Wren stays. The armour makes hasty exits awkward, but mostly it's the amber light still leaking from the box, patient and warm. "What was he like?" she asks. "The knight. Before." The brook woman takes her time. She picks up the clay jar, tips it, sets it back down. "Stubborn," she says at last. "Convinced that a thing worth doing was worth doing at considerable personal cost. Which is either a virtue or a flaw, depending on who was waiting." A dry pause. "Someone was always waiting." His name, she gives without ceremony: Aldric. Not the sigil's first bearer, but the last to deserve it. He had carried the guide for three seasons, knew the Ember's hiding place, knew the path. He had simply run out of time. "He left the guide with me against his return," the woman says, quieter now. "He trusted it to remember him." She looks at the box. The amber pulse answers, slow and steady. "Whether it will trust what wears his sigil now — that is not something I can decide for it." She looks at Wren. The stream fills the silence.