Ash still drifted in the air when Maverick arrived at the clearing. The fire had long since gone out, but the smoke clung to the trees like it didn't want to leave. Charred splinters of a wagon wheel lay half-buried in the snow. What remained of the supply crate smoldered like an old grudge.
The body was near the stump—burned to the bone, but not destroyed. Someone had positioned it deliberately, arms folded across the chest.
Brada crouched beside it, scarf pulled over her nose. Her gloved fingers poked carefully through the frozen ash. She didn't flinch. The village's only medic had seen worse.
Alric stood on the ridge above them, arms crossed, boots buried in the frost. His eyes were fixed not on the corpse, but the object next to it.
Maverick reached down with the butt of his spear and flipped it.
A medallion. Dark steel, scorched on the edges but intact. Its design was simple but unmistakable: a tree, stripped bare, with its roots curling upward instead of down.
He stared at it for a long time.
"It's the same mark," he said quietly.
Alric nodded once. "They're not hiding it anymore."
"They want us to see it."
Brada rose slowly. "It's not a local symbol. This was a house emblem once. Old blood."
Maverick looked at her. "You recognize it?"
"No. But my grandmother talked about it. Said when she was a girl, she saw it etched into a wall during the southern retreat. Before the Frost Pact failed."
"Rebel?"
Brada nodded. "Worse than that. A loyalist house—turned traitor. Burned off the family tree and planted themselves in ash."
The forge felt colder that evening, though the fire burned high and hot.
Elira ladled soup into bowls without speaking. Selene sat near the twins, her eyes fixed on the flicker of flame, lost in thought. Torren stood by the bench with his arms crossed, the medallion resting in his palm.
Maverick hadn't taken off his coat. He leaned in the doorway, watching the room instead of joining it.
"We can't ignore this anymore," Elira said, not looking up. "This isn't bandit work. They didn't take anything. They didn't need to."
"They sent a message," Selene said softly.
"No," Torren murmured. "They sent a memory."
Everyone turned to look at him.
He stared at the medallion as though it might blink.
"This wasn't just fire. This was ritual. It's what they used to do during the civil war—when they wanted to erase a town's loyalty."
Selene rose. "The symbol matches the graffiti. The oil smears from the inn. Even the wall carving Brune showed us. They're repeating history."
Maverick pushed off the doorframe. "What history?"
Torren didn't answer.
Later that night, Selene pulled Maverick aside near the back entrance of the forge.
"I need to show you something."
He followed her through the snow-covered path behind the forge to a narrow side alley. She stopped at the gate behind the abandoned toolsmith's quarters and pulled a folded parchment from her coat.
Maverick took it and opened it under the torchlight.
It was a map.
But not just of Eldenhold.
The northern provinces. Hidden trails, marked caches, smuggler paths. Trade routes abandoned after the last war.
"This was in the Therant estate," she said. "Hidden behind a false wall in the study. I took it before the snows came."
"You broke into their manor?"
"I walked in. The doors weren't locked."
He stared at the inked lines, fingers tracing a path that led straight through Eldenhold.
"They left this behind?"
"Or they meant for someone else to find it."
He looked up. "You should've burned it."
"Would you have?"
Brune met Maverick near the side entrance of the inn the next morning. The sun hadn't risen fully, but there was enough light to show the circles under the innkeeper's eyes.
"There was another mark," he said. "Same as before."
"Where?"
"Storage room. On the back of a barrel. Scratched into the wood."
Brune hesitated.
"And someone tried to poison the stew."
Maverick blinked. "What?"
"One of the boys—Orlin—caught a refugee kid pouring something into the pot. The kid wouldn't talk. Just cried. But someone sent him."
"Anyone else know?"
"Just Alric. And now you."
Maverick tightened his grip on his spear.
"We're running out of time."
The prisoner sat bound in the barracks storage shed, hands tied behind his back. He wore a merchant's cloak, but it was too clean for a refugee, too thin for a soldier.
Alric paced slowly in front of him, torchlight dancing across the frost-coated walls.
"Name?" Alric asked.
No answer.
"Who do you serve?"
A chuckle.
Maverick stepped forward. "We found the symbol on your pack. You've been leaving it everywhere."
Still silence.
Brada entered, pulled off her gloves, and knelt to check the prisoner's wounds. One hand had a deep slash across the palm. She bandaged it without comment.
Finally, the man spoke.
"You think this is about territory," he said. "Borders. Grain. Winter."
"Isn't it?" Alric asked.
The man smiled faintly. "It's about memory. About who remembers warmth. Who deserves it."
Maverick stepped closer. "You're with the rebels."
"I'm with the ones who never forgot what the crown did."
He leaned forward.
"You can pile snow on ash. But it still smolders."
That evening, Maverick found himself walking near the stables, boots crunching in the brittle snow.
She was there again.
The woman from the garden. Hooded, quiet, her hands hidden inside her coat. She leaned against the fencepost like it was part of her spine.
"You're not stable staff," he said.
"I never said I was."
"You've been watching."
"So have you."
He stepped closer.
"You going to keep walking shadows, or do you have a name?"
She didn't answer.
But she didn't walk away, either.
He nodded once. "You'll be called when it's time."
"I already am."
She vanished into the dark behind the stalls.
Back in the forge, Torren hammered a dented helm back into shape.
He didn't look up as Maverick entered.
"Still trying to walk the line?"
Maverick pulled off his gloves. "There's no line left."
Torren placed the hammer down.
"Then stop pretending."