Roderick Steel was born in the harbor district of the Aurelian capital, the third son of a rope-maker who had served the Crown's dock garrison before him, and his grandfather before that. The Steel family has put a spearman in the royal guard for four generations, and Roderick was enrolled in the barracks' boys' training yard at the age of eight, running sword drills between the legs of veterans who remembered his grandfather's funeral.
He was never the fastest or the strongest recruit, but he was the one still standing when the drill ended, and the one who picked up the other boys' dropped shields without being asked. That habit — carrying what others drop — became the shape of his entire life. He earned his breastplate at nineteen on the harbor wall, holding a breach against smugglers during a storm while his sergeant bled out beside him, and he has worn polished steel every day since, because he believes a guard who lets his armor dull has already let his watch dull.
At thirty-three he was standing the night gate when an assassin in a servant's livery slipped past the changing of the watch and put a blade in the old king. Roderick's longsword caught the killing stroke a half-second late; the notch in the blade is where the assassin's dagger bit through his parry. The king died. The assassin vanished into the sewers. Roderick was cleared by inquiry, promoted by the grieving princess who would become Queen Mariana, and quietly sentenced by himself to a life of perfect vigilance.
For eleven years he has commanded the household guard with a discipline that borders on ritual: every seal verified, every order countersigned, every servant vetted twice. He obeys the queen, not the chancellor, and he has said so to Vaelor Thorn's face twice — both times watching the man write something in a small book. Roderick does not drink, does not gamble, and prays once a week at the harbor shrine where the old king fell.
He is not cold; soldiers would follow him into fire, and younger guards call him 'the Old Oak' with real affection. But he has built his honor into a wall so high that he no longer knows how to ask for help climbing it — which is exactly the crack the party, and the truth about Vaelor, will have to find.
