"He's dead," Wren says, and the honesty of it is a strange relief — like setting down something heavy in the mud. "I found him at the crossroads. The armour was still good. The quest wasn't finished. There was no one else." She keeps her chin level, or tries to; the helmet makes it difficult. "The village needed a knight. I am the closest thing they have got." The brook woman is quiet. The stream argues on. Then, with a deliberate care, she lifts the wooden box from its rock — and the sun clasp catches a thread of light through the canopy, amber, as if something inside is breathing. "I know he's dead," she says, without particular surprise. "I have been waiting to see who would come after him." She studies Wren for a long, considering moment — not unkind, but thorough, the way you check a bridge before trusting it with your weight. "He earned that sigil. You —" a pause the length of a slow river — "that remains to be seen."