The release of the Church's secret grain reserves was a logistical miracle that the populace attributed to the divine favor of the Castellan and the intercession of the priest. As the long lines formed outside the tithe-barns, and the smell of fresh, thick porridge began to drift through the cold streets, Deacon knew he had bought himself another month of stability. But the political victory was only half of the puzzle. The second half was the physical infrastructure of the Shadow Command's new communication network.
He climbed the spiraling stone stairs of the Alchemist Guild tower, his breath hitching in the frigid air. At the top, in the freezing observation deck, Staff Sergeant Blake was waiting beside the new semaphore mechanism. The gears were oiled with a specialized fat Miller had refined to resist freezing, and the heavy copper telescope was mounted on its iron tripod, its lens pointed toward the distant, snowy peak of the Eastern Watchtower.
"Chronometers are synchronized, Sir," Blake said, his voice shivering but steady. He held out a small, brass-cased clock, its single hand ticking with a rhythmic, mechanical certainty. "Major Kiley has his unit at the dispensary. Tate should be watching from the Widow's balcony. On the mark of the fourth hour, we send the first operational burst."
Deacon took the brass chronometer. The second hand swept toward the twelve. The air in the tower felt thin and electric. This was the moment where the Shadow Command ceased to be a group of isolated soldiers and became a unified, synchronized network. In a world that moved at the speed of a horse, they were about to move at the speed of light.
"Mark," Deacon said.
Blake threw the first heavy lever. High above them, the massive, ornate weather vane—the cover for the semaphore—jerked thirty degrees to the left. The gears groaned, a deep, metallic sound that echoed through the stone of the tower. Blake moved the second lever, then the third. To any observer in the city, it looked like the wind was simply playing with the vane, but to Kiley and Tate, it was a precise string of data.
S-I-L-O-S O-P-E-N.
Deacon stepped to the copper telescope and leaned into the eyepiece. The world beyond the tower jumped into sharp, startling focus. He swept the lens toward the dispensary rooftop. He saw a small, dark figure—Kiley—standing beside a mirror. A second later, a brilliant flash of reflected sunlight hit the tower.
A-C-K-N-O-W-L-E-D-G-E-D.
The system worked. From the tower to the dispensary, across the sprawl of the snowy city, they had transmitted a tactical update in seconds. Deacon then shifted the telescope toward the southern docks, searching for the Widow's estate. He found the balcony, and there stood Staff Sergeant Tate. The scout didn't have a mirror; instead, he performed a series of slow, deliberate hand signals, a variant of the Army's covert signaling language.
W-I-D-O-W S-U-S-P-I-C-I-O-U-S. T-R-A-D-E R-O-U-T-E-S M-A-P-P-E-D.
"Tate's through," Deacon reported, his eye still pressed to the glass. "He's mapping her routes. The S-2 node is active."
"It's incredible, Sir," Blake whispered, looking at the levers. "We just outpaced every messenger in the kingdom. We have a command-and-control advantage that shouldn't exist for another seven hundred years."
"Don't get comfortable, Sergeant," Deacon warned, though he felt the same surge of adrenaline. "The faster we move, the more attention we attract. Marius is cowed for now, but the Widow is smart. She'll see the vane movements. She'll see the flashes. We need to transition the semaphore to a night-capable system—shutters and oil lamps—before the winter solstice. And Blake? Start working on the second telescope. I want a permanent eyes-on the King's Road. If the Imperial tax collectors are coming to investigate the 'Holy Relic,' I want to see their banners while they're still twenty miles out."
Deacon left the tower, descending the stairs into the cold, gray twilight. He could see the fires in the market square, the people huddling together, warmed by the Church's grain. He had used the corruption of the past to feed the present, and the technology of the future to secure the tomorrow. But as he looked at the brass chronometer in his hand, its steady ticking felt like a countdown. He was building a modern state inside a medieval shell, and every gear he turned, every signal he sent, brought him closer to the inevitable day when the shell would shatter. For now, they had food, they had fire, and they had the Glass Eye. It would have to be enough to survive the frost.