(Vlad POV)
The caravan didn't look important.
That was the first problem.
Two wagons, both weather-stained and narrow, their wheels patched more than once. Four imperial soldiers rode alongside them—no banners, no trumpets, no mage. The kind of assignment given to men no one expected to come home with stories worth telling.
Which meant the wagons mattered.
We watched from the ridge as the caravan crept along the old trade road, the ruts in the frozen mud guiding the wheels like rails. The land here had not yet surrendered to the blight, but it felt thin—like a skin stretched too tight over bone.
"Too clean," Hilna murmured beside me.
I nodded. "Medicine," I said. "Or winter rations."
"Or both." she added.
Either way, the camp needed it.
I crouched lower, keeping my silhouette broken by scrub and rock. The others followed suit without being told. That had started happening more often—people adjusting when I did, waiting when I waited.
I didn't like noticing it.
