The next morning brought smoke—not from the forge, but from the western fields.
It wasn't thick, not yet. A smear against the overcast sky. Most assumed it was someone clearing brush. But Maverick had spent too long on the walls not to know the difference between farm smoke and burning timber.
He didn't report it. Not yet.
Instead, he walked the perimeter twice, checking for new prints, broken patches, signs of anything that didn't belong.
He found a scarf snagged on a low tree near the outer fence. It wasn't Selene's.
Too fine for a refugee, too plain for a soldier. Stiff from ice. Tinted red at one end, but not with dye.
He tucked it into his coat.
And said nothing.
At the barracks, Commander Hallen, the quartermaster, was in a shouting match with Alric.
"We're not a border fortress," Hallen snapped. "I'm rationing grain to militia now."
Alric held steady. "You cut food, you cut morale."
"Then start cutting mouths. Or let me start closing gates."
Maverick entered quietly and leaned against the stone column.
Hallen noticed him. "How long until we start seeing people inside the walls fighting over kindling?"
Alric didn't take his eyes off him. "What's the report, Mav?"
Maverick gave a short nod. "Smoke on the west edge. Old orchard line."
"Fires again?"
"Could be clearing land. Could be something else."
Hallen snorted. "The whole world's a spark away from lighting up. Don't feed it."
Later that day, Maverick stopped by the inn on his patrol route.
Brune was sweeping ash from the threshold, muttering to himself.
He looked up when Maverick approached. "You on duty?"
"Always."
Brune nodded, glanced back inside.
"They're starting to meet," he said. "Not the refugees. Locals. Back room. After curfew."
"What are they saying?"
"Nothing, if you ask them. But I hear the way they pause when certain names come up."
Maverick stepped into the doorway. "Which names?"
Brune's mouth twitched.
"Ones that belonged to old banners."
That evening, as the forge prepared to close, Torren bolted the shutters himself. Elira took longer than usual putting the twins to bed.
Selene didn't come.
No one mentioned her absence, but everyone noticed it.
Maverick sat at the bench, rolling a stone between his fingers.
Torren joined him without speaking, wiping soot from his hands.
After a long pause, Maverick said, "What do you think happens when the people stop fearing the cold more than their leaders?"
Torren looked at the fire.
"Depends on the leaders."
"And the people?"
"They burn the fields. Then they burn the maps."
The next day, a patrol didn't return.
Four men. Two veterans.
Alric sent another group to search. They found boot prints near the ravine path. Scattered, uneven. And arrows. Black-fletched.
No bodies.
No weapons.
Just silence.
And a single phrase carved into the bark of an old tree:
"Ash will serve."
At the gates, the refugees began to divide.
Some kept to the inn yard, building makeshift tents and warming stones. Others started to form their own perimeter.
They stopped accepting rationed food and began trading internally.
Then came the whispers:
"The crown abandoned the border."
"The lords hoard grain and steel."
"Winter isn't coming—it's ours now."
Maverick heard them all.
He said nothing.
But he started sleeping with his spear next to the bed again.
Selene returned on the third day, just past dusk.
She didn't knock. Just came in, gloves wet, cheeks red from cold.
Elira looked up, half-startled. "You weren't—"
"I was with my uncle. His barn's been marked."
Torren didn't ask what she meant by "marked." He just gestured to the bench.
Maverick watched her from across the forge.
She didn't come to him right away.
When she finally did, hours later, after the twins were asleep and the fire low, she sat beside him quietly and pulled the scarf from her neck.
"It's starting, isn't it?" she said.
"Yes."
"Which?"
"All of it."
"I overheard something," she said, voice low. "Two men from the old royal garrison. They said a name."
Maverick looked at her.
"Carenhast."
He didn't speak.
"That was one of the rebel houses during the noble wars, wasn't it?"
"Yes."
"They're still around?"
"No. They were erased."
Selene stared into the fire. "Not well enough."
Later that night, Brune met Maverick in the alley behind the inn.
The snow here was churned by boots. Ash curled at the edge of the roof tiles.
"I don't carry weapons," Brune said, voice low. "But I keep records."
"Of?"
"Who stays. Who meets. Who trades."
Maverick waited.
"I saw your name next to one of theirs once. Long time ago."
Maverick's expression didn't change.
"I'm not accusing," Brune said. "Just reminding you that people remember old fires. And sometimes, they relight them."