“Well, farmer,” the officer said softly. “Explain why State brass is resting under your floorboards.” Daris didn’t flinch. Not a flicker. He dropped to his knees with a heavy thud, hands clasped together, head bowed so low his chin nearly touched his chest. “Oh, esteemed Inquisitor! Have mercy on a poor, simple man!” His voice cracked, thick with exaggerated terror. “This wretched hovel has seen many tenants before me, Sir! Scavengers, mostly, driven from the capital by the last war. They left all manner of filth behind! I swear on my mother’s grave, I’ve never seen such a thing in my life!” He gestured vaguely at the floorboards, his shoulders shaking with feigned sobs. Liska watched, stomach tightening. Daris was a performance, a full-body lie. The man who’d met her gaze at the registry with cold calculation, the man whose tool crib held a dozen identical casings, was now a quivering, sniveling lump. It was masterful. And utterly humiliating. The officer’s lips thinned. His gray gaze swept past Daris, past Liska, and landed on the cottage’s only door. Through the open frame, the corner of the barn jutted into view, squat and solid against the drizzle. The officer raised two fingers toward the pair of gray-coated constables stationed by the fence line. A tilt of his chin pointed straight at the outbuilding. The barn held Daris's brass hoard, and wedged inside the hayloft's hollow collar tie lay Liska's rebel ciphers. Her mind raced. Those boots would cross the threshold in twenty heartbeats. They would prise up the floorboards, drag out the oilcloth bundles, and secure two bodies for the post-dawn firing squad. No appeals, no trials. She had to pull them back. Her eyes darted around the small, cramped room. Her weaving loom stood against the far wall, a sturdy, ancient contraption of pine and oak, draped with half-finished linen. Above it, on a small shelf, sat the kerosene lamp. Its glass chimney burned low, casting long shadows across the floor. It was a stupid, suicidal idea. A fatal risk. But what other choice was there? Ask for help? Not when lives were on the line. She was the shield. Always. Liska moved. Slowly. Deliberately. She took a step towards the hearth, ostensibly to adjust the kettle still steaming on the trivet. Her movements were clumsy, befitting her 'scatterbrained weaver' persona. As she neared the shelf, her elbow brushed against the lamp. Not enough. She needed more. A little more force. She swayed, a manufactured stumble, her foot catching on a loose thread from her work basket. Her arm shot out, catching the brass base to sweep the lamp from its perch. The glass clinked against the wooden shelf, then tumbled. It hit the floor with a sickening *CRACK*, shattering into a hundred shards. Kerosene, thick and oily, splattered across the dry timber of the loom, soaking the linen draped over it. The wick, still lit, bounced once, twice, a tiny spark. Then, with a hungry *whoosh*, a tongue of orange flame erupted. “Oh, dearie me!” Liska cried, her voice high and panicked. “My lamp! Oh, the loom!” She stumbled back, hands fluttering uselessly, playing the part of the helpless wife. The fire, however, was no act. It roared to life, feeding on the dry wood, licking up the threads. Within seconds, the lower part of the loom was engulfed, the linen catching like tinder. Smoke billowed, thick and acrid, stinging Liska’s eyes. Heat washed over her, an inferno radiating from the heart of her workspace. She had to make it believable. As the flames climbed, she deliberately reached out, as if to beat them back with her bare hands. The heat was immense, searing. A gasp tore from her throat as fire kissed her skin, crawling up her forearms. The smell of burning hair filled the air, mingling with the bitter scent of scorched wood. She screamed, a raw, genuine sound of pain. “Fire!” Daris shouted, finally breaking character. He scrambled up, lunging toward the wall. “The loom is burning!” The officer snapped, his veneer dropping into a drillmaster's snarl. “Water! You two, drop the latch and drown it!” The pair on the threshold broke their stride toward the barn, reversed course, and snatched the wash pails from the flagstones to douse the timber. Cedar hissed beneath gray water. Liska clutched her arms, biting back another cry. The skin was blistering, red and angry. But it had worked. The barn was safe. For now. Within minutes, the worst of the fire was out, leaving behind a smoking, charred husk where her loom once stood. The smell of ash and wet wood hung heavy in the air. The officer stood among the sodden ruins, soot speckling his white collar. “Clumsy wretches,” he spat, kicking a scorched stave aside. “A marvel you haven't burned the district down.” He pocketed the brass casing and jabbed a thumb toward the threshold. “Two sentries stay on your stoop. Step past the garden wall without a stamped permit, and my men shoot to kill. Understood?” Daris bowed low. “Yes, sir! Thank you, officer!” The interrogator turned on his heel, his cloak sweeping through the damp air as he retreated. The door slammed shut, leaving Liska and Daris in the smoky, silent ruin of their home. The low murmur of the sentries beyond the wood was the only sound. Liska sank onto a stool, cradling her throbbing arms. The pain was a dull ache that spread through her shoulders, a constant throb. She drew air through her teeth, willing her pulse to level out. Daris knelt beside her. He didn’t speak. He simply reached for her arms, his fingers surprisingly gentle as he examined the angry, reddened skin. “It’s not too deep,” he murmured, his voice low, devoid of the earlier theatricality. He moved with a startling efficiency, pulling a small, metal tin from a hidden compartment beneath the floor near the untouched wall. Inside were clean bandages, a small pot of salve, and a needle and thread, glinting silver in the dim light. He began to clean the burns without a tremor, his movements precise and methodical. He applied the salve, then wrapped the bandages, his fingers weaving around her arms with the rapid, flawless precision of a frontline combat medic. No hesitation. No fumbling. It was the work of someone who had done this countless times before, stitching flesh under pressure. Liska watched him, a cold dread seeping into her exhaustion. The simple farmer, the man who supposedly couldn’t mend a leaky roof, was a ghost of competence she couldn't reconcile. Her eyes fixed on his face, searching for a tell, a crack in his carefully constructed facade. “Daris,” she whispered, her voice rough with smoke and pain. “Exactly where did a turnip farmer learn to stitch flesh like that?”

A Looming Fire