Two days later, Elias rode south to check trap lines along the river. The early spring day was bright, the song of thrushes loud in the budding trees. Nothing in those hours hinted at what would greet him upon his return.
By the time he crested the ridge above the valley, he saw smoke.
His breath caught. The Blackthorne homestead lay below in ruin — a blackened shell where the cabin had been, the stable collapsed into embers. Sheep and goats wandered bleating in the yard, untended.
Elias dropped from the saddle and ran.
He found Thomas first. The boy lay in the dirt by the fence, jaw slack, his hand curled around the hilt of a crude wooden sword — one Elias had carved for him last winter. Blood darkened the earth beneath him.
Margaret… she was in the garden with her shawl torn, her eyes staring into nothing. One hand was still curled over the soil where carrots had grown. The shawl's fringe was knotted like it had been torn in a struggle.
Emily was nowhere at first — then he saw a small shoe near the well, and beyond it, the tiny body facedown in the grass.
Elias fell to his knees, clutching his daughter to his chest, the smell of smoke in her hair mixing with the cold finality of death.
When at last he rose, numb, rage tightened like a noose around his heart. He saw tracks in the soil: well-shod boots, too fine for common men. A silver button glittered in the dirt, its crest engraved with a rampant stag — the Granger family's heraldry.
A jeweled pistol lay discarded near the garden, its stock inlaid with gold. A weapon too fine for brigands — it belonged to a man of means.
The gilded neighbors. The ones who owned more land than they could ride in a day. The ones who threw feasts while others starved. The wolves among sheep.
His hands trembled. He knew all twenty of them. By name. By face.