I Will Be the Greatest Knight

The couple ate well, savoring each bite as if it were the feast after their wedding. It surely showed how hungry the two of them had been from eating meager rations while trying to fend off the cold and travel a reasonable distance each day.

With stomachs full, the sleep they had was practically luxurious. The evergreen branches above them acted as curtains that blocked out any semblance of sunlight. It also helped that the wind was blocked and their tent was still in the night.

When Irene came to, it was simply because a chill had struck her and she realized their fire had gone out a while before.

Of course, Henry began to rise easily, feeling his wife moving at his side. He had been sleeping so well it took him a few moments to right himself and remember that he wasn’t in a cozy bed at home, but in the outer stretches of one of the most dangerous regions in the world, despite the lack of monsters they had seen so far.

Irene stretched before she moved out of the tent and began to relight their fire. They would need it for the pot of food they had put in the snow to preserve until they could eat more of it.

"Good morning," she uttered to her husband as she watched him come out of the tent shortly after her.

"Good morning. Did you sleep as well as I did?" Henry asked, yawning just after his question.

"I moved as much as a boulder stuck halfway in the earth," she uttered as she sat back on her heels once the fire was started.

Luckily, there were embers deep down that had somehow survived the night. It made her job easy once she got a bit of kindling and air underneath.

Henry smiled at her response. He was happy that they were both finally well-rested. It made traveling so much easier when they felt sharp.

The Commander did his own job of picking up the small pot from the snow and bringing it to Irene. He opened the top before he could hand it off, his eyebrows raising at the fact that there were already ice crystals in the food that had only been warm hours before. The freeze there truly was brutal.

"Already freezing," he explained before placing it on the stone and stick stand that Irene had created to hold the pot over the fire.

"Isn’t it impressive?" she asked. "But it’s a powerful tool for knowing that our food hasn’t gone off while we travel."

"A silver lining to having my feet freeze off nearly every night," Henry joked.

While the breakfast cooked, Henry went to another tree where the horses had been left the night before. While he had seen that they had plenty of grass to eat before they went to sleep, he still made sure there were more oats on the ground as well as a bowl they could drink melted snow from. That was frozen solid as well, so he brought it back to camp after patting the horses and bidding them a good morning.

"Even their water is frozen," Henry said as he returned. "Yet the horses remain energetic."

"They’re made for a place like this," Irene responded.

"Somehow, you are, too," Henry retorted.

"Well, maybe not how we’re living now," Irene admitted. "But if I could show you further north, you would see how my family survived for generations if it weren’t for the monsters that had moved in. I suppose if the wyrm is taken care of, that will mean we somehow defeated something they could not. There were no other monsters I could see while I was traveling, after all."

Henry crouched next to Irene, and he offered her a side hug, unable to resist at least that much.

"I would love to see it," Henry responded. "Even if it isn’t on this trip, perhaps one day."

Irene smiled at that.

"It’s the same way I want to see the peasant village," she admitted. "I want to know everything about your past."

"One day," Henry repeated with more conviction this time. "I want to see for myself how the people are faring. If there’s been any losses due to lack of care from the King..."

Henry had to cut himself off. The thought made his blood boil easily. Even if his own bloodline was no longer there, it didn’t mean that he stopped caring about the others that lived how he used to. There wasn’t much else besides misery and survival, and he wanted to be the one to break that pattern for them.

Irene could see Henry’s jaw tense as he thought about his people. She reached out to gently grasp his hand and pull him out of his thoughts.

"You’re doing enough," she assured him. "More than anyone else is doing for them. Even if it’s just plans so far, it’s moving forward. That’s all that matters."

In response, Henry slouched enough that his head could lean to the side and reach Irene’s armored shoulder. She truly was his calm. She knew how to reel him in and remind him that this was incremental and they had to take all the right steps to meet their goals.

Since the day was later than they usually left, they could tell the sun was high in the sky despite the clouds that covered it by the time they were all the way packed up. For a few moments, the couple stood in the shade of the forest and peered at their surroundings.

"There’s still nothing to see," Irene admitted. "No sign of a wyrm as far as I can tell."

"If that’s the case, where should we go next?" he wondered.

"Admittedly, the amount of sleep we got is making me feel lazy as well as the lack of sun. Shall I show you something?" she wondered. "I’m trying not to get myself too excited, but I think we can have a bit of a break while we figure out the next steps."

"Lead the way," Henry requested with a smile.

Rather than their strict path north as it had been their entire journey, Henry was surprised when Irene led them west from the forest and along the tall cliffs that led up to the plateau they had once faced before.

As they went on, Irene couldn’t help that her knees kept squeezing her horse a bit tighter. Her eagerness was rising as memories from her last trip here flooded in.

There was a place dear to her that she wanted to revisit, and there was never a better time than now.

The pair led their horses around a bend until Irene stopped Sammy in his tracks, forcing Henry to do the same with Froid.

Against a large rock wall, the A-frame hut she had visited before stood in all of its meager glory. A gasp escaped the red-haired knight’s lips, and she couldn’t help jumping off of her horse so that she could investigate further.

She silently prayed that it was still intact inside. It was leaning over very slightly, but it had been the last time she was there as well.

To her, this tiny hunting cabin looked like a castle waiting for its Queen and King to take over.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!