Defeat did not mellow Duke Aldric. His riders spread across estates, stoking peasant rent strikes and guild slow-downs. Grain convoys stalled; blacksmiths refused iron quotas. Markets trembled.
Lord Darsha rode to Aldric's keep through sleet that glazed plow furrows silver. Inside the stony great-hall, brothers met: one weary from holding realm together, the other armored in resentment.
"Call off this strangulation," Lord Darsha pleaded. "Your coffers bleed too. What do you gain?"
"Time," Aldric growled, "to prove the wheels brittle."
A log popped; sparks spiraled. Lord Darsha set parchment on the hearthstone: a profit-sharing charter granting Aldric's guilds equity in new steel mills, plus funding to retrain horse-hands as boardwalk teamsters.
Aldric's jaw tightened. "Charity."
"Investment," Lord Darsha corrected. "Or watch southern princes buy in instead." Silence stretched. Finally the duke's gauntlet signed. Strikes lifted like fog; markets breathed.
At Riverbend, workshops rang full strength. Sharath ordered commemorative "Peace Pins" forged from horseshoe iron reshaped into gear-starbursts—symbol of tradition transformed. Workers wore them with pride; even Aldric's envoys accepted chestfuls, grumbling but intrigued by dividend clauses.
Victory, Sharath knew, was fragile—a mosaic of concessions, still cracking at edges. But the realm had stepped back from brink without bloodshed. That night, printing presses thundered a special broadsheet: **PEACE OF THE GEARS SIGNED—WINTER GRIEVANCES RESOLVED**. Ink still wet, riders sped copies to every parish where doubt had festered.
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