The smoke reached us long before the flames.
It curled across the snow like a hungry shadow—sweet with burning grain, sour with pitch, tinged by something sharper that clung to the back of the throat. Brynn raised a gauntleted fist, and Vardengrip dropped to a crouch at the edge of a frost‑slick ridge. Below, a prosperous farming town smoldered in twilight, its wide barns and walled manor painted red by the setting sun.
"Scouts were right," Elka whispered. "Supply hub. No standing garrison."
"Means they've pulled soldiers north," Brynn grunted. "They left farmers and clerks to guard their winter stores."
A pause. "Orders are the same: take everything that travels, burn what won't."
Jorgen cracked his neck. Tor spat into the snow. Einar only checked the edge of his longsword, eyes flat. Nobody looked surprised; we'd done this twice already. But the smoke still found a way to settle in my chest, heavier than my armor.
Brynn's gaze slid to me. "You flank with Einar again. East quarter. Granaries first."
My fingers tightened around dagger hilts that no longer felt oversized. "Understood."
⸻
We moved at dusk, slipping between frost‑killed hedgerows until wooden fences rose ahead—too neat, too delicate for a kingdom at war. Lanterns burned by doorways, rune‑etched glass spheres pulsing to keep the wind at bay. I'd have called it beautiful once. Tonight it felt like a lie we were obliged to tear down.
At the outer lane, Einar touched my arm.
"First kill still in your head?"
I thought of the knight collapsing against grain sacks, his breath fogging in the half‑light. And the quiet afterward—how the world had seemed to hold its own breath with him.
"It's not screaming anymore," I said.
"Good." He nodded toward a squat timber storehouse. "There will be more."
⸻
The first opposition found us in the alley behind a bakery—three locals with woodworking axes and fear‑pale eyes. Einar stepped forward, blade ready, but I eased ahead.
"Drop them," I said. My voice sounded older than it should have.
One man obeyed. The second gripped his axe harder. The third—barely older than Rurik—muttered a spell, palm glowing ember‑red. Fire mana, first circle. Enough to blister skin.
I stepped in fast, reverse‑grip dagger angling to parry the axe. Steel rang. I pivoted inside his reach—memory of Brynn's footwork drilled into my soles—and drove the pommel into his temple. He dropped boneless.
The fire caster flinched; flames guttered. For a heartbeat he looked like he might bolt—then his gaze caught the runes darkening my neck, and anger flashed through the fear. He thrust a palm forward. Sparks spat across snow.
I slid low, feeling heat bake past my shoulder, and flicked a throwing knife. It bit his forearm, spell sputtering. I finished it with a short, clean slash that opened his artery like tearing parchment. He fell without a sound, eyes wide in disbelief at the blood steaming in winter air.
It was quick. Efficient. And when it was done, my hands were steady.
Einar exhaled. "Faster this time."
I wasn't sure if it was praise or warning.
⸻
We reached the granary doors just as horn blasts echoed from the main square—Tor and Jorgen announcing their arrival the only way they knew. Inside, sacks of barley towered like earthen walls. Lantern‑light danced over dust and chaff. And at the far end, a single defender waited.
Not a farmer. He stood poised in sleeveless leathers, arms bare to the cold, violet runes spiraling from shoulder to wrist. Lightning mage—second circle. Sparks licked across knuckles clenched around a shortspear of etched steel.
He smiled when he saw us. "Blóðfjöll dogs. Come to steal grain?"
Einar lifted his longsword in a high guard. I mirrored him, daggers low and wide.
"Just passing through," I said.
"Then pass over my corpse." Lightning cracked across the haft of his spear, illuminating rows of grain like rows of gravestones.
He launched first—spear tip thrusting in a corkscrew of blue light. I darted right; Einar rolled left, splitting his focus. Sparks scorched my sleeve as I deflected the shaft with a dagger's flat, momentum jarring my wrist. The mage pivoted fluidly, following Einar's advance with a sweeping arc that spat violets into the air.
Einar met it head‑on—Æther flaring, blade singing through the charged wood. Energy burst in a spray of static; the spear cracked but held. I saw the mage's stance shift—back heel too heavy, weight favoring the damaged side—and I moved.
Low dash, knees skimming grain dust, I slipped inside his guard as he recovered. One dagger raked across his thigh, opening flesh. I felt the shock—literal—crawl up my arm as lightning tore through muscle memory. I bit back a cry and pressed forward, second dagger seeking ribs.
He stabbed down, spear butt clipping my shoulder, sending white fire through bone. Pain almost took my footing, but Einar seized the opening, greatsword snapping across the mage's collarbone with a crack like splitting ice. The runes on the spear guttered. His knees buckled.
I finished it clean—blade across throat, hot blood spattering grain. The lightning died with him, leaving only the thud of his body against burlap.
For a moment, the only sound was my breathing, ragged but measured.
Einar wiped his sword on a sack. "You okay?"
Arm still tingling, I flexed my fingers. "Alive."
"Good. Stack what you can carry. We torch the rest."
⸻
By full dark, the village burned.
Flames licked elegant roofs, mana‑lamps popping under heat. Screams drifted and died in the wind. Brynn's silhouette strode through embers like a giant of old tales, calling detachments, counting barrels, directing fires. Tor and Jorgen raided a wine cellar; their laughter rang bright and awful above the crackle.
I stood at the edge of it all, soot speckling the runes that marked my skin. Heat washed over me, yet I felt cold. Colder than the mountain snow would ever be.
The knight had fallen in defense of a well. The mage had died protecting barley. And I had killed them both because the map said so.
Because my father willed it so.
I closed my eyes. In the darkness behind my lids I saw a thread, flickering like a fuse.
If you keep cutting, will the silence ever lift?
I had no answer.
But when I opened my eyes, Einar was there, handing me a waterskin. Not saying a word. Just standing with me while another roof collapsed in sparks.
And somewhere, beneath the roar of flame, I realized that silence was no longer empty.
It was full of names I would never know—and the thunder still to come.