Before the whistles, there was only the wheat. Elias Thorne grew up in the "Grass"—a literal expanse of amber grain in the valley of Oakhaven. To a boy of nineteen, the world was a map of soil types and weather patterns. His hands were calloused from the scythe, and his lungs were filled with the sweet, dusty scent of the chaff. War was a distant, flickering rumor, a headline in the city papers that seemed as irrelevant as a storm on the other side of the moon.
