A thousand miles away, in the Agricultural Heartland of Nevareth, the village of Oakhaven was dying a slow, deliberate death.
Kian had been the bridge.
As village leader, he stood between the peasantry and the provincial lords, a man who believed, almost stubbornly, in procedure, in law, in the steady predictability of seasons and systems.
When the lords departed for the capital to witness the High Tribunal and its judgment, Kian stood at the gates and waved them off with a loyal smile.
The grain records were sealed behind them, a temporary measure to protect the imperial tithe. Standard procedure, he told the worried farmers. Order would return.
On the fourth day of the Great Absence, the bridge was broken.
Kian was found in his study, slumped over a desk slick with his own blood. His throat had been opened with surgical precision.
