Chapter 49: The Insulation
The morning air in Hartsgate hit like a physical blow, a wall of damp, freezing sleet that usually left Callis clenching his jaw the moment he stepped out of The Stag & Ember.
Today, he barely felt it.
He walked down the sloping, mud-choked lane toward the March Gate wrapped in the massive timber-wolf hide. The heavy fur collar was turned up against the wind, framing his jaw and making his shoulders look twice as broad. To the bleary-eyed mercenaries and shivering merchants pulling their carts toward the square, Callis looked exactly like what the frontier demanded: a hardened, lethal Vanguard who had earned the skin off an apex predator.
They stepped out of his way with quiet nods of respect. Callis returned the nods with a grim, stoic expression.
Internally, he was fighting a losing battle against his own blushing physiology. Every time he took a stride, the heavy wolf hide shifted, and the seamless, tailored patchwork of silk, sheer lace, and soft cotton rubbed directly against the thin linen covering his chest and ribs. The faint, intoxicating scent of rosewater, vanilla, and musky feminine heat bloomed upward from his collar, entirely overwriting the usual town stench of forge smoke and wet dog. He was a walking fortress of lethal iron on the outside, and a private bedchamber hidden under dead wolf on the inside.
He reached the staging yard just inside the massive timber gates. Kaelen and Rhett were already waiting by the supply wagons, alongside two younger, shivering mercenaries—Corin and Vance, the two broad-shouldered sons of Maeve, the district's sugar merchant.
Callis walked up to them, his heavy boots crunching in the frost. Instead of a stoic greeting, he unclasped the heavy leather satchel slung over his shoulder.
"Eat up," Callis instructed, passing out thick parcels wrapped in waxed parchment to each man. "We aren't freezing to death on an empty stomach today."
Every package was loaded with a massive wedge of slow-smoked, heavily spiced venison flank, alongside a generous share of premium, sugar-glazed apple pastries and honey-cakes.
Kaelen unfolded his parcel, his eyes widening at the dark meat. "By the Gods, Vale. This is Morcant’s private reserve. Pavel hasn't sold a cut of this to a walking mercenary in five winters."
Vance caught his package and tore it open. He stared down at the flawless, expensive pastries resting inside. He looked up at Callis, completely bewildered.
"How in the hell did you get these?" Vance demanded, holding up a glazed apple pastry as if it were a glowing magical artifact. "This is from my mother's personal stash. She locks these in the high pantry. She never shares these with us, not even on our namedays, because it's her absolute favorite stock! We aren't even allowed to look at the tin!"
Corin bit into a honey-cake alongside a chunk of venison, chewing with sheer, aggressive delight. "I don't care who he had to murder for it," Corin mumbled around a full mouth. "This is the best thing I've eaten in a month."
Rhett took a slow, deliberate bite of his own pastry. He looked at Callis, a massive, shit-eating grin spreading across his weathered face.
"Vale just has a remarkable talent for negotiating at the market," Rhett drawled, his pale eyes dancing with profound, wicked amusement. "He gets incredible rates."
Callis locked his jaw, staring dead ahead. "Market luck," he agreed stiffly.
Kaelen, completely oblivious to the undercurrent of the conversation, let out a low whistle of pure appreciation as he finally took a proper look at Callis’s new outerwear.
"By the Gods, Vale," Kaelen breathed, pushing himself off his shield to inspect the coat. "That is a proper piece of hide. The stitching on those shoulder seams is flawless. That’s Sybil Hollow’s work, isn't it? You must have spent a year's worth of hazard pay to get her to part with a prime timber-wolf pelt."
Callis did not break eye contact with Rhett.
"I didn't pay for it," Callis said, his voice a flat, aristocratic deadpan. "It was a gift. Rhett here suggested I needed something a bit more... traditional for the deep freeze."
Rhett took another bite of his candied pastry. "And it looks like the tradition suits you, Vale. You look incredibly warm."
"I am," Callis replied, his jaw locking as a particularly soft piece of sheer lace shifted against his lower back. "I have never been so thoroughly insulated in my entire life."
"Good," Rhett hummed around the pastry, tapping his iron-tipped spear against the frozen mud. "A man needs multiple layers of protection on the perimeter. It’s all about what you keep close to your chest."
Callis’s eyes narrowed into a lethal glare.
A sudden, sharp gust of wind howled through the stone arch of the gate, catching the edge of Callis’s heavy coat. The heavy flaps billowed open for a fraction of a second.
Rhett’s pale eyes darted down. The veteran tracker caught a bright, unmistakable flash of pink silk, crimson lace, and pristine white cotton stitched seamlessly together directly against Callis's chest.
Callis moved with the speed of a striking viper. He clamped his hands down on the edges of the hide, yanking the coat violently shut and hugging it tight against his body before the rest of the squad could see what he was packing.
Kaelen blinked, startled by the sudden, frantic movement. "You alright, Vale? You looked like you were trying to catch a flying arrow."
"The wind," Callis choked out, his face burning hot enough to fight the sleet. He gripped the lapels so hard his knuckles turned white. "It caught the... the lining. The lining is very delicate."
Rhett suddenly turned his face away, his shoulders shaking violently as he tried to muffle a bark of laughter into the collar of his bear-hide parka. He coughed loudly, pounding his own chest as if a piece of the pastry had gone down the wrong pipe.
"Delicate," Rhett wheezed, his pale eyes watering with barely suppressed, hysterical amusement. He wiped a tear of mirth from his face, leaning in closer to Callis so only the Vanguard could hear him.
"By the Gods," Rhett whispered, his shoulders still shaking with silent laughter. "If a crawler gets you, Vale, it’s going to choke on lace."
Callis stared at the laughing tracker, plotting at least three different ways to trip him into a freezing mud puddle during the patrol. But as the sleet continued to come down, freezing on Kaelen’s chainmail and making Corin and Vance shiver while Callis remained engulfed in a cocoon of absolute, radiating heat, he couldn't actually maintain the anger. He was wearing the fierce, territorial devotion of the Lantern Ward's matriarchs, and his squad was eating the sweet, savory spoils of the arrangement.
Callis let out a long, defeated sigh, his rigid posture finally dropping. He adjusted the heavy fur collar against his neck, inhaling the faint, private scent of rosemary and vanilla.
"Just finish your pastry, Hollow," Callis muttered, adjusting his boar-sword at his hip while keeping the coat securely pinned closed. "We have a patrol to run, and if you get sugar all over my new coat, your mother is going to kill us both."
Rhett chuckled, popping the last of the glazed apple pastry into his mouth. "Fair enough, husband of the council," he grinned, hefting his spear. "Let's go earn our keep."