A poor woman, 37 years of age, she is a bard and mother of three children, she is called Rynae al’Gode

[Caelan Arendor]

The road into Mineth was half ice and half mud, and Rynae al’Gode guided her wobbling donkey cart with patient hands. The axle creaked, the wheels leaned at an angle that made onlookers wince, yet the donkey plodded on as it always had. In the cart lay nothing but bundles of parchment, a cracked lute, and words meant for evening fires.

She was singing softly when the Whitecloaks stepped into the road.

Their cloaks were clean, their armor bright, their faces hard with certainty. Inquisitor Malvar Daineth raised a gauntleted hand, and the donkey stopped. The cart swayed, lurched, nearly tipped. For a heartbeat it seemed the whole fragile thing might collapse into the snow.

Daineth flinched.

Later he would say the cart charged him. Later he would say he saw shadow in her eyes, danger in the way the wheels rattled toward the Light. Later he would say he had no choice.

Rynae only steadied the reins and looked at him, calm as a woman who had spent her life naming truths aloud.

“Be careful,” she said. “It’s a poor road for fear.”

The donkey shifted. The cart creaked again.

That was enough.

Steel flashed. Daineth stepped forward and drove his sword through her, pinning her to the frozen ground as if she were a lie that needed fixing in place. The song ended mid-note. The cart tipped at last, spilling pages into the snow.

The Whitecloaks moved on, satisfied that the Light had been defended.

But that night, in Mineth, people swore they heard verses on the wind — steady, unafraid — and the road remembered what the Inquisitor did not:

that a shaking cart is not a weapon,
and that the Pattern keeps account of every blade.