Here's the first chapter.
https://app.warera.io/article/69e7f76875d82ea9ba075d1a
Chapter II – The Day Between Fires
Nothing happened.
No fires marked the horizon. No voices broke through the radio’s static. No distant thunder of engines rolled across the land.
Erik Haraldsson worked the field in silence, guiding the plow through soil that resisted more than usual, as if the earth itself had grown reluctant to yield. The world held together, unchanged on the surface.
It should have felt like peace.
It didn’t.
By midday, the stillness had settled fully—not as calm, but as something heavier, something that lingered too long and pressed too close to be natural.
Erik slowed, the blade dragging unevenly through the earth.
He hadn’t heard him approach.
“Can you feel it?”
Olof stood behind him.
Erik didn’t turn. “Nothing’s happening.”
Olof nodded once. “Yes.”
Erik frowned slightly, eyes still on the field. The old man had always been strange—but not like this.
“That’s not a good thing, is it?”
Olof stepped past him, the carved stone resting in his hand.
“Silence rarely is.”
Erik watched him now. “If it’s not here… then where is it?”
Olof looked toward the horizon, as if listening rather than searching.
“Not here.”
A pause.
“Not today.”
The words lingered longer than they should have.
Erik exhaled, frustration surfacing. “The radio’s been silent all day. Barely even static. Yesterday it was full of voices—fighting, calling out, breaking apart.”
He shook his head. “Now nothing. Why aren’t we hearing anything?”
Olof’s gaze remained distant.
“Because this is not where the fire is burning.”
Erik’s jaw tightened. “Then it’s happening somewhere.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
Olof did not answer directly. His fingers traced the stone.
“Not all battles are seen at once,” he said. “Not all fires show their smoke.”
The wind shifted faintly across the field.
“For a moment,” Erik said, quieter now, “I thought it might stop.”
Olof shook his head.
“No. What happened in Småland did not end there.”
Erik glanced toward the house, where the radio lay waiting in silence.
“Then what is this?” he asked. “This quiet.”
Olof’s voice lowered.
“A breath.”
Erik looked at him.
“A pause between strikes,” Olof continued. “Men regroup. Lines are drawn. Elsewhere, they are already fighting—and dying.”
Silence settled between them.
“Because something is choosing where to burn next,” Olof finished.
The words did not echo.
They sank.
And the silence that followed felt heavier than before.
The Rise – Erik Haraldsson - Chapter 2 End