The Third Winter came earlier than expected a season that clawed through the walls of every barrack and the hearts of every soldier. The camps were nothing but dark silhouettes half-buried under ice. The banners of the North, once proud and crimson, now hung like pale rags stiff with frost.
Noah stood outside his tent, breath crystallizing in the air.
His uniform the black trench of the Northern General fluttered faintly against the biting wind. Behind him, the encampment stretched endlessly, dotted with dim lanterns that flickered like dying stars.
He listened to the creaks of frozen canvas, the distant sound of someone coughing blood, and the faint, dull clatter of tools men trying to dig through frozen earth for firewood.
The war hadn't stopped. It had simply gone silent.
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