The war’s first true rumor came sewn into a tinker’s quilt: bright threads depicting iron hawks swooping toward a stylized coast. The artisan claimed ten legions had disembarked under banners promising “collective resource administration.” Most villagers shrugged at the jargon; only Akio, translating, realized it meant requisitioning supplies by force.
A week later, a balladeer passed through with a dirge spun about a border village trampled under “the iron hawk’s talons.” The melody hung in Rathvale’s tavern rafters like smoke. Even skeptics who laughed at epic exaggeration checked door latches twice that night.
Akio started mapping each tale onto parchment. No news placed soldiers within a hundred leagues, yet the red arrows advanced faster with every story. He calculated that if even half the exaggerations were true, major supply routes would reach Ardenfall within two years. That thought skated cold across his spine; Ardenfall now housed Liora. Late one evening a sky-ripple—a vibration much like distant thunder—rolled over fields without accompanying clouds. Dogs howled. People emerged clutching lamps. Arthur stared south long after silence returned, as though listening for an echo his ears alone could catch. He said only, “Quarry blast,” but Akio noted the tremor in his exhale.

Mid-spring, Akio tended river gauges when Vesta tugged his sleeve, pointing east. A column of smoke towered beyond the ridge—straight, steady, too large for brush-burning. Word spread; within an hour half the village lined the barley slope, guessing. Some thought lightning had struck a lumber camp; others murmured of raiders spooking forest-edge hamlets.
No rider arrived with confirmation. Still, the plume hung into night, glowing ember-red against stars. Freyr stood by the cottage gate, apron folded like prayer-hands, counting heartbeat intervals between wind gusts. Arthur fetched buckets, set them by doorways—an act of caution that spoke louder than talk. Akio, standing on the watchtower, sketched airflow vectors to estimate distance; the smoke placed a burn site roughly forty miles off. Too far for embers to reach Rathvale, yet close enough for rumor to ignite. He pictured wagons fleeing, fields abandoned, roads choked with those who’d underestimated how quickly front lines slither.
When dawn came, the plume had thinned, but its residue lingered in every glance exchanged at the morning bazar. Even the barge crews loaded barrels more briskly, keener to push off with tide. Rathvale remained untouched, yes—but if fear could brown leaves, the trees had begun to wilt.

Akio’s oil-pan beacon demonstration ought to have dazzled; the mirrored light reached hillside barns, made pigeons scatter like silver confetti. Children clapped. Yet at council the same glow became a liability—“Like waving gold at thieves,” argued Grett. Rogg worried the beacon might draw conscription scouts seeking skilled men. Ealdwin concluded, “Better the old stone code. Three rocks says keep watch, five says shut doors.” Akio noted that in last year’s flood the stone pile had washed apart, leaving watchers guessing. His reminder received polite nods and decisive inaction. That evening he returned the oil pan to the forge loft, angry heat fluttering under his ribs. Arthur found him dismantling the reflector with unnecessarily hard motions. “Ideas are seeds,” Arthur said, “Some soil needs burning before it sprouts.”
Akio snapped, “By the time these fields burn, it will be too late.” Arthur did not disagree; silence, an inherited weapon, cut where words could not.