The manor gate closed behind us with a metallic thud. The sound lingered longer for a moment, echoing down the stone before fading into the open air.

  The road back felt longer than our walk up. Steeper, too — gravel shifting underfoot as the path wound downward through the trees.

  No one spoke as we made our way back. The conversation with Hardin clung to me, his warning replaying in my head.

  Merric broke the silence with a sharp kick, sending a loose stone skittering down the slope ahead of us.

  “Feels like we just made things worse,” he muttered.

  No one said a word in protest.

  Elaria drew a slow breath, fingers tightening around the strap of her satchel.

  “He agreed to loosen the levy,” she said carefully. “If more grain reaches the village, even a little… that has to matter.”

  Her voice held onto the thought longer than it should have, as if she needed to hear it aloud to believe it.

  Lira slowed her pace until she was walking beside her, then reached out and rested a hand briefly against Elaria’s shoulder.

  “I’d like to believe that too,” she said. “They’ll understand.”

  Elaria nodded once, small and uncertain.

  I said nothing.

  My hand closed around the wooden figure in my coat. The village had waited for us. Watched us climb that hill with hope and desperation. And now we were walking back with less than they’d asked for — less than they needed.

  Our boots scraped against gravel as we continued downhill.

  When the trees thinned, the village came back into view below us. Shapes moved along the road. Figures gathered in the square.

  I drew in a slow breath and held it, bracing myself as we descended toward them.

  We stepped into the village square, and the space closed around us at once.

  People pressed in from every side — closer than before, faces lifted, eyes bright with expectation. Word had spread faster than we had.

  I felt it in the way they leaned forward, the way hands tightened around sleeves and baskets, as if good news might spill if they held on hard enough.

  The old man pushed through the front of the crowd.

  He stopped a few paces from us, gaze flicking briefly to the manor road behind before settling on Lira.

  “How did it go?” he asked.

  Lira drew in a steady breath and spoke clearly, her voice carrying across the square.

  “Hardin agreed to reduce the levy. Starting tomorrow, the portion of grain you keep will increase by 15%.”

  For a heartbeat, relief rippled through the crowd. Shoulders loosened. A few people exhaled, smiles breaking through exhaustion.

  Then the moment cracked.

  “So he still keeps most of it,” someone said from the back.

  The relief wavered.

  “We’ll still be hungry,” a woman muttered, her voice tight.

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  Another, louder this time:

  “Then why are we starving now?”

  The questions came faster after that, overlapping, sharp.

  “He still decides who eats.”

  “That grain is ours.”

  “He keeps the rest?”

  The air shifted.

  I felt it before I understood it — the crowd pressing closer, voices rising not in volume alone, but in direction.

  “So what was the point of sending you up there?” a man shouted. “You made him flinch, didn’t you?”

  Elaria stepped forward, hands raised.

  “Please,” she said, voice strained but steady. “We did everything we could. The levy is lighter now. It will help you through the winter.”

  “How?” a woman snapped from the front. “Fifteen percent won’t feed my children.”

  “It’s still our grain!” someone yelled.

  The space between the crowd and us shrank further.

  Faces hardened.

  Relief curdled into something sharper — not chaos yet, but close enough that I felt my stomach tighten.

  If this kept going, it wouldn’t stop with words.

  Bodies pressed closer as the noise swelled. Voices overlapped—some raw with rage, others cracking with desperation.

  “A few outsiders got him to lower the levy—what would a whole town do?”

  Something snapped.

  Static anger turned into movement.

  The crowd surged, people crashing into me from every side. My arms were pinned to my ribs by the sheer weight of bodies, every breath labored.

  “We’ll make Hardin understand if we must!”

  The press turned violent. Boots slid on stone. Someone shouted, another person screamed.

  The crowd lurched again, faster this time, momentum pulling everyone with it.

  Strength flooded my limbs on instinct alone. I forced my shoulders outward, pried just enough space to move, and twisted through the crush.

  “Elaria!”

  I saw her one moment, in the next, she was knocked to the ground.

  She had one hand braced against the stone as bodies surged past her. A heel clipped her shoulder. Another step would have trampled her.

  I shoved through, caught her under the arms, and hauled her up against my chest.

  Blood streaked down from a shallow gash at her hairline, but she still managed a faint, dazed smile.

  “I’m—fine,” she breathed.

  The crowd shifted again.

  Picked up speed.

  I turned, searching for the others.

  Merric was ahead of us, a broad shape forcing space open with his shoulders as he drove toward the manor road.

  Not far from him, Lira cut through the press with frightening precision, her blade already drawn.

  I moved after them, Elaria tight against me, boots skidding as the mass carried us forward.

  The road loomed closer.

  For a breathless moment, I couldn’t tell if we were being dragged with the mob— or if we were at the front of it.

  By the time I broke free of the chaos, Merric and Lira were already there.

  I made it to the front just as Merric and Lira forced the crowd to a halt.

  “Move aside. You’ve done enough,” a villager said, trying to push past us.

  Merric shoved the man back into the press of bodies.

  “There’s nothing up there for you except trouble. It’s not worth it.”

  “There’s nothing down here for us either,” someone shot back. “Hardin made sure of that.”

  A low roar of agreement rippled outward, spreading through the crowd like fire through dry grass.

  “Please don’t do this,” Elaria pleaded, her voice trembling but clear. “There’s no need for any of you to get hurt.”

  “She’s right,” Lira said. “The only thing waiting for you up there is death.”

  The man in front of us didn’t flinch.

  He met Lira’s gaze steadily.

  There was no anger in his eyes.

  Only resolve.

  “What do you think awaits us here?” he asked.

  The crowd quieted just enough for the weight of the words to settle.

  Around him, shoulders squared. Jaws set. Hands tightened around tools that were never meant to be weapons.

  Something in my chest went still.

  They had already chosen.

  Lira’s blade hovered for one long, suspended breath.

  Merric still braced, ready to hold them back.

  Elaria shaking, tears streaming down her face.

  If we stood here and forced them down…

  We would have to break them ourselves.

  Steel slid softly back into Lira’s sheath.

  “So be it.”

  The crowd surged forward.

  Merric planted his feet and shoved at shoulders, but there were too many. They flowed around him, past him, through us like water breaching a dam.

  Tears streaked down Elaria’s face as she tried to catch hands, sleeves—anything.

  “Please—please don’t—”

  No one slowed.

  The wooden figure bit into my palm. I hadn’t realized how hard I was gripping it until warm blood slid between my fingers.

  Boots thundered past us.

  Breath, sweat, and cold air tangled together.

  And then they were gone.

  Merric didn’t move until the last villager disappeared up the road.

  He turned on Lira.

  “What the hell was that?”

  She didn’t answer at first. Her eyes stayed fixed on the empty stretch of stone where the crowd had stood only moments before.

  “You let them march to their deaths.”

  Her composure cracked.

  “What would you have me do?” she shot back. “Cut them down here to stop them?”

  Her voice wavered despite the fury in it.

  “They would have stopped for nothing. You expect me to slaughter a town to save it?”

  Elaria stepped toward her, reaching for her arm.

  “We could have tried—”

  “We did,” Lira said, the words splintering.

  A distant clang echoed down from the hill.

  Metal on metal.

  “If we stay,” I said quietly, placing a hand on Merric’s shoulder, “we’ll see what follows.”

  None of us wanted that.

  “We leave. Now.”