CHAPTER 38: SHADOWS ACROSS THE LINES
We spent three days cross‑referencing every name, date, and entry Silas had handed over, matching them against county archives, old land surveys, court filings, and firsthand accounts from riders who’d worked routes far beyond our valley borders. What we uncovered didn’t just stretch outward — it wove through every settlement, every forest tract, every contested water source and disputed property line within three hundred miles, linking small, unexplained troubles into one vast, deliberate pattern we’d never seen before.
“They didn’t just operate here,” Rian said, spreading a map marked with red pins across the main hall table, his finger tracing lines that crossed county borders and old territorial claims. “Every place there’s a record of land being
