### **Chapter 19: The Whispers in the Steel
The morning began with a scream.
It was not a scream of pain, not yet. It was the foreman, a man named Jiro, a broad-shouldered veteran of a dozen mines, being dragged into the central square. His crime was a cracked support beam in the northern tunnel, a flaw that could have brought the entire mine down. His punishment was public flogging.
The entire population of the domain was assembled to watch. It was part of the system. A lesson.
Kenjiro, his face a grim mask of duty, read the sentence. "For criminal negligence, for endangering the domain and its people, you are sentenced to twenty lashes. Let this be a reminder that weakness in one place is a threat to all."
Two of Kenjiro's enforcers, massive men armed with heavy, leather-whipped cords, forced Jiro to his knees and tore the shirt from his back. His skin was pale, crisscrossed with the pale scars of a life of hard labor.
