The orchard slept light that night.
Li Shen walked its churned rows alone, blade loose at his hip, boots sinking into earth still warm from the day's drills. Yue Lan drifted behind him — her spirit threads brushed frost from low branches, ghost fingers tracing the hidden shapes rumor could not yet name.
Above them, the Wolfchain banner clung to its spear pole. It did not snap in the wind tonight. It hung heavy — as if it, too, felt the weight in the roots below.
---
Master Tian waited by the orchard fence, staff wedged across his knees. He spat into the dirt when Li Shen approached.
"Roots take iron," the old man rasped. "But roots rot too. Especially when a worm curls inside."
Li Shen crouched by the fence. His fingers drummed the sheath at his hip.
"Name it."
Tian's grin cracked his cracked lips wider. "Name? Names are for graves. I name it thorn."
---
Rumor travels clean when iron guards it. But crowns feed rumor poison — promises of warm roofs, coins that shine brighter than loyalty, threats slipped through cracks in a kitchen wall.
Li Shen knew. He had seen good men trade old oaths for new chains more than once.
---
Yue Lan's threads brushed Li Shen's wrist.
"It's not the bounty men," she whispered. Her eyes were wide, black irises flickering like wet coals. "It's not the monks. It's one of us."
Li Shen's jaw tightened. The orchard's hush seemed to curl around his throat.
"How many know the hidden pit?" he asked.
Tian tapped the frozen earth with his staff. Thump. Thump.
"Too many to kill in one night."
---
Below the roots, the hidden hoard lay open — blades unearthed, cleaned, stacked for tomorrow's drills. If rumor failed, if the crowns came tonight, that iron would be the noose that strangled Tian's Watch instead of saving it.
---
A crack snapped the orchard's hush. A twig breaking. Not the frost.
Li Shen's hand found his blade in the same heartbeat Yue Lan's threads hissed into the dark.
They found the boy first — the same boy who had handed Li Shen the pine spear. Bare feet. Shoulders hunched. A burlap sack clutched to his chest.
Inside the sack: three rusted blades, a pouch of the last silver coins torn from the scorched bribe chest.
---
Li Shen stepped into the boy's path, blocking the orchard's south trail. Yue Lan's threads drifted around the boy's ankles — soft, not yet binding.
The boy froze. Eyes wide, breath clouding quick and shallow.
Li Shen said nothing at first. He only let the orchard hush fill the space where trust should have stood.
---
Finally he spoke — voice flat as the blade tip resting against the boy's chest.
"Why?"
The boy's jaw trembled. He clutched the sack tighter.
"My mother—" he croaked. "She's sick. The monk… the monk promised coin. Food. If I—"
His words fell apart in the frost.
---
Master Tian's laugh cracked the hush like a dry branch.
"Thorns grow where the roots are soft, boy."
The boy's eyes snapped to the old man, then to Yue Lan's blank face, then back to Li Shen's teeth — white in the half-light.
Li Shen's hand flicked — the blade tip kissing the boy's collarbone. Not deep. Not yet.
"You trade iron for silver?" Li Shen asked.
The boy's shoulders trembled. His knees hit the frost.
"I didn't mean—"
Li Shen cut him off with a single barked word.
"Chain."
---
Yue Lan's threads tightened — not to strangle, but to bind. Soft frost coiled around the boy's wrists, the sack dropped into the churned dirt. Three blades clanged like rusted prayer bells in the hush.
Li Shen stared down at the boy's bowed head. The orchard was so quiet the wind seemed to hold its breath.
---
Finally Li Shen turned to Master Tian.
"Roots rot," he said. "We cut away what we can."
Tian nodded once, eyes glinting sharp beneath his tangle of hair.
"And the rest?"
Li Shen planted his blade in the frost.
"The chain remembers."
---
Behind him, the Wolfchain banner lifted in a cold gust — snapping once, then settling heavy again.
One thorn found. More might sleep beneath frost yet.
But rumor with iron roots does not fear the blade.
It swings it.
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⚡ End of Chapter Twenty — The Thorn Beneath Frost
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