The sky had not yet dawned, but a faint warmth already perated the do-shaped room.
The wooden wall panels had been slightly heated by last night’s fire, and a lingering scent of ash and charcoal hung in the air.
Ian slowly opened his eyes under the heavy woolen blanket.
For a mont upon waking, he even forgot where he was. Having moved here for half a year, he was still unaccustod.
The bed was too soft, the bedding too warm, and the ceiling above too neat and pristine.
He habitually turned his head and saw a small fabric doll placed in the corner by the bedside, with slightly curled ears and a crooked eye—one of Mia’s creations.
Outside, there ca the low sound of footsteps, perhaps a patrolling knight walking past the muddy alley entrance, or an early craftsman moving tools.
Ian lay quietly, staring at the little doll for a long ti, suddenly feeling unreal.
He had once been a woodworker in White Stone Village. Every day, he worked with wood, drank porridge made by his wife in the morning, and slept at night holding his daughter while listening to the crackling sound of burning firewood.
Though not wealthy, the days were warm and complete.
Until three winters ago, the Snow Swearer cut through his life like a dagger, dissecting him into a blood-and-flesh ss.
That day, he had rely gone to the forest early to cut so decent spruce branches.
Upon returning, all he saw was black smoke, a collapsed roof, and an already shattered well.
He knelt at the doorway where the blood had yet to coagulate and picked up his wife’s apron.
He did not cry; there was no ti to cry.
Mia was still alive. He found her behind the barn’s remnants, her eyes, always smiling, now widened with fear, curled up behind a haystack, too afraid to make a sound.
On the fifth night of her fevered coma, they almost died on an icy slab together.
Ian took off his last layer of outerwear, wrapped her in burlap, and sat in the snow, as if waiting for God to offer the last straw.
He didn’t wait for God, but a patrol knight squad from the Red Tide Territory found them.
The knight rely glanced at Mia in his arms and, without hesitation, whispered, "There’s still ti."
Thus, he followed the firelight into a makeshift camp.
A place that rose like a micro-city from the wasteland.
There was order, hot porridge, tents for warmth, and physicians who asked no questions about origins.
He rembered the tired doctor who stayed up all night to bring down Mia’s fever, while he sat outside the door all night like a fractured piece of wood, until soone handed him a pair of old boots.
It was then that he first whispered, "Thank you."
Later, he was assigned to the craftsman’s team.
Initially, it was nailing fences, sawing stakes, laying floors—work he was familiar with.
His tools had been burned by the fire, but his skills remained.
Later, he had a stable tent, clothes to change into, and nights when he no longer worried about Mia going hungry.
In the earliest winter nights, he had to wake up three tis a night to confirm that she was by his side, without a fever.
Then later... she was chosen.
The Blood Stone revealed her knight’s lineage. It was a future none of them had ever anticipated.
She entered the training camp, donned training armor, learned riding and how to use Fighting Energy.
Watching her determined eyes, he suddenly felt that this child was no longer a slender girl who had walked out from a pile of firewood; she would beco a protector.
Now they were assigned to live in the second residential area of the main city, a genuine "Red Tide-style do house" that truly belonged to them.
"In the past, we could only winter under a wooden shed wrapped in burlap. Now, sleeping in this big house, who would have thought?"
Ian murmured softly, putting on a thick cotton undershirt and a coarse outer coat with a tightly fastened collar by the stove.
Then he took the half bowl of leftover porridge from last night from the table, gulped it down, exhaled, fastened his scarf, and pushed open the door, stepping into the morning of the Red Tide Territory.
He had grown accustod to this route.
Starting from the residential area, passing through bustling marketplaces, across the square, and then into the workshop lane by the west city.
The ground was laid with smooth stone bricks, drainage ditches embedded in the corners of both walls, and the thin snow that fell overnight had mostly been swept away.
In the distance, the firelight poles were still lit, their warm yellow glow flickering on the bluestone slabs.
A man in a thick coat walked past the street corner, holding a freshly replaced bucket of hot water.
He nodded a greeting to Ian, who returned a smile in kind.
More and more passersby appeared, mostly craftsn, logistic soldiers, market administrators, moving orderly through the districts.
Occasionally, so children would run out from the alley, with uniform-issued red scarves around their necks, jumping and hiding in the corners, as their mothers called their nas from afar.
He stopped by a wall for a mont.
A notice was posted on the bulletin board: roughly written "Ninth Batch Winter Supplies Distribution," accompanied by illustrations below—small bread, salted at, and soap, with the smiling face of a child holding a sparkler.
Approaching the trading square, he saw from afar a four-wheeled transport cart parked at the bottom of the slope, with several porters loading bags of burlap onto it—those were provisions, marked with red string for the Northern Army’s quota.
Ian squinted to recognize the familiar stamp on the burlap: "Snowfield Winter Camp · Sixth Batch of Stored Grains."
He knew these items would be transported along the main road to the northern Red Tide front-line outpost, Mia’s future destination.
He continued forward, his pace neither hurried nor slow, and the voices in the wind and snow grew denser.
The craftsn’s quarter was reached; the entire woodwork camp was already bustling, sawdust, steam mingled with the scent of furnace smoke wafted through the air.
In the distance, dried spruce planks hung from wooden beams, people weaving through carrying tools, lifting a section of an axle, shouting about asurent discrepancies.
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