The Third Winter came earlier than expected a season that clawed through the walls of every barrack and the hearts of every soldier. The camps were nothing but dark silhouettes half-buried under ice. The banners of the North, once proud and crimson, now hung like pale rags stiff with frost.

Noah stood outside his tent, breath crystallizing in the air.

His uniform the black trench of the Northern General fluttered faintly against the biting wind. Behind him, the encampment stretched endlessly, dotted with dim lanterns that flickered like dying stars.

He listened to the creaks of frozen canvas, the distant sound of someone coughing blood, and the faint, dull clatter of tools men trying to dig through frozen earth for firewood.

The war hadn't stopped. It had simply gone silent.

---

Inside his tent, maps were pinned over every surface scrawled with ink and thread, layered like the veins of some diseased creature. Chrome Hearts' insignia was pressed into the wax seals of folded dispatches.

Noah sat at his desk, a quill in hand, staring at a blank report. His fingers were trembling slightly.

"How do you lie to keep men alive?"

He dipped the quill into ink and began to write.

"The northern battalions remain stable. Chrome Hearts secured a shipment from the Frostveil ridge.

Morale remains high."

He paused. Then crossed out the last line.

"Morale remains... steady."

It was a lie. A necessary one.

His candle guttered, casting long shadows that looked almost like bars across his desk.

He pulled open a smaller, hidden compartment under the desk and drew out a black envelope the kind that never went through official channels. Inside was a single folded note, and beneath it, a ring of foreign currency... Central gold coins.

Funding from the black market.

The irony wasn't lost on him... the same Chrome Hearts that once vowed to fight corruption now thrived because of it.

He exhaled, setting the coins aside.

He whispered to himself:

"We sell weapons to our enemies so our allies can eat.

Beautiful logic, isn't it?"

---

A knock came at the tent flap.

"Enter," Noah said.

A soldier stepped in wrapped in a torn fur cloak. His nose was red from the cold.

"General, the western supply line froze over. The carriages didn't make it past the ridge."

Noah's expression didn't change.

He nodded slowly, like he had already known the answer.

"Tell the quartermaster to halve the rations again. Prioritize the infirmary."

The soldier hesitated. "Sir, if we keep cutting portions, the men—"

"They'll live," Noah interrupted, quiet but sharp.

"And if they don't… we'll burn the dead for warmth."

The soldier froze for a moment, saluted, and left without another word.

The tent fell silent again.

---

Noah leaned back in his chair, staring at the tent's ceiling

He ran a hand through his long black hair.

"I wonder if the snow remembers," he murmured.

"The ones it's buried."

He thought of the soldiers who followed him without question.

The world had stopped trusting anyone, and now, even Chrome Hearts wasn't immune to suspicion.

Rumors spread fast that Noah was trading corpses for gold, that he was hoarding food, that the Silver General was turning into a tyrant.

And yet, every night, his men still saluted him.

Because lies, he realized, were warmer than truth.

---

Later that night, Noah stepped out again. The sky was a void of gray, clouds heavy and unbroken.

A fleet of airships stood anchored nearby — enormous red hulls covered with frost.

Their engines were dormant, waiting for fuel, waiting for orders.

He brushed a layer of ice off one of the control panels and looked up at the towering silhouette.

"Soon" he whispered.

"We'll take to the skies again."

He thought of the reports he'd sent ones the Parliament would read and nod over in their gilded halls, never realizing how close the front was to collapse.

He reached for his coat pocket and drew out another small notebook not for official reports, but for his private log.

Its pages were filled with handwriting that looked more like scratches than words.

He flipped to the latest entry.

'Third Winter. Food is running low. Chrome Hearts morale deteriorating.

Iris hasn't written since the last envoy left. I can't tell if it's the cold or time itself that's freezing everything.

I wonder if this is what the end feels like...'

He paused, his breath visible over the page.

Then added:

'I lied again today.'

---

The wind picked up. His coat fluttered.

Somewhere in the distance, the soldiers were laughing faintly near a small fire sharing thawed alcohol, singing out of tune. He envied that. The way they could still find warmth in each other.

He turned back to the airships. The flagship, The Monarch, loomed above the others — his command vessel.

Soon, when the blizzards cleared, they would soar southward again to strike at Central outposts.

Noah pressed a hand against the cold metal of the ship's hull.

"Just one more push," he murmured. "Then we'll end this damn war."

He wasn't sure if he believed that anymore.

---

Back in his tent, Noah sealed another envelope.

It wasn't addressed to the Parliament, or even the Bluerose family.

It was addressed simply to "Iris Star."

Inside, he wrote only one line:

"The fire is dying.

But I'm still here."

He sealed it with the Chrome Hearts insignia and placed it beside the others, though he knew the courier might never make it through the snow.

---

He returned to his desk and stared again at the map, there were so many borders, so many meaningless lines.

He muttered to himself, voice low, tired, but still iron beneath it.

"We're all trapped in this storm. And if no one leads them out, they'll die waiting for spring."

His hand reached for the chrome cane leaning by his chair.

Its polished surface reflected his face, faintly distorted, almost unrecognizable beneath the fatigue.

"Let them call me a liar," he whispered. "Let them hate me if they must.

But they'll live through all this.."

Outside, the snow kept falling.

The soldiers slept hungry, the engines of the airships creaked under frost, and the war machine of the North went quiet for the first time.

Noah sat there until dawn, the ink on his hands dry and black as blood.

By the time the first horn sounded to signal morning drills, he had already finished writing the next report...another perfect lie to keep hope alive.

"Victory is near."

He signed it...

- General Noah, Supreme Commander of the North.