A soft spring wind drifted across the hillside, carrying with it the scents of damp soil and crushed reeds from the marsh below. I sat with Baron Bolster at a folding table, its joints still stiff from recent crafting, set up in the open air for convenience and to show off North Cove’s ingenuity. Sunlight flashed across the cloudy glass gravy bowl's surface each time the breeze nudged it, and the metallic clink of bronze spoons, mingling with low birdsong, gave the meal an oddly peaceful rhythm.
Today’s fare was karlipa—a marsh bird resembling a miniature stork, its brown-and-black feathers blending so well with the reeds that catching one required either luck or a miracle. The cooked meat peeled cleanly from the bone; Lisa’s gravy, fragrant with herbs I had begun to recognize as her signature, brought out an unexpected richness.
I sliced a piece free, savoring the tenderness before speaking. Silence over meals had never been one of my virtues.
"Baron Bolster," I said, leaning back slightly so I could see the man more clearly, "I admit your arrival surprised me. I expected our correspondence to remain on parchment. But this—" I gestured to the open air, the quiet, the shared table. "This is far better. Thank you for making the journey."
Bolster dabbed at his beard with a cloth, then nodded. Even sitting on one of our new folding chairs—sturdier than they looked—the baron carried a quiet, confident strength to him: broad-shouldered, steady in posture, and bearing the look of a man in his prime who had spent years working rather than someone weighed down by age. "Due to the serious nature of your communication," he said, "I felt it prudent to come myself."
I studied him for a moment. The baron’s tone wasn’t hostile, more... cautious.
"I wholeheartedly agree," I said. I set down my knife. "Tell me, what do you know of the House of Yarbeth?"
Bolster’s brow tightened. A small motion of discomfort? Or annoyance? Hard to tell.
"I am not often involved in politics," he said, shifting in his chair. "I control the barony against the wall. My concerns tend to be local. But Yarbeth is one of the three major houses of Kimton besides Kimton itself. Their count has minted an enormous amount of Falmoren coin recently and has been unusually silent in political matters." He paused, resting an elbow on the table. "We will have to be careful when opposing him. My father supports keeping your pass closed, but angering the count can make life difficult for us even without him stealing half our income by obtaining the pass."
I nodded slowly. "I understand."
The breeze lifted the edge of the tablecloth. In the distance, a group of my guardsmen hauled lumber toward one of the new homes going up. Their shouts were faint but steady. Life in North Cove was always moving; the people, oblivious to the political storm forming above it.
"So," I continued, straightening, "let’s outline the arrangement. I keep the pass closed, except for personal trade. You support me politically, without openly opposing House Yarbeth." I tapped a finger thoughtfully against my cup. "However… should an opportunity arise requiring more direct action against them, I ask that you be willing to assist."
"I find the agreement reasonable," he said at last, then his expression hardened. "But I will not make promises about taking action against Yarbeth. They are not a forgiving house."
The wind quieted for a moment. Even the birds seemed to fall silent.
"Of course," I said. "Direct action is not my goal. Merely… preparation for an inevitable conflict."
I saw a twitch of a smile.
"I think the arrangement works," he said. "But I do not understand how Yarbeth got involved in all this. How did he find the pass?"
I rested my hands on the table, fingers interlacing. "I cannot confirm my suspicions. But approximately five years ago, the pass was discovered. I believe Bicman’s previous steward sold that information to Yarbeth. Ever since, the house has positioned itself quietly, for an eventual takeover of these lands."
Bolster took this in with a long, silent nod. I continued, outlining the events of the prior year: the acquisitions, the movements of Yarbeth’s relatives, the events that were in no way coincidences.
"You could be right," he said, drumming his knuckles once on the tabletop. "But sometimes these things have deeper layers." He leaned forward slightly, lowering his voice. "Keep your eyes open, Lord Amos. There may be more hands in this than Yarbeth alone."
"I intend to," I said, a grin on my face as I thought of the most recent group to leave my lands. The Story Tellers of North Cove. People who would go from town to town, reading stories written here. At first, I was going to send them with books, but doing so would require at least ten guards apiece. No one would pass up the opportunity to rob someone of such a precious item. It would be like a man going from town to town selling a chest full of jewels. So they had gone out as storytellers. They would be my information gatherers. As well as my PR representatives. Never hurts to have someone going around the country telling everyone what a nice guy you are.
So now that we had the most important thing out of the way, I wanted to get to know this man a little more.
"Baron, I would love to know more about your lands. If we have access to a trade route, there will be some mutual benefit in using the back pass to ship goods back and forth."
Baron Bolster smiled, "I like how you think, Count Bicman, and please, call me William."
"I will if you return the favor. Now tell me about this wall you mentioned."
This caused his eyebrows to rise.
“You truly are unfamiliar with Bolster,” he said. “Most people have at least heard of the Great Wall of Huris. Far fewer know why it exists. The story goes back several hundred years, to when our people first settled that region. It was Lord Huris’s land then.”
He shifted his weight slightly, cane tapping once against the stone.
“They tried to expand into the Barren Lands,” he continued, “and that is when they encountered the Khulari.”
He paused, studying my expression.
“By the look on your face, I take it the people of Artanes have not mentioned them yet.”
I shook my head.
“They are a large nomadic confederation,” Bolster said. “They rule the Barren Lands outright. They follow the herds across the rocky soil, moving from one water hole to the next. Quite a fascinating people, really. Some call them savages—but they are disciplined, relentless warriors. If they could be persuaded to fight beyond their territory, I would gladly hire them as mercenaries against Hitub.”
“But they refuse to leave their lands,” I said.
“Never,” he replied.
“So you built a wall to keep them out.”
Bolster’s mouth twitched. “Don’t jump ahead.”
He continued, leaning forward as if about to tell an epic tale. “The Khulari claim all of the Barren Lands as their own. When our settlers pushed into the fringe, they took it as a grievous crime. They razed the border villages. Every man, woman, and child. Then they moved on with the herds.”
I felt my stomach tighten, but he did not linger on it.
“When the Khulari passed near the great mountain pass again, the same thing happened. That was when the Count of the time drew a line. No Falmoren was to cross into the Barren Lands.”
“They thought it worked, at least for a few years,” Bolster said. “When the Khulari migrated near the border again, some of their warbands crossed into our lands instead. This time they did not massacre the villages—but they plundered them badly enough that a wooden wall was raised to explain the territories' boundary was not meant to be crossed.”
“And the Khulari breached it.” Thinking that a wooden wall wouldn't receive the name, Great Wall of Huris.
“As if it were an invitation,” he said. “When they returned again, the wall was higher. Parts of it stone. They found a way through. For a century, the pattern repeated—stronger fortifications, bolder attempts. Eventually, I believe the losses grew too costly for them. It ceased to be worth the blood.”
He exhaled slowly.
“My family assumed stewardship of the wall two hundred years ago, when our cousins’ line failed.”
“If you would hire them now,” I said, “does that mean relations have improved?”
“Improved,” Bolster agreed. “But never simple. They hold values entirely different from ours. Still, they maintain a decent relationship with the people of Mother's Mountain and us.”
I frowned. “I would have thought them the same people, just a different faction, if I didn’t know that the Karr, ancestors of Mother’s Mountain, arrived here a little over two hundred years ago.”
Bolster nodded. "Yes, they had an equally rough time with the Khulari. The story goes that when the People of Mother's Mountain landed on the Northern shore, it was a few years before they ran into the Khulari. Once again due to their nomadic nature. But when they finally did, they were pushed back to the mountain. Eventually, the People of Mother's Mountain built cities strong enough to defend themselves, and the Khulari stopped raiding them."
"A civilization that only respects those strong enough to hold what they have," I murmured, half to myself.
William gave a low hum of approval. "Well put. Once the people of Mother’s Mountain grew strong enough to defend themselves, they began trading metal to the Khulari. Not an easy thing to find in the Barren Lands."
I leaned forward, elbows resting lightly on the folding table. "And what do the Khulari trade in return?" The eagerness in my voice slipped through despite my attempt to sound measured.
William grinned, an unguarded expression that made him look years younger. "Spices, salt, and a white powder that helps with smelting iron and copper. Makes the metal cleaner."
I tried very hard not to visibly perk up like a dog hearing the word ‘treat.’ "I’d be very interested in gaining access to those. Any chance you brought some with you?"
His grin widened. "In fact, the wagon is full of things you may find interesting."
I couldn’t help it—my brows shot up. "And do you trade in large quantities of these?"
William shook his head slowly. "Not the things from the Baron Lands. These are very expensive. And the place they come from is far from the border. The tribe only reaches the wall every few years. Because of that, all of it is hard to come by."
I nodded, trying not to stare too obviously at the road where the wagon sat under guard. "Well, we’ll have to determine what to trade. I usually leave such matters to Edward, one of my stewards, and the man in charge of our books."
At that, William the Younger, who had been listening intently, shifted in his chair so much that it creaked. His eyes lit like someone had set a lantern behind them.
"We have heard of these books," he said breathlessly. "Grandfather saw one when he visited a friend in Kimton. It was one of the only ones there because apparently the shop in Vaspar that made them burned down."
The baron raised an eyebrow. "You say you have a man in charge of your books? Forgive me, Lord Amos, but… I’m surprised you have multiple books at all. They are, well, rare."
I chuckled softly. "Ah, yes. I should have spoken more clearly. Edward is the one who makes the books. I sent him to Vaspar to open a shop, much easier to produce them there, near the customers. He returned when the publishing house burned down. I’ve established another workshop for him here. Now that we have ships, the cost of distributing them will be far less."
The boy’s eyes widened until they looked ready to fall out of his head. "Lord Amos, might I see one? I’ve heard the pages are made of a very unusual parchment."
"Certainly, and the material it is written on is called paper. I-"
There was a groan of pleasure from across the table, and I didn't even have to look up to know what Baron Bolster had discovered.
Cookie called it the poofy bread, another one of the chemists’ questionable experiments. Ever since I told them they had free rein to test “anything and everything,” they’d taken that as a personal challenge from the Endless One himself. Apparently, everything now was tested with ammonium water we skimmed from the bottom of the coke fly-ash filter.
I still don't know if the stuff is truly ammonia, but it certainly smells like someone bottled the fumes of a demon’s armpit. Naturally, that meant it shot straight to the top of their list, right beside their other obsessions: urine and vinegar.
Once they had permission, to test it, the chemists decided nothing was sacred. They mixed the ammonium water with vinegar—because why ruin one thing when you can ruin two?—and added it to everything, including one of Cookie’s bread batches.
She was furious, but they’d already confiscated all the yeast “in the name of science.” I should never have taught them that phrase. They wield it like a royal decree. I had received a stream of complaints about how they were constantly underfoot and stealing stuff.
I was not spared from their atrocities. I had built a small evaporation system along the coast to distill my water for drinking and cleaning wounds. After I had told them the benefits of pure water in experiments, I noticed I was getting less and less water per day from my jug. Finally, I caught one of the chemists in the act and made sure he was very repentant. I sent them back up to Pine Ridge and told them to build their own.
But credit where it’s due—this time, the chaos actually paid off. At first, it killed things, but after getting the bright idea to run it through the water filter, it removed the sulfur smell, and things exploded—literally.
The yeast went wild.
The dough poofed up like a pillow trying to escape its own bowl, turning light and airy in a way I’d only ever seen in store-bought sandwich loaves back home. Not the dense, brick-like loaves Natalie used to make in her bread machine. This was honest-to-goodness fluffy bread; soft, springy, with a golden top that cracked gently when you pressed it.
That is where the fun ended. One idiot thought it would be a good idea to test a loaf made from demon sweat. From what I was told, as soon as his teeth sank into the bread. gases that were trapped inside were released, creating such a foul smell that they vomited all over the kitchen floor.
When I heard about what they had done, I called them all in and threatened to put them on the work crews for a week.
I loved the fact that they were experimenting, but the lack of awareness as to how dangerous sticking something in your mouth that you created using the byproduct of coal ash was ludicrous.
I had them test the bread on mice hoping to prove a point.
It almost backfired on me when the mice were more energetic after the first day, but thank the Endless One, I told them that they needed at least a month of testing. Three days after the experiment, the first mouse died. Within six, all were dead. It was a sobering moment for a group of people who thought what they were doing would always turn out well.
The upside is that we all learned from it. Tighter regulations were imposed, and absolutely no food products were to be produced. The kitchen became off-limits.
I had no regrets about instituting animal testing. I would gladly sacrifice a hundred animals to save one child.
However, the whole thing reminded me of something. Although my sister Natalie couldn't even cook bread in a bread machine, my mother could make it from scratch.
We had about a single kilogram of raw sugar, which we were planning to use as seed crystals for next year. I showed Cookie that if you add a little sugar to warm water and mix the yeast. This would cause it to rise more.
I also remember my mom putting the bowl on top of the dryer to help it rise, so I told them to keep the dough warm but not hot.
Cookie probably already knew that, but politely refrained from correcting her lord. I had her pound it down, then let it sit again and pound it down. We tried several different wild strains of yeast as well as the sourdough that was common everywhere. After a few errors and awful loaves, we had our new fluffy bread. It wasn't as fluffy as the chemical bread or store bought bread, but at least it wasn't deadly.
Unfortunately, the cooks had to stop experimenting after we got it perfected to save on the sugar. This was the first time we had used it since then. All to impress the nobility.
My ruminations were interrupted by Baron Bolster, "My lord, this bread is… I really don't know how to describe it."
I smiled. "Welcome to one of the great wonders of North Cove. I call it Wonder Bread."
John of the Mit Trading House
“Ugh… my head. Endless One preserve me, do you think he was trying to poison us, Father?” His voice was barely more than a whisper; anything louder felt like an assault.
Jonathan Mitt, head of the Mitt Trading House and a man who prided himself on self-control, pressed the heel of his palm into his brow. His normally sharp merchant’s eyes were bloodshot and squinting as if the sunlight personally offended him.“I don’t think he was trying to poison us,” he muttered. “I think he was trying to kill us. My skull feels like a blacksmith used it for an anvil.”
He winced and rubbed his temples again. “Or, and this is just speculation, he was trying to show us what the Endless One must drink in His eternal realm. Because no mortal man should consume that willingly. If I could think straight, I might calculate the value of that barrel…”
He paused, swallowed, then groaned. “…If the room would stop tilting long enough for me to focus. Oh… oh dear. Son, turn away. I am going to be sick.”
John squeezed his eyes shut. “Please don’t. If you do it, I’ll do it.” His stomach churned angrily. He tried lifting his head, but immediately regretted it. “Father… I only drank one glass. One. And I spilled half of that on the floor. I think I may have spilled… two gold’s worth.”
Jonathan groaned at that—whether from nausea or the thought of wasted money was unclear.
“We can’t sell that. We’d be executed for hoarding a royal treasure. That drink is… it is priceless. At least until we convince Amos to produce enough of it that people won’t kill him for owning the jug. My tongue feels like it’s wearing a fur coat.”
“Amos tried to warn me that although the initial effects are amazing, the side effects can be extreme. He told me to use small cups. I thought he was just saying that because he doesn't drink,” Jonathan said, breathing shallowly. “My mouth tastes like I’ve chewed on a burnt rope.”
They both sat there for a moment in shared misery.
John finally managed to get an eye half-open. “Father… does everything hurt for you too?”
“Son,” Jonathan said gravely, “my hair hurts.”
There was a long silence before Jonathan spoke again.
“Nobody can learn that this exists.”
“It’s too late,” John groaned. “The Rabiss stole almost everything he had.”
“Well, at least it wasn’t the nobles. The Rabiss can be reasoned with.” Jonathan rested his head back against the wall and winced. “But this… gives me an idea.”
John swallowed carefully. “What idea?”
“Don’t shout, son. I’m trying to think.”
He gave a shallow sigh, as though even breathing hurt. “All right. The Rabiss know it exists.”
“Yes, and Amos told me they contacted him—they wanted to exchange his people for more.”
“Good.” Jonathan nodded once, then regretted it. “I have a plan. I don’t care what it costs, you’re taking the next ship north. As far north as they’ll take you. You have to ensure he keeps his mouth shut about this.”
“Why the Rabiss…? Ugh.” John pressed a palm to his forehead. “Why them?”
“We’re going to ship the stuff to Rabiss. Let them claim they’re the producers. Then they can sell it.”
“It tastes like apples, Father. I don’t think they even grow apples there.”
“They can think whatever they want.”
John blinked slowly. “And what will you be doing?”
“I’ll be going to the capital.” Jonathan closed his eyes, gathering the last vestiges of focus a man in agony could muster. "Got to drop off your cousin to pick up that reward."
"Let's just hope Amos never finds out about that reward. He is not going to be happy we didn't tell him about it." John said.
"Well, we will invest it in our partnership by providing the men for the ship."
"He is not going to buy that, especially since we were already supposed to be covering that portion."
"He won't miss 25 gold crowns."
"Father, I know you like to get the best of everyone, but this is not a situation where I would risk tension between our supplier and us."
There was a long pause before Jonathan answered. "You're right, I am going to blame it on the alcohol. He has given us too much to be stingy."
"It is not even about what he has given us."
"You believe he is hiding something?"
John wanted to sigh, but the thought of doing so made his head pound. "If you had met him, Father, you would understand. That young man has more things hidden away than you can imagine. He is smart, and if he were willing to give us this, I can't even imagine what he thinks is valuable enough to keep hidden.
“Then I think we are in for some interesting times. Grab that jeweler you promised him and get back there. And we need to find a way to get that boy more apples.”