The day the order was delayed brought no immediate sense of relief.
If anything, it pushed the entire theater into a more delicate state—everyone knew something had nearly gone wrong, yet no one was willing to say it aloud.
At times like this, the busiest places were rarely the front lines.
They were the edges.
Nathan Carter's unit was dispatched repeatedly for "confirmation" tasks:to confirm whether roads were still passable,to confirm whether villages remained secure,to confirm details that never appeared in written orders.
They moved continuously.
Days were spent on the road, nights resting in forest cover, sleep broken into fragments. Nathan no longer cross-checked historical memory. Instead, he focused on the present—smell, sound, human behavior.
This was a slowness he chose deliberately.
On the third morning, the unit halted near an abandoned farmhouse.
Half the roof had collapsed. Weeds filled the yard. It looked like a place forgotten by the war.
Thomas Reed was about to signal the unit forward when Nathan raised a hand.
"Wait."
Elias Moore had already crouched down, parting the grass.
"Someone's been here," he said. "Not soldiers."
Nathan stepped closer and examined the ground.
The footprints were irregular, but light.No sharp edges from military boots.Civilians—moving quickly.
"They were hiding from something," Thomas judged.
"Or waiting for something," Nathan added.
They did not enter the farmhouse.
Instead, they observed the perimeter for a full hour.
Nothing happened.
Just as they were preparing to withdraw, a few hurried, muffled hoofbeats sounded in the distance.
Not a patrol.
More like a courier.
Nathan realized immediately that this might be a temporary information node—not British, not Continental.
Belonging to those caught between the war's lines, trying to survive.
Such nodes were extremely dangerous.
Unstable, yet often faster than official channels.
Nathan did not order contact.
He had Elias record the direction and Thomas note the time.
"We leave," he said.
It was the second time in a short span that he chose not to confirm.
To some officers, this might have seemed overly cautious.
Nathan knew better. Once you touched something like this, you were pulled into an entirely different layer of war.
What he needed was the edge of order—not the center of chaos.
That night, they rested briefly at a secure camp.
Nathan was called in to give a report.
Not a formal meeting.
Just several mid-level officers seated together, exchanging recent assessments.
Someone remarked, "Lately the British seem to be waiting for us to make the first mistake."
Nathan responded calmly, "Then don't give them the chance."
The words were not sharp.
Yet they silenced the group for a moment.
Because they meant only one thing—
Delay.
And delay was psychological torture for everyone involved.
By the time the discussion ended, night had fallen.
Nathan did not return to his tent immediately.
At the edge of the camp, he saw Abigail Warren.
She sat beneath a dim lamp, organizing a stack of papers. The night wind made the flame flicker; she shielded it with her hand without pausing her work.
Nathan did not approach at once.
He stood at a distance for a moment, confirming that she didn't need help.
Restraint.
And respect.
Only when she looked up did he walk over.
"Busy today?" he asked.
Abigail glanced at him and nodded. "Always."
She did not ask where he had been.
He did not explain.
For the second time, they shared the same space while maintaining clear boundaries.
"You said," she spoke suddenly, "after these two days."
Nathan nodded.
"They're not fully over yet," he said.
She smiled softly.
Not at the humor.
At the honesty.
"Then we'll wait a little longer," she said. "I'm not in a hurry."
There was no promise in her words.
Yet they were more reassuring than one.
Back in his tent, Nathan spread out the map.
The southern theater was entering a dangerous balance.
The British were not pressing forward.The Continental Army was not counterattacking.
Both sides were trying to force the other to move first.
In such a situation, the most important thing was not brilliance, but patience.
And patience, above all else, was what Nathan could provide.
Before dawn the next day, a new directive arrived.
Not an advance.Not a withdrawal.
But—
Continuous monitoring of a key crossroads.
No deadline.
No explicit objective.
A textbook order to wait.
Nathan read it and said only one thing to his unit:
"This one may take a while."
No one complained.
They had grown accustomed to the rhythm.
They entered the forest once more, their steps lighter than before.
Nathan knew that what came next would not resolve in a single day.
This was not something one chapter could contain.
It was a situation slowly taking shape.
The war was stretching time itself.
And he would have to move more steadily than time did.