She had taken the title of Knight reluctantly. The order had once been a civic thing: patrols, aid at market fairs, escorting scholars across the marsh. Now the banners told other stories: lines drawn in the mud, new taxes, and old loyalties sharpened into blades. Rebecca kept her sword not for ceremony but because people sometimes needed a steady hand to steady them when law and custom bent like reeds in a storm.
That morning she donned her breastplate, a dented thing polished with oil and stubbornness. Outside the gate, the town smelled of wet straw and frying onions; the cobblers argued about prices, and two children chased a dog down the lane. The mundane comforts were a kind of defiance. She tightened the straps and let the echo of the dream settle into her like a mapped bruise. dfw knigh rebecca dream free