The King's Road earns its name before Wren has walked an hour — packed gravel broad enough for two wagons abreast, edged with mile-stones and watched at every crossing by a man with a pike. The first tollgate sits at a bridge over a brown autumn stream, and the guard there looks her up and down twice before he speaks. "Toll's a copper penny. Arms inspection's free, but I'm doing it anyway." He tilts his head at the breastplate. "That sigil's from the Order of the Amber Sun. Knight died three days past. Where'd you come by his kit?" Wren opens her mouth, closes it, and tries very hard to look like a person who has a satisfying answer ready. Across the road, an old woman tending a clay pot on a stone-ringed fire watches the exchange with the patient interest of someone who already knows how it ends.