to feel the weight of it.
Tomas was at the door. He had Aldric's bag in one hand — he must have checked it while Aldric wasn't looking, making sure everything was packed right. He handed it over and gripped Aldric's shoulder with his free hand. Hard. The kind of grip that said everything a man like Tomas would never say out loud.
"Work hard," he said. "And write when you can."
Aldric nodded. Tomas let go.
Corbin was outside, leaning against the wall by the door. He looked like he hadn't slept much either. He straightened up when Aldric came out and for a moment neither of them said anything. Two brothers standing in the early light with nothing between them but the fact that one was leaving and the other was not.
"Don't do anything stupid," Corbin said.
Aldric almost smiled. "I won't."
Corbin hesitated. Then he stepped forward and put his arms around his brother — quick, tight, and over before either of them could think about it too much. He stepped back and shoved his hands in his pockets and looked at the ground.
"Good," he said. That was all.
Edran was waiting by the path. His stick was planted in the dirt. He stood the way he always stood — straight, unhurried, as though the morning had been made for him and not the other way around.
The family was behind Aldric. Garrett and the wagon were ahead, at the edge of the village. Aldric stood between them with his bag on his shoulder and the cloth bundle in his hands.
Edran looked at him. Not the way his parents had looked at him — with love and worry tangled together. Edran's eyes were clear. He had something to say and he had been carrying it a long time.
"I walked a lot of roads when I was young," Edran said. "Went where they told me. Fought where they pointed me. Came home and sat down and that was that." He paused. The stick shifted in his hand. "I never stopped to ask who I was while I was out there. I just marched."
He reached out and put his hand on the side of Aldric's head — rough palm, steady fingers.
"Don't just walk where they point you, boy. Find out who you are while you've got the chance. That's the one thing nobody else can do for you."
He let go. He nodded once. Then he stepped aside the way a man steps aside when he's done — completely, without looking back.
Aldric walked toward the wagon.
* * *
Garrett gave him a nod as he reached the wagon. "Climb in the back."
Aldric pulled the canvas flap aside and climbed in. He sat with his bag between his knees and the cloth bundle in his lap. Garrett called out from the front. The wagon lurched forward. The wheels creaked. The horses pulled and the road began to move beneath them.
Aldric turned and looked through the gap in the canvas.
Ashford was behind him. He could see the rooftops, the well, the thin smoke from the chimneys. He could see the path to Edran's cottage and the fields where he had worked with Corbin yesterday and every day before that. He could see the treeline along the eastern edge where the stream ran — the stream with no name, the one that split around a rock and joined again on the other side.
His family stood where he had left them. Maren at the door. Tomas beside her. Corbin against the wall. Edran on the path, his stick in the dirt, watching.
The wagon rolled on. The village got smaller. The figures got smaller. The rooftops became shapes and the shapes became a line against the morning sky and then the road bent and Ashford was gone.
Aldric let the canvas fall shut. He sat in the dark with the smell of bread from his mother's bundle and the weight of his grandfather's hand still on the side of his head.
The road stretched ahead. He did not know where it led. Not really. He knew the name — Valmont — but the name was just a word. It meant nothing to him yet.
The wagon rocked beneath him. Somewhere ahead, the road went on.