The Gates Of Silverfang

The city grew larger with every step down from the ridge, until *large* stopped being an adequate word for it at all.

Walls of pale silver stone rose higher than anything I’d ever stood beneath, stretching in both directions until they vanished into the haze. The gates themselves were iron, massive and engraved with wolves mid-stride, flanked by guards whose armor caught the last of the daylight in polished flashes. A long line of merchants and travelers and loaded wagons waited before the entrance, patient in the particular way of people used to being inspected before they were allowed anywhere.

I didn’t ask questions. I watched instead, the way I’d learned to in the trial — taking in details before deciding what any of them meant.

-----

The gate captain’s eyes found the king first, and his expression shifted in the span of a single breath — routine boredom collapsing into something closer to disbelief.

He dropped to one knee immediately. The guards nearest him followed within seconds, armor clattering against stone, and the ripple spread outward through the waiting line as travelers began murmuring to each other, craning for a better look.

“Is that really him?”

“The King has returned?”

The king didn’t offer them a speech. He didn’t need to.

“Open the gates,” he said.

The captain rose, gave the order, and the massive iron gates began grinding slowly apart.

-----

The city beyond them was alive in a way that surprised me — markets crowded with vendors calling out prices, craftsmen bent over their work, children chasing each other between stalls with the kind of noise only children ever seem to manage. And yet beneath it, I felt the same tension I’d sensed on the road, just quieter here, folded into the ordinary rhythm of the streets.

Soldiers stood posted at nearly every major crossing, more of them than a city this settled should probably need. Conversations paused as we passed, picking back up only once we’d moved a safe distance away. Some people bowed as the king walked by. Others turned deliberately toward their stalls, their children, anything that let them avoid looking at him directly.

Whatever divide the whispers on the road had hinted at, I could see the shape of it now, written plainly across the faces of an entire city.

-----

Inside the palace, word reached a senior official long before we did.

“Your Majesty has returned,” a messenger said, breathless from running.

The official’s face held its composure, practiced and smooth — right up until a second messenger arrived close behind the first.

“He’s brought a young woman with him.”

Something flickered across the official’s expression then, gone almost as fast as it appeared, but not quite fast enough to hide entirely.

“Prepare the council chamber,” they said, voice even again, giving nothing else away.

-----

By the time we reached the palace grounds themselves, the sky had gone the deep blue of early evening, and the enormous doors ahead of us stood closed, taller than anything I’d yet seen in this city that seemed determined to build everything larger than it needed to be.

I stopped in front of them without meaning to. My hand found the pendant beneath my cloak, fingers closing around its familiar shape the way they had every mile since the shrine.

The king noticed, the way he always seemed to notice.

“Whatever happens inside these walls,” he said quietly.

A pause.

“Remember who you became before you entered them.”

The doors began to open.