The dawn did not break over Oakhaven with the usual golden promise of autumn. Instead, a heavy, iron-grey mist clung to the thatched roofs, smelling of damp earth and the bitter, metallic tang of the salted river. It was a cold morning, the kind that seeped into the bones of men who had spent their lives tilling a soil that was now betraying them.
In the village square, hundreds of farmers had gathered. They were men with calloused hands and hollow eyes, dressed in rough-spun wool and stained leather. There was no chatter, no festive air of a harvest festival. Instead, there was a simmering, volatile silence. A bad harvest in the North didn't just mean a lean winter; it meant debt, the loss of ancestral land and the slow starvation of families. They weren't just angry; they were terrified and terror in the hearts of northern men was a spark in a powder keg.
