The Silvervein River tumbled over smooth slate stones, its rhythmic shushing serving as the soundtrack to life in Oakhaven for generations. On its banks, the grass grew thick and sweet, smelling of crushed mint and damp earth. Li leaned closer to Sulani, the weaver’s daughter whose laughter made the back-breaking labor of the village bearable.

  "I saw a kingfisher earlier," Sulani whispered. Her shoulder brushed against Li’s as the sun began its slow descent, painting the sky in bruises of purple and gold. "Right there by the reeds. He was so bright he looked like a piece of the sky had fallen off."

  Li smiled and tucked a stray strand of dark hair behind her ear. "Maybe he was looking for a queenfisher," he teased. His heart hammered against his ribs in a way that had nothing to do with the day’s work.

  The moment offered a perfect pocket of peace in a world that usually demanded everything and gave nothing back.

  Then the ground began to tremble.

  The rhythmic, aggressive pounding of iron-shod hooves tore through the tranquility of the riverside. A troop of riders erupted from the forest path leading toward the Imperial Highway.

  Twenty men armored in the polished, blackened steel of the Southern Reach Command rode behind a young man in shimmering azure silk. Lordling Kaelor, the third son of a provincial governor, wore a breastplate etched with silver filigree. He had been told from birth that the world was his garden and the people in it merely weeds.

  They maintained their speed.

  The horses slammed into the soft mud of the bank, sending sprays of black muck over Sulani’s clean linen dress. Li scrambled backward and pulled Sulani with him as a massive stallion nearly trampled his feet.

  Kaelor pulled his mount to a sharp halt. The horse’s bit foamed as it jerked its head. The Lordling ignored the two teenagers cowering in the mud to sneer at the horizon with a mask of bored entitlement.

  "Stinking little hamlet," Kaelor spat. "Captain, tell the locals we require the inn cleared and the stables prepped. We’re not spending another night in the dirt."

  A burly knight with a scarred lip laughed. His eyes roved over Sulani with a slow, sickening intensity. "At once, My Lord." He kicked his horse forward, forcing Li to jump into the shallows. "Move it, boy! Unless you want to see if your skull is harder than my horse’s shoes!"

  The peace of Oakhaven died a sudden, violent death as the troop rode into the village square.

  Villagers emerged from their cottages with heads bowed and shoulders slumped in the practiced posture of the oppressed. They knew the drill. The Empire’s soldiers took grain, ale, and space, offering only the privilege of continued survival in return.

  Elder Thalric stepped forward with his hat in his hands. "My Lord, we welcome you. We have little, but what we have is yours."

  A voice rang out from the back of the crowd, clear and devoid of the expected subservience.

  "What we have is ours, Elder! We’ve barely enough salted pork to last the winter, and now we’re to feed twenty horses and twenty gluttons?"

  The crowd went silent and parted to reveal Zelari. She stood with her sleeves rolled up, revealing arms corded with the lean muscle of a farmhand. Her fierce green eyes fixed directly on Lordling Kaelor.

  Kaelor turned his horse slowly. He looked intrigued rather than angry, viewing her like a particularly interesting beetle he intended to crush.

  Ser Vahnar, the knight with the scarred lip, licked his lips. His gaze traveled from Zelari’s face down to her hips, a greasy assessment that made the skin of every woman in the square crawl.

  "A spirited one," Vahnar murmured. "Perhaps the inn won't be so cold tonight after all."

  Elder Thalric grabbed Zelari’s arm, his face pale with terror. "Hush, girl! Do you want to bring the sky down on us?" He pulled her back and whispered frantically. "They are the Emperor’s hand! You don't bite the hand!"

  Zelari spat on the ground but allowed herself to be pulled back into the shadows.

  Kaelor smirked. "See to it, Captain. And make sure the 'spirited' one is part of the serving staff at dinner."

  The knights laughed, a coarse sound echoing off the thatched roofs.

  Hours later, a sliver of moon replaced the sun. The Drunken Oak tavern filled with the raucous shouting of soldiers feasting on the village’s last three hogs.

  In the small cellar beneath the grain store, a group of villagers gathered in the dark. A single flickering candle illuminated Zelari’s face. Beside her sat Li, sporting a bruise from a soldier who had tried to grab Sulani earlier.

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  "They're beasts," Li hissed. "They’ve got Sulani in the kitchens. They keep touching her."

  "We know," Zelari said, her voice grinding like stone. She held up a clay jug. "Old Man Miller’s 'Grave-Strength' moonshine. He uses fermented nightshade berries. Two cups of this will put a plow-ox into a coma."

  One of the older men whispered. "We give it to the tavern girl, Mura. She’ll mix it with the cheap ale. Once they’re out, we take their swords, tie them up, and march them to the garrison at Dawn’s Reach to report the Lordling’s excesses."

  A desperate, naive plan born of people who still believed justice applied to them.

  "And if they don't go down?" Li asked.

  "They will," Zelari said. "They’re arrogant. They think we’re cattle. They won't check the dregs of their cups."

  They watched from the shadows as Mura carried the spiked flagons into the main room. Cheers erupted, followed by the sounds of gulping and cups banging on wood.

  The noise began to dim. Shouting turned to slurred singing, then mumbles, and finally the heavy thumping of heads hitting tables.

  "Now," Zelari whispered.

  A dozen villagers armed with kitchen knives, pitchforks, and heavy wooden mallets crept toward the tavern. They moved through the darkness with hearts hammering against their ribs.

  Li led the way, gripping a rusted butcher’s knife. He slipped through the back door into the smell of spilled ale and roasted meat. The knights lay slumped everywhere. Lordling Kaelor lay facedown on the head table, a pool of spilled wine soaking into his azure silk.

  "Quickly," Zelari commanded, reaching for Ser Vahnar’s sword belt. "Take the weapons. If they wake up..."

  "If we wake up, what, peasant?"

  The voice cut through the room as clear as a winter morning.

  Zelari frozen inches from Vahnar’s scabbard. The scarred knight lifted his head. His eyes were clear and sharp. He smiled, a wide, predatory grin showing jagged teeth.

  Across the room, the other knights sat up. They had been waiting.

  "You think we haven't smelled nightshade before?" Ser Vahnar laughed, standing with terrifying grace. He kicked his chair aside. "We’re the Empire’s finest. We’ve survived poisonings by master assassins. You thought a barmaid and some rot-gut would do the trick?"

  Lordling Kaelor sat up in the center of the room, wiping wine from his face with a look of pure malice. He looked at the villagers with their pathetic knives and trembling hands.

  "Treason," Kaelor said softly. "Raising a hand against the Emperor’s representatives. Attempted murder of a Noble of the Blood."

  He stood and drew a slender, silver-handled dagger.

  "Captain," Kaelor said, his voice devoid of humanity. "This village is no longer a part of the Empire. It is a rebellion hive. Purge it. Burn the houses. Kill the men who resisted. As for the women... the men deserve some recreation before we head out."

  "No!" Li screamed and lunged with his butcher’s knife.

  Vahnar pivoted and slammed a gauntleted fist into Li’s face without drawing his sword. The boy’s nose shattered, sending him spiraling into a table while blood sprayed across the floor.

  "Start with the granary," Vahnar ordered his men as they drew their blades. "Let them watch their winter die before they do."

  The next hour blurred into fire and screaming. Knights moved through Oakhaven like a scythe through wheat. The thatch roofs caught like tinder, filling the air with thick smoke and the copper tang of blood.

  Soldiers dragged Zelari into the center of the square. She watched Elder Thalric fall in the street, his white hair turning red. She saw Sulani being dragged toward the stables by three laughing soldiers.

  "Please!" Zelari begged, her defiance broken by the overwhelming cruelty. "Stop this! We'll do anything!"

  Kaelor stood near the well, the firelight reflecting in his azure robes like a god of ruin. "Anything? It’s a bit late for that. My father says a lesson isn't learned until it's written in blood."

  He raised his hand to signal the final assault.

  His hand stopped mid-air.

  The screaming continued, but a new sound joined the cacophony. A low, vibrating hum resonated so deep it felt like it pulled the marrow from their bones.

  A figure emerged from the dark path leading into the village.

  He walked with a slow, nonchalant gait, his boots crunching softly on the blood-soaked gravel.

  Tall and impossibly thin, his long black hair matted and tangled, clinging to a face the color of bleached bone. He wore rags that were merely a collection of shadows held together by spite.

  The heat of the burning buildings seemed to die as he approached. The flickering orange light sucked into him, as if his presence were a void that light couldn't escape.

  Jian stopped ten paces from the nearest knight.

  The soldier turned with his sword raised. "Halt! Who goes there? State your name or be..."

  Jian ignored the knight, the fire, and the dying villagers. He looked at his own hand, watching his fingers twitch with a faint tremor.

  "So hungry," Jian rasped. The voice sounded like dry stones rubbing together at the bottom of a well. "Why is there so much noise while I try to listen to the soul digest?"

  The knight snarled, emboldened by the Lordling’s presence. "A beggar! A madman! Die, then!"

  He lunged, aiming his heavy broadsword at Jian’s neck.

  Jian kept his feet planted. He barely seemed to breathe. His hand blurred.

  A wet, sickening thud replaced the expected clang of steel.

  The knight’s sword stopped three inches from Jian’s skin, held fast in his bare hand. The blade of tempered imperial steel began to hiss. The metal turned grey and brittle before crumbling into fine black ash that drifted away on the wind.

  Jian’s eyes, black as the void, finally settled on the knight.

  "You have a very loud soul," Jian whispered, a faint smile touching his cracked lips. "It’s messy. Untrained. Are you a failed version of him?"

  Lordling Kaelor stared, his silver dagger trembling in his hand. The fires of Oakhaven continued to roar, but for the first time that night, the knights felt the cold.