The high elves came at noon two days after Jason had left.
The guards on the eastern wall saw them first: a long column of riders on white horses, emerging from the forest road in perfect silence. Fifty of them. Banners of white and gold snapping in the wind. No one shouted a challenge. No one reached for a bow. There was something about the way they rode—unhurried, utterly certain of their welcome—that made the guards forget they were supposed to.
When the column reached the edge of the barrier, the air shimmered.
Every guard on the wall held their breath. They had all seen what the barrier did. Two days ago, something with too many legs had scuttled out of a tear in the southern fields, touched the shimmer, and come apart in a single heartbeat, rotting to grey dust before it could even scream.
The high elves rode straight through.
Nothing happened. Not a flicker. The barrier tasted them, found them born of this world, and let them pass as easily as it let the wind.
