“Why do they favor this route?”The officer with the slate answered quickly this time. “One of their few reliable supply routes, sir. Mostly food runs. Fastest access into multiple sectors. Hard to replace if lost.”Varros stood still for one second longer than comfortable.Then he said, “Then the bridge has served its purpose.”The words settled over the officers like something irreversible. Not a decision to be debated, but one already completed in Varros’s mind. The bridge was no longer infrastructure. It was already a memory.The officers near him exchanged a quick look.One of them took a cautious step forward. “Sir, if we hold it, we could use it ourselves.”Varros turned to face him fully.The man instantly regretted speaking.He felt it immediately, the shift in the air around Varros. It was not anger. It was worse. It was the quiet certainty of a man who had already measured the cost of every life in front of him and found it acceptable.“You are thinking like a quartermaster

Rathenfall no longer looked like a town waiting for rescue. It looked like a town learning how to disappear slowly.The market square had not closed by order. It had simply emptied itself into silence. Half the stalls stood open with nothing on them but dust, broken baskets, and scraps of cloth tied down against the wind. The few traders still present did not call out to customers anymore. There was nothing left to sell except bits of salt, old beans, and dried roots so small they looked insulting. People stood in lines that led nowhere, waiting not because food was coming, but because hunger made standing still feel more hopeful than walking away.The line barely moved.People shifted their weight slowly, conserving energy instead of impatience. A few clutched empty sacks or cracked bowls, as if holding them made the wait more real. No one argued anymore. Even desperation had begun to quiet itself into endurance.A woman with a child on her hip stared at an empty grain stand and s

Hope entered Rathenfall hospital in the shape of two dirty vans.The sound of their engines had barely died when the entrance yard shifted all at once. People who had been too weak to lift their heads tried to rise. Nurses turned. Orderlies dropped empty trays. Even the soldiers at the door straightened as though food alone could restore discipline. Lieutenant General Alric Veynor stepped toward the entrance just as the van doors opened and men began hauling out sacks, tins, and boxed rations with the hurried movements of people who wanted to unload fast and leave faster.“Food is here!”“Make way!”“Step back!”One of the hospital guards raised both hands and shouted, “Slow down! Everyone step back! We need order or no one gets anything!”No one listened properly. Hunger had already outrun order.The sound of feet scraping against the floor grew louder as more bodies pushed forward to get some food. It was not aggression yet, but it was no longer patience either. The line between

The sound above Rathenfall did not belong to weather.Lieutenant General Alric Veynor stood in the middle of the hospital hall with spoiled food under men’s boots, sick civilians on the floor, and shouting still bouncing off the walls. Yet the moment that low mechanical growl deepened overhead, everything else in his mind fell behind it. He knew engines. He knew altitude. He knew the difference between passing air cover and something slowing into intention.His head lifted first, then the heads of the soldiers nearest to him, then the nurses, then even some of the civilians who had been too weak to care about anything but the next bite.“What the hell is that sound?” Veynor asked.Nobody answered him in time.A few of the soldiers exchanged quick looks, not yet afraid, but no longer certain. One of them stepped toward the doorway as if he could see through walls. Another tightened his grip on his rifle, instinct rising before understanding. The sound above did not fade. It deepened.

Three days after Rathenfall was poisoned, the western part of the capital still had not stopped trembling.Ethan stood in the Tribunal headquarters with Captain Lorne, General Uadson, and several signal officers gathered around the command table when the secured line finally connected again. The room had been carrying too much silence for days. Reports from Rathenfall, Corvane Hollow, Delsport, and Kravik End had come in broken pieces, each one worse than the last. When Ethan heard the line click, he lifted the receiver and said in a calm voice, “Hello.”On the other end, Lieutenant General Alric Veynor sounded like a man speaking through exhaustion and smoke. “Master Ethan, like I said before, Rathenfall is under—” The line crackled sharply. For 3 days now lieutenant general Alric Veynor I tried to convey the message of what was happening in Rathenfall to Ethan and the tribunal army hierarchy here in the headquarters but all his efforts were futile and today it looked like the sig