Location: En Route to Oslo County — Midgard's Western Borderlands
Time: Day 358 After Alec's Arrival
The Departure
The convoy left just before dawn.
Five covered wagons, two dozen guards, a half squad of mounted scouts, and one carriage — reinforced, lacquered in ducal black with silver inlay and sunlit filigree. The royal Midgard banner fluttered from its flanks. Alec, however, did not ride inside.
He rode ahead — astride a sleek dapple-gray gelding, posture straight, expression unreadable.
He preferred to see the road.
The sky.
And the expressions of passing travelers when they caught sight of the twin insignias embroidered on his cloak — the flame-forged crest of Midgard sewn beside his own symbol: a clean geometric weave of three interlocked triangles forming a rising eye.
People watched. Every hamlet, every roadside herder, every tollkeeper pretending not to gawk.
The world was watching now.
He knew it.
And so did Elira.
She emerged from the carriage after the first half-day of travel, not out of discomfort, but for visibility.
She wore deep forest green with a lined riding cloak, her red hair pulled into a neat twist at her nape. Her gloves were spotless. Her posture? Regal.
"I need them to see I'm still present," she said, adjusting her reins as her horse caught pace with his. "Not hidden. Not escorted. Not weak."
"You've never been hidden," Alec said.
"Only overlooked," she replied. "There's a difference."
They rode in near silence for the first league. The crunch of gravel, the rustle of leaves, and the occasional call of a watchbird overhead filled the space between them. It suited Alec. He was reading the landscape, absorbing details.
Thinned treelines. Irregular irrigation ditches. Old grain carts long abandoned in a ditch. Two bridges — one cracked through the spine, the other held by makeshift rope supports.
And then: faint indentations.
"Signs of recent movement," Alec said, pointing at a half-sunken wheel rut that split off from the main road. "Too narrow for grain wagons. Light, fast."
Elira glanced once and nodded. "Smugglers. Maybe bandits. Maybe worse. The reach of Oslo sabotuers is like rot — you don't smell it until the beam gives way under your feet."
"Then we replace the beams," Alec said flatly.
She tilted her head, eyeing him sideways. "Simple to say. Harder to fund."
"Not if the rebuild pays for itself."
"Oh?" She arched a brow.
"Control the bridge. Control canal passage, levy a transport tithe, redirect grain exchange via priority shipping. Local farmers will curse, then comply. By next winter, Oslo's revenue triples."
A faint smile played at her lips. "You calculate everything."
"No," Alec corrected. "I assess everything. Then calculate what matters."
Quiet Tension
Camp was made just beyond the rise of Sundbridge Ridge. The guards lit cookfires, forming a half-circle around the wagons. Scouts kept to the treeline, one eye on the southern hills, the other on the trail they'd left behind.
Alec stayed by his saddle, cloak off, shirt unlaced at the throat. He knelt by the fire with a map scroll weighed down by stones. He hadn't eaten.
Elira approached, arms folded. She wore a simpler cloak now, thick wool against the night air.
"You don't sleep much, do you?" she asked.
"Optimized rest cycles. Four hours if I allow them."
"And if you don't?"
"I get what I need."
She stood for a moment, watching him with quiet curiosity. Then, slowly, she circled the fire and crouched beside him—not gracefully, not with show, but with purpose.
"You don't have to impress me, Alec," she said, not quite softly. "I didn't bring you to Oslo to show off."
He looked at her then — really looked.
"Then why?"
She met his gaze. Her face was close now, firelight catching the edges of her cheekbones, casting shadows beneath her lashes.
"To watch," she said. "To see what kind of man you are when the power is mine — not the duchess's."
A beat passed.
"I don't fear powerful women," he said.
Her mouth twitched into a knowing smirk.
"Good. Because I don't shrink for clever men."
Elira in Motion
By day four, the terrain shifted. The road dipped into Oslo's outer valley — a place that should've been abundant with spring planting, laughter from roadside inns, the churn of carts full of early crops.
Instead, they found:
Farmland barely harvested.
Burnt granaries — two still smoldering at the edges.
Broken fences.
Silent rooftops lined with villagers watching, waiting. Not welcoming. Not hostile. Just uncertain.
Elira sat taller in the saddle.
Alec didn't need to glance to feel the change in her. Gone was the Elira of oslo. Here rode the Countess of Oslo — not in name alone, but in spine and presence. The iron-blooded woman who had held together a fraying border with less grain and fewer knights than any of her peers. She wasn't theatrical. She was present.
And when she dismounted in the village square, the people didn't rush to her.
But they came.
Slowly. Carefully. Tired men with callused hands. Thin women clutching children. Old men with milky eyes. A few guards with crude weapons.
"Countess Elira," one older woman whispered, voice cracking.
"You've returned."
"I never left," Elira said firmly. "But now I've brought something that won't vanish with the frost."
She turned toward Alec.
So did the people.
He didn't speak. He didn't smile.
He bowed.
Once.
And that was enough.
Their eyes shifted — from guarded to hopeful. From doubt to the start of belief.
Private Dialogue in Elira's Study
That evening, they stood in her father's old council chamber — a cold, high-ceilinged room lined with faded banners and moth-eaten rugs. The hearth had been lit. Scrolls and ledgers covered the long table like scars on memory.
Elira stood near the fire, her gown changed for evening, her hair down. She held a goblet of dark wine in one hand. Her daughter had gone to bed. The guards remained outside.
Alec stood near the map table, studying the old regional divisions carved into the wood. The edges had been worn by decades of elbows and arguments.
"This county isn't just strained," he said without looking up. "It's drained."
"I know," she answered, voice quieter now.
"You'll need more than a company project. You'll need a strategic narrative."
Elira turned slightly, curious. "A what?"
He met her eyes. "A story. One that nobles can't hijack and peasants can believe. Something the duchess can point to and say, That. That's the future of the realm."
Elira stepped closer, her silhouette dancing in the firelight, shadows playing across the scarred wood.
"And who writes this narrative?"
He looked at her fully.
"We do."
She didn't smile.
She didn't need to.
The flame between them burned steady.