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Chapter 13 - The Pattern of The Reaping

The Declaration of Silence did not save Aethelburg. It merely changed the nature of its decay. Eight months had passed since that fateful night in the King's council chamber, eight months of a slow, quiet rot from the inside out.

​From her office in the Royal Guard barracks, a spartan room filled with maps and meticulously organized reports, Captain Eva watched her city hold its breath. The loud, desperate prayer circles had vanished from the squares, driven into hidden cellars and private homes, becoming acts of sedition. The streets were orderly, but it was the order of a graveyard. People moved with their heads down, their eyes avoiding contact, a collective gloom that was heavier than any winter fog.

​Eva's nights were long, spent reviewing the fruits of their secret war. The results were disheartening.

​A weekly report from the War of Knowledge lay on her desk. Praxus and a deeply melancholic Theron had reviewed hundreds of texts. Their findings were maddeningly vague: endless allegories of light versus dark, dozens of fragmented accounts of the Progenitors, but nothing concrete. No weapon. No weakness. Just poetry about a forgotten tragedy.

​A report from General Kyrus and the War of Strength was even bleaker. His officers had found no 'anomalies.' No one was manifesting strange abilities. They found only what Eva saw every day: fear. The soldiers' morale was dangerously low, their drills performed with a hollow, mechanical precision. An army cannot train to fight an enemy that kills its victims in their sleep, miles from any battlefield.

​And then there was her own front: the War of Order. Her primary covert task, assigned by the King himself, was to analyze the single, constant offensive the enemy waged against them. The cull. The steady, relentless execution of one human soul every three days. They had taken to calling it The Reaping.

​For months, Eva had treated it as a problem of statistics. On a large map of Aethelgard, she and her most trusted agents had placed a pin for every confirmed victim. A red pin for a man, a white pin for a woman. At first glance, the map was a random spray of tragedy, covering the entire continent from the frost-bitten Northern Reach to the warm climes of the Southern Isles. There was no geographic pattern.

​Tonight, however, Eva was not looking at the map. She was studying the lists. Beside the map was a thick ledger, her agents' true work. It detailed the life of every victim. Their profession, their family, their standing in their community. She had spent the last week reading it cover to cover, her soldier's mind searching for a pattern not of location, but of purpose.

​And in the cold, pre-dawn hours, under the flickering lamplight, she found it.

​Her blood ran cold.

​It was not random. It was horrifyingly, brilliantly strategic.

​She drew a clean sheet of parchment and began to write, her hand moving with a grim, furious energy. She listed the victims from the last month.

​Sorin of the Green Valley. A farmer. His file noted he had developed an ingenious new method of crop rotation that had produced the region's first surplus in a generation.

Eliza of Seacliff. A weaver. Her tapestries were renowned for their beauty, bringing a rare source of joy and income to the struggling port town.

Old Man Hemlock of the Whispering Woods border. A storyteller. His tales of Qy'iel's kindness had kept the spirits of three villages from breaking.

Mayor Corbin of Stonefall. A community leader. He had organized a shared granary system to ensure no family went hungry through the lean months.

​Mistress Anya of the Central Plains. A midwife. Noted in the report for having saved three newborns through a difficult season, using her skill and unwavering optimism.

​Eva stared at her list, the horrifying truth staring back at her. Ghra'thul was not culling the weak, the sick, or the old. He wasn't thinning the herd.

​He was systematically executing the pillars of their society.

​He was targeting the innovators, the artists, the leaders, the healers, the storytellers. He was murdering anyone who created hope. It was a strategic campaign of psychological warfare, designed to excise the very best of the human spirit, leaving behind only the compliant, the mediocre, and the terrified. It was the work of the Carver of Silence, meticulously chipping away at any voice that dared to sing a different note.

​Seized by a cold fury, Eva grabbed the ledger and the map and strode from the barracks, her armor clattering in the empty halls. The sky was beginning to pale, but she did not wait. She went straight to the palace.

​An emergency session of the council was convened in the King's chambers. Eva laid her map and ledger on the table, her explanation as sharp and brutal as a headsman's axe.

​As she finished, the room was silent. The horror of her discovery was a palpable thing. They were not just facing a killer; they were facing a meticulous, intelligent exterminator.

​Praxus was the one who broke the silence, his voice a low, defeated whisper. "The chorus of many voices… He is eliminating any note that is not his own. Until only his perfect, silent harmony remains."

​King Valerius stared at the map, his face pale. "He is not just killing my people," he said softly. "He is killing my kingdom's soul."

​As the weight of this new understanding settled upon them, a steward entered, his face stricken. He carried a sealed dispatch, delivered by a rider who had nearly killed his horse to get it there.

​"From the governor of the Echoing Plains, Your Majesty," the steward said, his hand trembling as he offered the scroll.

​The King broke the seal and read. His expression, already grim, hardened into one of profound grief. He looked up, his eyes finding Eva's.

​"The latest victim of The Reaping has been identified," he said, his voice heavy. "A village elder. A storyteller and keeper of local histories, known for her kindness." He paused. "Her name was Hayley. From a village called Oakhaven."

​The name struck Eva like a physical blow. Oakhaven. The village from Praxus's journals. The site of the Festival of Echoing Light. The last place Qy'iel was said to have walked among men.

​It was not just a strategic target. It was a symbolic one. A message.

​The King saw the understanding in her eyes. "This is no longer just a pattern," he commanded. "It is a targeted assault on the heart of what we once were. I need to understand what we are losing. I need eyes on the ground."

​He looked directly at Eva. "Captain. Your War of Order has yielded its first, terrible truth. Now, I have a new mission for you. Ride to Oakhaven. Speak to the people. See the effects of this… thing… firsthand. Report back to me on the state of their spirit."

​Eva stood tall, her fatigue forgotten, replaced by a cold, sharp resolve. "Yes, Your Majesty."

​She turned and strode from the room, her purpose clear. Her war had, until now, been one of maps, reports, and the cold logic of patterns. Now, it had a face. It had a location. She was no longer just the guardian of a city; she was riding into the heart of a targeted, spiritual cleansing. She was going to see what the Age of Fear had done to the last truly happy place on earth.

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