Wren twists the buckle strap until the scratched letters face her. She reads the name once silently, then speaks it into the mist — short, plain, the kind of name that was never meant to carry this much weight. "I stand in your stead," she says. "The village sends its own hands. We need the Ember to live through the winter." She looks up from the breastplate sigil to the Brook Woman's face. "The sigil is witness." The sun clasp clicks open without a hand laid to it. The Brook Woman lifts the lid. Inside, nested in charred cloth: something the size of a river stone, glowing banked amber like a lamp behind glass — warm even from a foot away. She holds the box out. "Take it," she says quietly. "He'd have wanted it done right." Wren cups her hands. The Ember is heavier than expected, and steadily, impossibly warm. Deep in the Thornwood, something shifts and does not speak.