Litany of Winter

Severin Hale is twenty two and broke enough to take night work at a Blackhaven freight yard where men have been disappearing.

The pay is better after dark. Then a merchant offers him extra coin to guard several sealed crates until morning. Strange symbols have been carved into the wood. Severin cannot read them, and the merchant is paying enough that he knows better than to ask.

Before dawn, a one eyed stranger enters the warehouse.

Severin takes him for a thief and attacks him. He gets flattened for the mistake.

The stranger is a Pilgrim of the Blinded Crown, an Order Severin knows mostly from rumor. He opens the crates, takes something from inside, then burns the rest rather than let the shipment leave Blackhaven.

By sunrise, Severin’s easy night job has become part of something much larger. Workers are still vanishing, the people behind the cargo know too much about the Order, and Severin has seen enough to make walking away difficult.

He has no training and barely any education. Power belongs to people with better names and fuller pockets.

The Blinded Crown offers another way.

Its price is an eye.