The smoke from the Lowlands did not rise in gray plumes; it crept along the frozen mud like a greasy black frost.
By noon, the bell in the lower valley had been shattered by an iron crowbar. The town square of Oakhaven, once a bustling hub where Nyx’s newly appointed marshals distributed grain and coin for the winter stores, was now a sea of angry, frightened faces. Silas had done his work with surgical precision. He had not marched an army through the gates; he had simply dropped a spark of paranoia into a drought of fear.
At the center of the square stood a large timber wagon, overturned and slick with spilled oil. A mid-level tax collector under the old regime—a man named Kaelen, whom Silas had quietly bought with promises of restored land—stood upon the wreckage, holding aloft a blac
