The small town did not burn that day.
It emptied - slowly, deliberately, as if the land itself had learned to make room.
Fields lay trampled but intact, storehouses unlocked rather than destroyed, roads cleared instead of cratered. Nothing was ruined beyond use. Dane took what he required to remain functional.
Destruction was loud. Fear, when measured, was intimate.
He stood in the upper gallery of a commandeered manor overlooking the lowlands. The former lord had fled in haste, leaving behind ledgers, half-drunk wine, and a house that still remembered being safe. The room smelled of ink, cold stone, and old perfume - faint traces of lives interrupted.
Below, in the courtyard, torches burned.
Maps covered the long table behind him - not battle lines, but trade routes, family holdings, marriage ties. Neutral houses, stripped down to what made them vulnerable.
