Chapter 6: The Celebration Calder Deserved

The first song reached Coppervane before the column did.

Someone had composed it in Valdenmoor's capital and sent it ahead by fast rider, and by the time Wren rode through the village gate on a borrowed horse with the Covenant banner snapping overhead, a cluster of children at the crossroads were already singing it with the particular confidence of people who had learned something ten minutes ago and had decided it was ancient truth. The melody was simple and bright. The words were not complicated. Calder's name sat at the end of every second line like a key returning to its root, and the children sang it with their heads tilted back and their mouths wide open, the way children sing things they do not understand but feel in the chest nonetheless.

Wren watched them from her saddle and thought, despite herself: good. Let them sing it. Let them have it.