The tranquility bought by the Church's grain proved as fleeting as a winter thaw. Five days after the first semaphore burst, a speck appeared on the horizon of the King's Road, a dark blemish against the blinding white of the snow-covered plains. Staff Sergeant Blake, stationed at the S-6 Glass Eye, was the first to see it. He tracked the movement for an hour, his eye pressed to the copper eyepiece until the cold metal seemed to fuse with his skin. Through the atmospheric shimmer and the biting wind, he made out the distinct, terrifying crimson and gold of the Imperial Herald.
The signal was sent immediately: a frantic, thirty-degree stutter of the weather vane that sent Deacon and Major Kiley into a silent, practiced alert. The Imperial Messenger was not a legion, but he was the herald of one. He arrived at the North Gate on a frost-breath horse, his tabard stiff with ice, demanding entry in the name of the Governor of the Southern Marches.
Deacon received the man in the Great Hall, a space he had intentionally kept drafty and dim to project an air of embattled austerity. The messenger, a sharp-faced man named Valois, did not bow. He stood in the center of the hall, the meltwater from his boots pooling on the stone floor. He carried a scroll sealed with the heavy, purple wax of the Governor's office.
"Lord Cassian," Valois began, his voice rasping from the cold. "The Governor sends his congratulations on your victory over the Goblins. Word of your 'Holy Relic' has traveled far. It has also raised questions. The Imperial Tithe has not seen a contribution from Oakhaven in three seasons, yet you possess relics of such power that they shatter city gates. The Governor wishes to know why the Crown's gold is being spent on 'miracles' rather than the King's tax."
Deacon felt the familiar, cold pressure of a logistical audit. This was a battlefield he understood. "The Goblins burned my fields, Master Valois. My people were starving. The relic was an ancestral inheritance, not a purchase. As for the tithe, the records of the House—which I have recently... audited—show that the previous administration was less than transparent. I am currently rectifying those discrepancies."
Valois's eyes thinned. He looked around the hall, his gaze lingering on the new, heavy curtains and the refined iron sconces Miller had installed. "The Governor is a man of limited patience and great curiosity. He intends to send an Inquisitorial Auditor in the spring to verify the 'miracle' and the state of your ledgers. Until then, he demands a 'Good Faith' payment: ten percent of your current grain reserves and a formal deposition on the nature of the thunderstone."
The demand was a death sentence. To give up ten percent of the grain they had just reclaimed from Marius would reignite the famine. To provide a deposition on the Thunder Claps would invite a level of scrutiny that Blake's chemistry could not survive.
"Tell the Governor the grain will be ready when the roads are clear," Deacon said, his voice level. "And tell him the relic was consumed in the defense. There is nothing left to study but the ash."
Valois gave a curt, skeptical nod. "I will relay your words, My Lord. But be warned: the Governor does not like his curiosities left unsatisfied. The spring comes fast in the South."
As the messenger departed, the Shadow Command gathered in the war room. The atmosphere was no longer one of triumph. The "New Oakhaven" they were building was already attracting the very predators they were trying to outrun.