Wren exhales something that is not quite a sigh and not quite a prayer, pulls the parchment from inside the breastplate, and holds it out. "Sir Aldric died three days ago. Fever. He was the only one who could go, and then he couldn't, and the village had to send someone." She does not look at her boots. "The parchment is real. The quest is real. The moon doesn't care whether I fit the armor." The guard takes the parchment. Reads it once. Reads it again. His eyebrow reaches new professional heights. Then he lets out a long, slow breath — the breath of a man who has spent twenty years learning to tell foolishness from outright menace — folds it closed, and hands it back. "Ember of Aldermere," he says. "Hard road." He steps aside from the gate. "Keep to the King's Road through Ashwick. And for what it's worth —" he glances at her boots — "the garrison at the crossroads won't give you an easier time than I did." Wren tucks the parchment away, nods once, and walks through before he can change his mind.