---
Stage one of the war game had begun. And Dawn House had answered the first sabotage with movement. They captured three of the iron house dogs. That should have been enough to steady the day.
But it was not.
By the time the first saboteurs were dragged toward the Void Land, the city had already begun changing shape around Dawn House in smaller, meaner ways. These were not attacks meant to kill. Not yet. They were meant to have a sour rhythm. To bend confidence. To make every hand under Dawn House stop for one breath and wonder whether standing here was still wise.
That was how old merchant pressure worked when it came from people with patience and money behind them. They did not break your throat first. They taught your own people to look at your walls and think collapse before collapse actually came.
Mira understood that too well. A few moments later. They all go to the dawn auction house business building.
