Bread and Ashes
MAXWELL POV
Maxwell stepped out into the morning, the sky still gray with the kind of cold that got into your bones and stayed. Hunger hung in the air like smoke—thin, bitter, impossible to ignore.
The village was awake, but barely. Fires came out from crooked chimneys, their warmth barely enough. Maxwell's boots stepped over frostbitten dirt as he moved past empty crates, broken barrels, and the smell of spoiled grain.
In the square, a dozen peasants crowded around a cart pulled in from the eastern trail. An old man, bent and wheezing, was measuring out handfuls of flour with a rusted tin scoop. Each pouch weighed barely enough to bake a bread.
"Three copper," he screamed.
A woman shoved forward, coins clenched in a shaking hand. Maxwell saw the look in her eyes: starvation with a thin mask of dignity. The man took her money, poured the flour, and moved on. Behind her, a boy of maybe ten stared at the pouch as if it were gold dust.
Maxwell continued walking until the voices faded.
Jonas's shack stood near the edge of the withered fields. The man was outside, planting thin roots with careful hands, dirt crusted beneath his nails. His daughter, Toma, sat nearby, gnawing on a strip of dried bark.
HUNGER
"Morning," Maxwell said, approaching.
Jonas looked up. He hadn't slept; Maxwell could see it in the deep lines worn beneath his eyes. "Sir Maxwell."
"Have you eaten today?"
Jonas didn't answer.
"What about her?"
He nodded toward the girl.
"Chewed tree bark helps keep her stomach quiet. For a few hours." Jonas paused. "Some nights, I think the hunger's teaching her to stop dreaming. That scares me more than the ribs I can count."
STARVATION
Maxwell crouched beside him. "How's the crop?"
Jonas gave a dry laugh. "If the frost doesn't kill it, the worms will. If the worms don't, then the rats will dig it up."
"What happened to your chickens?"
"Sold them to buy salt and a pound of turnips last week. Salt went bad. Turnips were hollow."
Maxwell stood again. "Hang in there."
"I'm not the one you should worry about," Jonas said, looking at his daughter. "She's the one still growing."
DESPERATION
Maxwell made his way to the grain storage next. The door hung half off its hinge. Inside were a few scattered sacks, most of them nearly empty. Rats skittered in the rafters. A wooden spoon lay abandoned in a puddle of spilled oats, gnawed to splinters.
Two workers stood at the far wall, arguing over a ledger.
"The numbers don't add up," one muttered. "We're missing twenty-seven bags."
"They were traded," the other said defensively. "For dried meat from the Williams estate."
"Except the meat never came."
Maxwell stepped forward. "Is this theft or incompetence?"
Both men froze.
"We—we don't know," one stammered. "Could've been the merchants lying. Or maybe one of the carts was robbed."
Maxwell didn't bother to scold them. What use was blame in a starving village?
"Secure the storage. Lock it. I'll send someone to check the records." His voice was cold steel. "If I catch anyone selling grain off the books, I'll hang them by their own tongue."
They nodded in silence.
By late afternoon, Maxwell stood by the well, watching a girl lower her bucket with trembling arms. Her mother waited beside her, skin drawn tight across her cheekbones, staring into nothing.
A priest walked past them, clean robes gleaming, a warm pastry in hand. The scent of fruit and flour hung thick in his wake.
That evening, back in the manor, Kain sat by the fire again. His drink was untouched. His eyes were distant, unfocused.
"Well?" he asked, as Maxwell entered.
Maxwell took a deep breath. "They're starving. Not metaphorically. Not spiritually. Literally. One more bad harvest and you'll be ruling over graves."
Kain said nothing.
"The fields are failing. The grain reserves are vanishing. Half the trade routes are useless. People are eating bark, dirt, and whatever rats they can catch."
Silence.
"I spoke to Jonas again. His daughter hasn't eaten in two days. There's nothing left in his home except a single bag of roots, and even those might be poisonous."
More silence.
Maxwell took a step closer. "You want loyalty? Feed them. You want obedience? Feed their children. Right now, every man and woman in this village is praying—but they're not praying to your banner or your crown. They're praying to the church for crumbs, and the church only gives them chains and feeds them sparingly".
Kain's voice was quiet. "You think I don't know that?"
"Maxwell, tomorrow, I am going to take care of both our water and food crises. I am going to take this burden upon myself to give them hope."
Kain paused, eyes fixed on the dying fire.
"I want them to believe I bleed with them. Misery is harder to envy when the man at the top looks just as broken."
A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Good
"Let them think I suffer beside them. Let them believe I care."
Kain smiled to himself as he said this.