The frost came thick the next morning, clinging to the blackened stones of Thornholt's walls and turning the yard into a brittle white sheet. Breath fogged in the cold air. The dying scent of burnt canvas, blood, and wet timber still hung heavy. Winter had come early to these hills, and with it, a fresh problem.
They had nothing left to eat.
The dead horses from Harrowmont's siege had been stripped for meat days ago. The grain stores, such as they were, lay charred in the ruined granary. Salted fish had run out two nights past, and already the men spoke in low voices of hunger. Garran could see it in their faces. Men moved slower. Eyes lingered too long on the cook pots, even when there was nothing but boiled roots.
He sat in the hall with his captains, the walls still blackened with soot. Jorik hunched over a rough-hewn table, gnawing at a piece of stale bread as if it were a feast. Mera, thinner than she'd been at summer's start, leaned against the cold hearth, arms crossed.
Aldric Othren sat with them now. His cloak was mended, his sword laid beside him on the table, and his expression held the weight of a man who'd buried too many kin.
"The land's bare," Aldric said after a long silence. "My men combed the valleys north of the stream. What little the farmers had, they've taken south or hidden."
"And I'll not see my men turn to theft on our own soil," Garran replied. His voice was flat, but there was iron in it. "We didn't bleed for Thornholt to rule it like brigands."
Jorik gave a dry laugh. "You'd starve nobly, then?"
"I'd rather starve with my honor than die with my gut full and my name spat in the streets," Garran answered. His gaze held steady on Jorik until the big man dropped his eyes back to his cup.
Mera shifted against the hearth. "There's a way."
The others turned to her.
"Three days east, over the Breven hills," she continued, "there's a village called Wynmere. Old trade road passes through it. Cattle, root cellars, and their lord's no better than a drunk hedge-knight. My brother served there years ago."
"Wynmere's not ours," Aldric said. "That land belongs to Ser Orlan Veyn, sworn to House Erondale."
"House Erondale hasn't raised a banner in three winters," Mera snapped. "And Ser Orlan's fifty men won't march in snow. Not for an empty title."
Garran considered that. Wynmere lay in a fertile valley, far from the main roads now since the war shattered old trade routes. Isolated, small, but it would have food, livestock, and shelter.
The question wasn't whether they could take it. It was whether they should.
If Garran raided Wynmere, word would spread. Small lords and steading captains would see Thornholt as no better than the mercenary rabble Harrowmont's men had claimed them to be. The fragile trust he was building would fracture before it could take root.
But if he did nothing, men would starve. And a starving hold was as good as dead.
Jorik scratched his beard. "We don't need to sack it. Just ride in with numbers, claim a levy in the old way. Winter's tribute, like in the days of King Aldren. Take a tenth of grain, some cattle. Leave 'em standing."
"And if they refuse?" Aldric asked.
"They won't," Garran said. "Not if we go with show enough to remind them what happens when you don't."
He stood, feeling the dull ache of his shoulder wound, and moved to the window slit. The yard below was thick with frost. His men moved in silence, patching the walls, tending to the wounded, mending what gear they could. He could see the hunger in them.
No man fights well with an empty belly.
"Mera," he said, "take twenty men. Good riders, ones we can spare. Ride at dawn. Speak with the reeve of Wynmere. Tell him Thornholt holds this land now. He'll pay tribute before the snows thicken or we'll take it by force."
Mera inclined her head. "I'll see it done."
"Jorik, get the men drilling again. Half rations, but keep them sharp. No word of weakness leaves this hall. I want the roads watched. If Erondale stirs, I'll hear of it before their men cross the hills."
Jorik grunted, standing and grabbing his battered axe.
"Aldric," Garran added, "have your men repair the eastern wall. You swore to hold this ground in my name. Let's see you keep it."
Aldric gave a sharp nod. "We'll have it mended by week's end."
The captains filed out one by one, leaving Garran alone in the cold, hollowed-out hall.
He stared into the hearth, watching the last of the embers die. There would be no easy days ahead. Every scrap of ground, every bushel of grain, every oath sworn would be earned in blood and cold hours. Thornholt would not rise by coin or clever words alone.
It would rise on the backs of starving men, in the faces of old enemies, and in the choices no decent man wanted to make.
Garran knew it then. He wasn't building a kingdom. Not yet.
He was building a place where men could survive long enough to believe one was possible.
And that would be enough, for now.