Fallow Mill sat on the river like an old tooth set in cracked gums. Its wheel had turned for a century, grinding grain delivered by barges whose captains once took pride. Now the mill creaked under roof repairs and the weight of guarded crates.
Garron's plan was simple: take the river approach at night, cut communications, and force an accounting from Tregar Voss. Simplicity is a good plan when the alternative is letting rot spread.
Maera slipped along the shadows like a grin. Garron followed like a moody storm. Kethra carried a bag of tools. Lyria had mapped the mill's weak points. Aeron stayed near Soryn, his glow dimmed but steady.
They approached by reed and moon, the river whispering. A lone guard on the dock hummed a sailor's tune. Maera tossed a small pebble that hit the water with a neat plop and the song stopped. They moved.
Inside, the mill smelled of flour and oil and something else: a faint metallic note like coins rubbing together. In a back room they found crates stamped with the Forgefathers' sigil. Underneath, sacks of grain had been relabeled, then diverted. Documents showed shipments redirected to a private warehouse owned by Tregar Voss. The numbers were neat, criminal, and greedy.
A guard shouted from the floor above. They moved. Garron's Hammerfall shattered a door as he burst in. The mill turned into chaos — pulleys creaked, beams groaned. Men scrambled to arm themselves with rusted spears and reinforced staves.
Kethra explained strategy in practical steps: "Break the powder stores first. Without that, the guards' breath betrays them. Then cut the wheel drives. The mill's noise will help us mask movement."
She swung a heavy wrench and smashed flasks of a strange white powder—Sable's kind of thing—spilling it into the river. The guards choked on the sudden mist. Garron surged, the iron arm a cannon. Maera darted and took two guards out with precise cuts and jests: "Tell your wives you died trying to be fashionable!"
Aeron stood at the doorway trembling. A man shoved past him with a torch and met his gaze. Aeron felt the man as an entire life unrolled in a single look: debts, a sick child, nights of worry. He knew, painfully, that this guard was a product of the same system. He stepped forward not to strike, but to speak.
"Stop," Aeron said, his voice small in the roar.
The guard froze. For a hair's breadth the world tilted.
"You're taking grain from people who will starve," Aeron pleaded. "If you keep doing this, the Sovereign will get more than weighty ledgers. He'll get their worship."
The guard's expression broke into a crumpled shame. He threw down the torch and fled. Not all fights needed blood. Some needed the language of truth.
Voss himself appeared in the doorway — pudgy, scented, a leader who ate other people's hunger for breakfast. He sneered, and the room's remaining guards rallied behind him.
"You think you can steal from me?" Voss shouted. "I own the contracts, and I own your fate on paper!"
Garron answered simply: "We own your head if you don't unhand the grain."
Voss sneered and lunged. The fight tightened into a confined dance—Garron's hammerblows, Lyria's precise sidesteps, Maera's flash. A blade nicked Voss's sleeve and blood darkened his cuff. He fell, clutching paper contracts now smeared with his own red ink.
Kethra tied him with rope and tossed the papers to Maera. "Seal him for the Hall. Let Vellin and Soryn sort the law."
The mill's watchman saw the crates being opened, the grain being repacked for the poor. A shout rose from outside like a small sun. People came. The city's small hungry hands moved like ants, grabbing grain, carrying it into waiting sacks.
They had done a small thing. A mill's theft was both symbol and supply. It would not stop the Sovereign, but it stopped one artery.
Back at the Hall, Voss' trial would ripple. Names in the Forgefathers' ledger would get dust on them. Old deals would be exposed. People would be angry. Change would breed more violence. But for that night, children who had gone to sleep hungry woke up with bread.
Aeron watched them from a shadow. He held the warmth in his chest like a secret. The Heartstone's thread inside him was both power and responsibility. He had tasted the cost of both.
Maera elbowed him lightly. "You did good."
He answered honestly: "I don't know if it was me or the glow."
Maera grinned. "Doesn't matter. It fed someone's belly, which is heroic enough."
Garron's quiet voice came from behind them. "We did not win. We only mucked up one of many plans."
Soryn's eyes were like iron. "But remember this: we chose violence for a purpose. We must never let purpose become a habit."
They left the mill behind as dawn threaded the city. The Forgefathers' webs had been touched. The Sovereign felt the poke. Somewhere in the ash beyond Vaeroth, a thing stirred that thought of hunger not just as want, but as right.
They would have to move faster.
And sooner, each of them would learn that slaying one corrupt lord was not the same as curing the kiln. The ash remembers. The ash forgives nothing.