Snow fell sideways over the camp that morning — not gently, not quietly, but as if the sky had grown tired of pretending to be distant.
Auren stood alone outside the medics' tents. He hadn't slept in two nights. Not because of nightmares, but because the dreams had stopped altogether. Just blackness now. Silence. Cold.
Tessan was still alive, but only barely. His fever had broken, but his strength hadn't come back. The medics didn't look hopeful. They didn't say anything at all.
"He's not the first," said Forger Ilenna, approaching from behind with a steaming tin of broth. "But he might be the youngest."
Auren took the tin. "Thanks."
"You know, when this started, he asked me to teach him how to strike a blade properly," Ilenna said, leaning on her cane. "Said he wanted to learn what it meant to make something before he destroyed it."
Auren didn't answer.
She looked at him sideways. "It matters, doesn't it? That kind of thinking?"
He nodded. "It has to."
She left him with the broth and the silence.
Inside the tent, Tessan's eyes flickered open. Not wide, not clear — but enough.
"You came back," he whispered.
"Of course I did."
"Thought… they sent you to the front again."
"Not yet."
Tessan coughed. His skin had gone gray. "I heard a story. Before I passed out."
"Yeah?"
"One of the Dareth soldiers they caught… said the king never wanted this war. Said it was forced on him by the guilds. Said the people didn't even know what it was for anymore."
Auren stared at him. "You believe that?"
Tessan blinked slowly. "I don't know. But if it's a lie, it's a good one. The kind people die for."
Auren sat down. "Let's not die for a lie."
Across the field, a crowd had gathered at the southern ridge, where Commander Halvek had summoned the soldiers for an address.
He stood on a raised platform, flanked by guards in polished armor. A fire crackled behind him — a theater flame, meant to cast him in gold.
"You've endured bitter wind," he said. "You've bled in the snow. You've watched friends fall beside you. And still, you rise."
The soldiers listened with tired eyes.
Halvek continued, louder now, his voice rising with the wind. "But Elthemar is not a city. It is a rebellion. A disease that spreads in the minds of men who forget loyalty, forget duty, forget what it means to be part of something greater than themselves."
He paused, eyes scanning the crowd.
"They want you to believe we are the invaders. That we are the cruel ones. But remember: we gave them time to yield. We gave them warnings. They chose defiance."
He stepped forward.
"So now we give them what they asked for."
Then he nodded to his right.
A soldier dragged a man forward — a captive from Elthemar. Shackled. Bruised. Silent.
"Tomorrow," Halvek said, "we raise the gallows. And with each day they refuse surrender, we raise another."
There was a murmur through the crowd. Some turned away. Others stood still. A few — too few — clapped.
Auren said nothing.
Later that night, he wrote nothing. Burned nothing. He just sat near the forge, hands shaking slightly over the heat.
Inside Elthemar, Governor Larian stood in the quiet of the Old Library, staring at the spine of a book titled "On Just Wars and the Shadows They Cast." He didn't reach for it. He didn't have to. He'd read it years ago.
Beside him, Mira read the note they'd intercepted — another anonymous message, possibly from the same Volgrin soldier.
This one was shorter.
They are preparing executions.They want a performance.You still have the choice to change the script.
Mira lowered the paper.
"You think it's a trick?"
Larian finally spoke. "If it is… it's not a clever one."
"What will you do?"
He turned to face her.
"Tomorrow, we open the underground chapel to the civilians. The one with the southern vents. If the walls fall, they might survive long enough to be spared."
"That's not surrender."
"No," Larian said. "It's planning for failure."
That same night, Auren sat beside Tessan again. The boy was asleep, breathing shallow, clutching the piece of metal he'd used to try carving his name into his dagger weeks ago.
Auren watched him for a while. Then he whispered, not knowing if the boy could hear:
"You asked me if there's meaning in making something before destroying it."
He reached into his coat, pulled out the sketch Tessan had once made of a farrier's stall — a dream for after the war.
"I don't know if I'll ever see something like this again. But I think… I think maybe you were right."
He folded the paper and slipped it into Tessan's pocket.
Then he stood, and walked out into the cold again.
The snow had stopped. But something else was beginning.
The next morning, the gallows were raised.
The message was clear.
But so was the silence from most of the camp.
Auren watched the noose sway in the wind and thought: maybe that soldier was right.
Maybe this wasn't a city they were breaking.
Maybe it was something older than that.