The snow stayed deep for another month, slowing all travel to a crawl and wrapping the valley in a hush broken only by wind and the creak of timber settling under frost. We spent the long days repairing tools, copying the First Charter onto sheets of cured leather so it would survive damp and cold, and teaching groups of riders how to spot the shadow faction’s marks and how to talk through fear instead of giving in to it. But even as our own community grew tighter, we kept hearing faint, disjointed reports from places further out — stories that did not fit the pattern of sabotage and lies we had come to expect.
A rider from the eastern foothills told us that three supply wagons bound for the old loyalist holdfast at Black Rock had been diverted from ambush, their drivers finding their pat
