The orchard roots smoldered, but they did not burn.
Where pine trunks hissed in blackened scars, new frost crept back in — Yue Lan's spirit threads stitching hush and sap into rough scars that would not split rumor's spine.
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At dawn, Li Shen stood at Tian's Watch gate, the Wolfchain banner furled tight over his shoulder. His blade rested loose in his palm — cleaned, but not sheathed. Beside him, Yue Lan crouched by the charred fence rail, weaving fresh frost sigils into half-burned posts.
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Master Tian sat on the old stump near the gate. His breath rattled with each cough, the sound scraping like a dull blade dragged through wet bark.
"You broke the Pale Host," he rasped, eyes glinting through tangled hair. "You drowned the crown's fire. What does the orchard owe rumor now?"
Li Shen didn't answer. His eyes stayed locked on the ridge path — the trail that slithered north through pine shadows where the serpent's coils waited with real steel this time.
He spoke only when Yue Lan's threads brushed his wrist — cold promise, soft as a grave whisper.
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"I won't wait for the crown to circle again," Li Shen said.
He turned then — so every orchard hand behind the fence could hear him, see him, feel rumor's roar.
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Behind him, orchard fathers leaned on rusted blades. Mothers pressed charred buckets into muddy roots. Children stared from behind split trunks, their eyes bright with frost and hope tangled tight together.
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"The orchard roots stand," Li Shen called. "But roots that stand alone rot when iron returns."
He lifted the Wolfchain banner high. The Fang's stolen dagger glinted at its hem, catching the dawn that cracked the smoke haze.
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"I march," he said. "I break the crown's teeth before they taste this soil again."
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A hush fell — orchard hush, deep as the frost roots drink when all hope flickers low.
Then a single voice rose — rough, low, a father's grunt turned vow.
"We march."
Another — a salt miner's rasp.
"We march."
Yue Lan rose, threads flicking behind her like a ghost's standard in dawn wind.
"We march."
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Master Tian hacked a laugh that split his cough in two. He slammed his staff into frost-mud.
"Then march, wolves," he barked. "Bite deep. Bring back rumor's roar so loud even this old root hears it from my grave."
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At dusk, Tian's Watch readied not for siege — but for rumor's hunt. Frost-bitten orchard hands wrapped old iron in oilcloth. Axes honed sharper than crown steel. Sacks of rice and dried fish packed tight in bundles strapped to bent backs. Children too small to swing blades carried bundles of frost herbs Yue Lan wove for wounds yet to come.
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At dawn, the orchard hush cracked once — not with fear, but with boots.
Li Shen led the line down the ridge path. The Wolfchain banner snapped behind him. The Fang's dagger flickered frost light at its hem.
Roots drink deep.
Stone breaks under frost.
Iron burns when rumor's roar carries wolves to the serpent's coil.
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⚡ End of Chapter Twenty-Eight — The Frost March
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