Three days had passed since Lan rode east into the golden haze, and Ranevia had begun to shift like earth after a long frost.
Slowly, then all at once.
The rot was still there—it clung to the bones of old buildings, to gutters slick with decades of despair—but something strange had crept in.
Hope.
It began with the smell.
Bread.
Warm, thick-crusted loaves that made beggars lift their heads for the first time in months. Fresh stew thickened with game meat, herbs, and real salt, served steaming on clay plates in the open alleys.
Vats of water—clean, warm, and blessed with faint healing oils—were poured into the rebuilt bathhouses, where once only rats bathed.
The people called them "The Wolf Orders." And they knew who had enforced them.
The Mad Vipers were no longer a group of bandits. They walked the streets in furs and armor, blades sheathed, but eyes sharp. Children stopped fearing them.
