Wren does not let herself think. She steps forward and closes both gauntleted hands around the box — not snatching, but receiving it the way you take something from someone watching your face very carefully. The sun clasp is cold under her palm. "I swear it," she says, and her voice does not shake, which surprises them both. "By this armour and the sigil on it — by the road I came on and the one I'm going back. To carry the Ember of Aldermere home before the moon turns full, and to set it in no hands but the village's own." The stream argues with its stones. The mist holds. The Brook Woman releases the box. It is lighter than Wren expected. She tucks it against her breastplate — sun clasp pressed to sun sigil — and turns back toward the path, the amber fields beyond it, and a village that sent its only volunteer and does not yet know she is coming home. "Knight," says the Brook Woman behind her. Wren pauses. "He would have been glad," she says quietly. "That the armour found someone who fills the oath better than it fits the iron." Wren walks. The wood thins. The light returns.