Chapter 205

Spring did not arrive all at once.

It came in negotiations.

In ice loosening its grip on the river but refusing to let go of the banks. In buds that dared the cold and sometimes lost. In people relearning the sound of the valley without snow muting every mistake.

The thaw exposed what winter had hidden.

Cracks in stone. Strain in stores. Old resentments that had survived the cold by going quiet.

The first real fracture came from within the council Caleb had never officially ...