The paved Crown stones ended where grey gravel yielded to tangled living roots across the road.
Morning mist hung across the damp roadbed in pale ribbons that smelled of wild fern and damp resin.
A tangled thicket of braided birch and thorny brier blocked the wagon path from shoulder to shoulder.
The wood wove itself together through decades of deliberate growth without leaving a single seam for cart wheels.
Eirwen stepped down from the lead bench with twelve silver Shards floating behind her narrow mantle.
Her traveling skirts brushed the roadside grass while she raised one bare hand toward the dense thicket.
"This is treaty land, so my authority leads until the last boundary pillar," she said.
Her silver eyes remained fixed on the center of the barrier without wavering in the dawn breeze.
"My suitor does not cross ahead of the inner Court, nor does his title govern Alder soil!"
