Chapter 12: Millbrook

  ———

  The rooster had been at it for a solid minute before Zavian's brain caught up with his ears.

  Not an alarm. Not a predator's shriek. Not the wet crunch of something with too many teeth finding prey in the undergrowth. Just a rooster, full of self-importance, declaring to a village that was already awake and thoroughly unimpressed that dawn had arrived.

  Through the barn walls, other sounds filtered in, a cart wheel grinding over cobblestones, the rhythmic clang of a hammer on iron, women's voices rising and falling in the easy shorthand of people who'd known each other all their lives. A child shrieked with laughter. A dog barked once, then settled.

  Normal sounds. Small sounds. The sounds of a community that could fit inside a single building in any city on Earth, and yet here they were, sprawled across a valley, unhurried, unafraid, greeting the morning like it was a gift rather than a countdown. Zavian lay in the straw and listened to civilisation like a man dying of thirst hearing rain.

  He sat up slowly, straw falling from his hair and shoulders. The barn was larger than it had seemed in the darkness, a proper agricultural building with stalls for livestock, storage for feed, and a loft overhead where he'd apparently been allowed to sleep. Morning light streamed through gaps in the wooden walls, painting golden stripes across the dusty floor.

  {You have been listening to the village for eleven minutes,} NOVA said. {I chose not to interrupt. You seemed to need this.}

  "Felt like it." He stretched, wincing at the lingering stiffness in his muscles. "Anything happen while I was out?"

  {Nothing concerning. I monitored the sounds all night, activity patterns consistent with an agricultural settlement. No indications of hostility.}

  "That's something, at least."

  He stood, brushing straw from his tattered clothes, and immediately became aware of how terrible he must look. Two weeks in the wilderness had left their mark: his shirt was barely holding together, his pants were stained with dirt and blood, and he was fairly certain his hair had achieved a state of chaos that would take serious effort to undo.

  {You are concerned about your appearance} NOVA said.

  "First impressions matter. And I'm about to meet the person who decides whether we're welcome here."

  {I would point out that the guard already saw you last night and did not immediately exile you. Your appearance, while unfortunate, apparently falls within acceptable parameters for 'desperate traveller.'}

  "That's... not as reassuring as you think it is."

  {I was attempting realism rather than reassurance.}

  "Try reassurance next time."

  {Noted.}

  He found a water trough near the barn entrance and used it to wash his face and hands, scrubbing away the worst of the accumulated grime. It would have to do. He ran wet fingers through his hair, trying to impose some order on the mess, with limited success.

  {Marginal improvement,} NOVA assessed. {You now look like a desperate traveller who has recently encountered water.}

  "Thank you for that."

  {You are welcome.}

  ———

  The village was larger than it had appeared in the darkness. Zavian stepped out of the barn into a morning that felt painfully normal. The central square, more of a rough oval, really, was ringed by buildings of wood and stone, their thatched roofs golden in the sunlight. A well stood at the centre, its stone walls worn smooth by generations of use. Paths radiated outward like spokes of a wheel, leading to homes and workshops and fields beyond. And everywhere, people.

  They went about their morning routines with the easy rhythm of long practice, a woman carrying water from the well, a man leading a cart horse towards the fields, children chasing each other around the buildings with shrieks of laughter. Normal people, living normal lives, in a place that had never heard of the Fading. The children hit him hardest.

  There were perhaps a dozen of them, ranging from toddlers to near-adolescents, and they moved with the boundless energy that children always seemed to have. Chasing, playing, arguing, making up, their voices a constant backdrop of joy and complaint and discovery.

  On Earth, children had stopped playing years ago. The ones who survived had grown old before their time, their eyes carrying weights that no child should bear. Alice had been one of the last to still have hope in her gaze, still believe that sunshine was worth drawing. These children didn't know how lucky they were.

  {Zavian,} NOVA said. {Your emotional response is intensifying.}

  "I'm fine."

  {You are crying.}

  He touched his face. She was right, his throat had closed up, tight and unexpected. He swallowed, hoping no one had noticed.

  {There is no shame in grief} NOVA continued. {You are witnessing something you thought was lost. It makes sense that it would affect you.}

  "I know. It's just--" He struggled to find words. "I forgot. I forgot what normal looked like. What peace looked like. And now it's right here, and I don't know how to--"

  "You're the stranger."

  A voice arrived before the woman did--a warm alto finishing an argument with someone who wasn't there anymore.

  "--and I told him the poultice needs three days, not two, but does anyone listen to me? No. Never."

  She rounded the corner still gesturing at empty air, hands animated, flour dusting her forearms despite the fact that she clearly wasn't a baker. When she noticed Zavian, her hands froze mid-wave.

  "Ah. You're the one who walked out of the Wildwood." Her gaze swept over him--healer's eyes, cataloguing wounds before words. A missing ring finger on her left hand caught the morning light. "Tom said you looked like something the wolves chewed on and spat out. I see he was being generous."

  "That's... not entirely inaccurate."

  She laughed, a warm sound that matched her voice. "I'm Nessa. Village healer. Tom's wife, for my sins." The diagnostic gaze continued, cataloguing torn clothes, healing wounds, general disrepair. "He wasn't exaggerating about the wolves, was he?"

  "Not wolves, exactly. But close enough."

  "Well, you're still standing, which is more than most can say after a run-in with Wildwood beasts." She was already moving, gesturing for him to follow. "Come on. Elder Mara's waiting, and she doesn't like to be kept waiting, but we can talk while we walk."

  ———

  Nessa, it turned out, was a talker. In the short walk across the square, Zavian learned that Millbrook had been founded four generations ago by refugees from somewhere called the Eastern Collapse; that the population was currently around two hundred, down from a peak of three hundred before a plague swept through twenty years back; that the harvest this year was looking good, thank the spirits; and that her husband Tom was the village's best hunter but couldn't cook to save his life.

  "He once burned water," she said, shaking her head. "I still don't know how that's possible, but he got out it."

  "Burning water would require--" Zavian stopped himself. "Never mind. I believe you."

  Nessa gave him an odd look. "You talk strangely, you know that? The accent is fine, the System handles that. It's the way you put words together. Like you're always thinking three steps ahead of what you're saying."

  "I've been told that before."

  "Mmm. Where did you say you were from?"

  "I didn't."

  "No, you didn't." She smiled, but her eyes were sharp. "Elder Mara will ask. Fair warning: she knows when people are lying. Don't know how, but she does. Better to tell the truth, even if it sounds crazy."

  "What if the truth is crazy?"

  "Then it's still the truth. And in my experience, crazy truths are better than sensible lies."

  They'd reached a building larger than the others, enough to mark it as important. Nessa knocked on the wooden door, waited for a muffled response, then pushed it open.

  "Elder Mara? The stranger's here."

  ———

  The interior of the building was dim and warm, lit by a fire crackling in a stone hearth. Shelves lined the walls, crammed with books and scrolls and objects Zavian couldn't identify. The air smelled of herbs and smoke and something else, magic, if magic had a smell. And sitting in a chair by the fire was Elder Mara.

  She kept his head down when he entered. Her fingers moved across the surface of the book in her lap, tracing patterns Zavian couldn't see--old habit, maybe, or devotion. The firelight painted her white hair copper and gold.

  "Sit," she said, without raising her eyes. "You've been standing too long already. I can hear your knees from here."

  He sat. Only then did she look up, and her gaze hit him like a physical weight--heavy, assessing. Assessing. The face behind those eyes was a map of decades: white hair in a simple braid, skin lined by weather and hard choices, hands that looked fragile but rested on the arms of her chair like they belonged there.

  "So," she said. "You're the one who walked out of the Wildwood."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "'Ma'am.'" The corner of her mouth twitched. "Polite. That's something."

  Nessa lingered by the door, clearly intending to listen, and Elder Mara didn't send her away.

  "What's your name, stranger?"

  "Zavian. Zavian Kingsley."

  "Zavian." She tested the word. "Unusual name. Not from around here."

  "No. I'm from... very far away."

  "How far?"

  He met her eyes. They were grey, like storm clouds, and just as hard to read.

  "Farther than you'd believe."

  "Try me."

  {Zavian} NOVA said . {Nessa advised honesty. This woman does not seem like someone who responds well to evasion.} He took a breath.

  "I'm from another world. A place called Earth. I came here through a portal, a doorway between dimensions, because my world is dying, and I'm trying to find a way to save the people I left behind."

  Silence.

  Elder Mara's expression didn't change. She simply sat there, studying him, her grey eyes boring into his as if she could see the truth or lies written on his soul.

  "Another world," she said. "A dying world."

  "Yes."

  "And you came here alone?"

  "Not entirely." He hesitated, then decided he'd committed to honesty. "I have a companion. NOVA. She's... a kind of spirit, I suppose. Bound to me. She speaks in my mind."

  "A spirit companion." Elder Mara's eyebrows rose slightly. "That's rare. Very rare. Most who claim such bonds are liars or madmen."

  "I'm neither. Though I understand why you might think so."

  "Do you?" She leaned forward, her gaze sharpening. "Tell me, Zavian from another world, why should I believe a single word you've said? You appear from the Wildwood, a place that kills experienced hunters, with no supplies, no companions, and a story that sounds like the ravings of someone who's been eating the wrong mushrooms."

  "Because I have no reason to lie. I need help, information. I need to find something, an artifact, a relic, something that can protect souls during dimensional crossing." He met her gaze steadily. "Our scientists theorised about such things before I left. Called them 'anchors.' But we had no proof they existed. Just hope and desperation."

  Fire crackled. Somewhere outside, a child laughed. The ordinary sounds of village life, continuing on as if the world wasn't full of impossible things.

  Elder Mara sat back, her expression thoughtful. Her fingers tapped against the arm of her chair, a slow, rhythmic pattern that spoke of deep consideration.

  "Artifacts that protect souls," she murmured. "That bind them to their bodies so they cannot be torn away."

  {Zavian} NOVA said, urgency in her voice. {Her response suggests familiarity with the concept.}

  "You've heard of such things?"

  "I've heard stories." Mara's voice was careful now, measured, the voice of someone choosing their words with deliberate precision. "Legends passed down through generations of scholars and seekers. Tales of the Old Ones, the civilizations that ruled this land before the current kingdoms were born."

  She paused, her grey eyes distant, as if seeing something beyond the walls of her cottage.

  "They were said to have mastered arts we can hardly imagine. Arts of the soul, of binding, of preservation. When they fell, and they did fall, as all civilizations do, they left behind ruins scattered across the land. And in those ruins..." She shrugged. "Stories say treasures remain. Artifacts of power. Things that could reshape the world, if someone found them and learned their use."

  "Are any of those stories true?"

  "That's the question, isn't it?" She stood, moving with surprising grace for her age, and crossed to one of her shelves. Her fingers traced the spines of old books, searching for something specific. "Truth and legend intertwine over centuries. What was fact becomes myth. What was myth takes on the shape of history. Separating them requires more wisdom than most possess."

  "But you believe something exists? Something that could help me?"

  Mara turned to face him, a leather-bound book in her hands. Its cover was worn, its pages yellowed with age.

  "I believe the Old Ones accomplished things we cannot explain. I believe their ruins hold secrets we haven't uncovered, secrets that might never be uncovered, given how dangerous most of those places are." She paused, her eyes meeting his. "And I believe that a man who crossed between worlds might be capable of finding things that others have sought and failed to find."

  "A being spoken to me during the crossing," Zavian said. "Something that called itself the Entity. It hinted that artifacts like what I'm looking for exist here, hidden in deep places, guarded by ancient powers."

  "The Entity." Elder Mara's voice was flat. "You spoke with a being between worlds."

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  "I did." Mara's eyes didn't leave his. "Mara’s eyes didn’t leave his. "And it sent you here."

  "It did."

  "Looking for something out of legend," Mara said.

  "Yes." Another long silence. Then, slowly, Elder Mara began to laugh.

  It wasn't mocking laughter, not cruel or dismissive. It was the laughter of someone who had lived long enough to see many strange things, and who had just encountered something stranger still.

  "Well," she said, when the laughter had subsided. "Either you're the most creative liar I've ever met, or you're telling the truth. And the truth--" She shook her head. "The truth would be far more interesting."

  "Is that a good thing?"

  "For you? I haven't decided yet." She handed him the book. "This is a history of the Old Places. Ruins scattered across this land, left behind by civilizations that rose and fell before memory. I've spent decades trying to understand it, the language is ancient, the script difficult, but there are passages that speak of artifacts of great power. Relics hidden in the deep places of the world."

  "Deep places?"

  "Caverns. Labyrinths. Dungeons, the adventurers call them now, though they're far older than that word suggests." Her eyes held his, grey and sharp and ancient in their own way. "Some go down farther than anyone has ever explored. Farther, perhaps, than anyone could survive." She paused, and something crossed her face that looked like old grief.

  "A company of twelve went into the Thornhaven ruins three years ago. Experienced adventurers, all of them — the best the Guild had. They reached the fourth level." She let the silence do its work. "Two came back. One of them doesn't speak anymore." The fire popped. Neither of them moved.

  "The legends say the greatest treasures lie in the deepest depths," she continued, quieter now. "They do not say how many bones mark the path."

  {This aligns with what the Entity suggested} NOVA said. {Seek the deep places. Seek the old powers.}

  "How do I find these places?"

  "You grow stronger. You learn. You seek out those who remember what others have forgotten." Mara's voice softened slightly, less sharp than before. "I'm a village elder, Zavian. I know herbs and histories and how to keep stubborn farmers from killing each other over boundary disputes. The knowledge you seek... that lies with scholars and sages far more learned than I. In the great libraries, the ancient towers, places I've only heard stories about."

  "Where would I even start?"

  "Thornhaven has a Guild chapter. Adventurers who make their living exploring the old ruins and dark places. Some of them might know more." She shrugged, a surprisingly casual gesture. "Or they might laugh at you and call you mad. It's hard to say which."

  "Thank you."

  "Don't thank me yet. Information isn't the same as help." She returned to her chair, settling into it with a sigh. "You can stay in Millbrook. For now." She raised a hand before he could respond. "That's not generosity, stranger. That's practicality. You're wounded, starving, and you'd die inside a week if I sent you back into the Wildwood. I don't need that on my conscience."

  "Thank you—"

  "I'm not finished." Her grey eyes were iron. "You'll earn your keep. Every meal, every night under a roof, you work for it. Willem needs hands in the fields. The fence line along the eastern pasture has needed mending since the spring storms. If Tom says you can hunt, you hunt. If he says you can't, you haul water and chop wood like everyone else."

  "I can do that."

  "You'd better. Because not everyone agrees with letting you stay." As if summoned by the words, the door banged open.

  The man who entered was thick-set, sun-darkened, with hands that had never done anything gently. He smelled of livestock and anger in roughly equal measure.

  "Mara." He didn't look at Zavian. "A word."

  "Aldric." The Elder's voice didn't change, but something behind it hardened. "Come in."

  "I'll say my piece from here." He jerked his chin towards Zavian. "The council hasn't agreed to this. You don't get to decide alone."

  "I'm the Elder. That's exactly what I get to do."

  "The Elder serves the village. And the village remembers what happened last time someone walked out of the Wildwood." His voice carried it of an argument rehearsed many times. "Josper came stumbling out of those trees six years ago. We took him in. Fed him. Gave him a roof." His jaw worked. "Three weeks later, the blight hit the eastern fields. Coincidence, maybe, but we lost a quarter of our harvest, and Josper disappeared the same night the grain turned black."

  Quiet that followed was heavy with old grievance.

  "Josper was a thief and a fraud," Mara said. "This man is neither."

  "You don't know what this man is. Nobody does. He claims to come from another world, Mara. Another world." Aldric finally looked at Zavian, and the look was not hostile exactly, more the look of a farmer assessing whether a stray dog was worth the scraps it would eat. "I've nothing against you personally, stranger. But I've got three children and forty acres. Every mouth we feed that isn't feeding us back is a mouth that might cost my family come winter."

  "I'll work," Zavian said. "Whatever you need done, I'll do it."

  "Words are free." Aldric turned back to Mara. "I'm calling a village meeting. Tomorrow night. He can stay until then. After that, the village decides. Not you alone." He left without waiting for a response.

  Elder Mara sat in the silence he'd left behind, her fingers tapping that slow rhythm on her chair.

  "He's not wrong," she said. "About any of it. Resources are tight. Trust is earned, not given. And the last stranger we took in did leave damage behind." She met Zavian's eyes. "The meeting will happen. Some people will speak against you. Some will speak for you, if you've given them reason to by then. My advice? Don't waste the next two days talking about other worlds. Spend them proving you're useful."

  She waved towards Nessa. "The barn. Not the cottage. That's not mine to offer until the village agrees. Get him a blanket and have Tom assess him tomorrow."

  "The barn," Nessa repeated, her expression careful. "Come on, stranger. Let's get you sorted."

  ———

  Nessa led him back to the barn where he'd slept the night before. Not a cottage. Not a proper room. The same straw, the same animal smell, the same rough walls.

  "Don't take it personally," she said, reading his face. "Aldric's protective. He lost his first wife to fever the same year Josper disappeared. He connects things that may not be connected, but you can't argue with grief."

  She pointed at his wounds, the bandages he'd fashioned from his ruined shirt. "Let me take a look at those. I'm the healer, and healer business doesn't require a village vote."

  He sat on the edge of the bed while she examined his injuries, her touch gentle but thorough. She made small sounds as she worked, hmms and tsks that seemed to carry entire conversations.

  She examined the wounds with practised hands. "These are healing well. Better than they should be, honestly. The life essence in this area is strong, but even so..." She looked at him with curiosity. "You're not normal, are you? Even for someone from another world."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean the rate of healing I'm seeing should take weeks, not days. There's something different about you. Something..." She searched for the word. "Dense. Like there's more of you packed into the same space."

  {She is perceptive} NOVA said. {The Entity did compress your soul. Perhaps local healers can sense such things.}

  "I was... changed," Zavian admitted. "When I crossed between worlds. Made stronger, somehow. Denser, like you said."

  "Mmm." Nessa didn't seem alarmed by this, just interested. "Well, whatever was done to you, it's working in your favour. These wounds will be fully healed by tomorrow, I'd wager." She began applying a salve that smelled of herbs and something faintly floral. "This will help with the scarring. Can't have you looking like you lost a fight with a threshing machine."

  "I appreciate it."

  "Just doing my job." She finished her work, wiping her hands on a cloth. "Now. You'll want food, I expect. When did you last eat a proper meal?"

  Zavian thought about it. Fish cooked over a campfire. Berries and mushrooms foraged from the forest floor.

  "I'm not sure if I've ever had a proper meal."

  "Then you're in for a treat. My cooking isn't fancy, but it's hot and there's plenty of it." She stood, heading for the door. "Rest for now. I'll send someone with food in a bit. And tonight, the village eats together, you can meet everyone properly." She said it like it was nothing, the whole village, sitting down to eat in the same place at the same time. On Earth, Zavian hadn’t sat at a table with more than three people in years. In Millbrook, meals were governance, therapy, and entertainment rolled into one. Arguments got settled over stew. Alliances formed over bread. You could read the entire political landscape of the village by watching who sat where."

  "Nessa?" She paused at the door. "Yes?"

  "Why are you being so kind to me? You don't know me. You have no reason to trust me." She considered the question, her expression softening.

  "Because you looked lost," she said. "Lost in a deeper way than just the forest. Like someone who's been carrying a weight too heavy for one person to bear." She smiled. "And because kindness costs nothing, but it can mean everything. Someone was kind to me once, when I needed it most. I try to pass that along when I can."

  She left, closing the door gently behind her. Zavian sat on the bed, a real bed, with an actual mattress and blankets, and let himself breathe.

  {Zavian} NOVA said. {How do you feel?}

  "I don't know." He looked around the small room, at the walls that kept out the wind, the fireplace that promised warmth, the door that he could close against the world. "I think I feel... safe. Now since I got here."

  {That is good.}

  "It's strange. I barely know these people. They have every reason to be suspicious of me. But they're just... kind."

  {Perhaps that is what normal looks like. What peace looks like. What you said you'd forgotten.}

  He lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. It was made of wooden beams, rough-hewn but solid. Real. Permanent.

  "Maybe," he said. "Maybe it is."

  ———

  The food arrived an hour later, carried by a man who had to turn sideways to fit through the doorway--a manoeuvre he performed with the automatic grace of someone who'd been too large for doorframes his entire life.

  "Nessa said you needed feeding up." He set down a tray loaded with bread, cheese, some kind of roasted meat, and a bowl of thick stew. The tray looked child-sized against his thick fingers, but he placed it down with surprising gentleness. "Don't know what you've been eating in the Wildwood, but I'm guessing it wasn't this."

  "It definitely wasn't this."

  "Willem," he said, by way of introduction. "Not Old Willem--that's my uncle--though at forty-odd years I'm not particularly young anymore." He stepped back, arms crossed, examining Zavian like a crop that might or might not be worth the water. "Eat. You look like a strong wind would knock you over."

  "Everyone keeps saying that."

  "Because it's true." But there was no malice in the words, just blunt honesty. "Elder Mara says you're from far away. Somewhere none of us have heard of."

  "That's right."

  "And you walked through the Wildwood alone."

  "Yes."

  Willem shook his head in disbelief. "Most folks who go into the Wildwood don't come out. The beasts in there--" He shuddered. "There's a reason we stick to the cleared lands."

  "I noticed the old road. The ruins. What happened to them?"

  "That's a long story, and not mine to tell. Ask Elder Mara, if you want the history." Willem moved towards the door, then paused. "You any good with your hands? Farming, building, that thing?"

  "I'm a quick learner."

  "Good. We can always use another pair of hands around here. Harvest is coming, and there's more work than people to do it." He nodded towards the tray. "Eat. Get your strength back. Tomorrow, we'll see what you're made of." He left, and Zavian turned his attention to the food.

  First bite of bread, actual bread, baked with actual flour, soft and warm and real, nearly made him cry again. He forced himself to eat slowly, savouring each taste, letting his starving body absorb the nutrients it had been denied for so long.

  {Your caloric intake is now approaching optimal levels} NOVA reported. {I’d suggest continued consumption until satiated.}

  "For once, we're in complete agreement."

  {I am glad my dietary recommendations finally meet with your approval.}

  "It helps when the food is this good."

  He ate until the tray was empty, then lay back on the bed, his stomach full for the first time in what felt like forever. Outside, the sounds of village life continued, people calling to each other, animals making their animal sounds, the general bustle of a community going about its day. He let them wash over him without naming them. Just listened.

  {Zavian?}

  "Yes?"

  {I have been analysing the book Elder Mara gave you. The language is indeed ancient, but I believe I can translate portions of it with time. It contains references to places and artifacts that may be relevant to our search.}

  "The Soul Anchor?"

  {Not directly. But there are mentions of 'the Deep Places'. Locations where the world's magic is concentrated, where artifacts of great power were said to be hidden. If the Soul Anchor exists, it may be found in one of these locations.}

  "Then we have a lead."

  {A potential lead. Much work remains before we can confirm anything.}

  "Still. It's more than we had this morning."

  {Yes. It is.}

  His eyes fell shut, letting exhaustion wash over him. Tonight there would be a village dinner, introductions, questions he'd need to answer carefully. Tomorrow there would be work, learning, the slow process of integrating into a community that had every reason to be suspicious of strangers. But right now, at this moment, he was warm and fed and safe. It was enough.

  ———

  The village dinner was held in the central square, tables dragged from homes and arranged in a rough circle around the well. Torches provided light as the sun set, casting flickering shadows across the gathered villagers.

  There were perhaps a hundred people present, Nessa explained that someone had to watch the animals and the fields, but enough to get a sense of the community. Farmers and craftsmen, elders and children, families clustered together in loose groups. And all of them curious about the stranger.

  Zavian felt their eyes on him as Nessa led him to a seat near the main table, where Elder Mara held court with a group of older villagers. He tried to smile, to look friendly and unthreatening, but he wasn't sure how successful he was.

  {Your stress levels are elevated} NOVA said. {Would you like me to provide conversation prompts?}

  "I think I need to handle this one on my own."

  {Understood. I will be here if you need me.}

  "You always are."

  The meal was simple but plentiful, roasted meats, fresh vegetables, bread still warm from the ovens. People ate and talked and laughed, the atmosphere relaxed despite the presence of an unknown visitor in their midst.

  Gradually, individuals approached to introduce themselves. A blacksmith named Harn, who had burn scars running up both forearms and shook hands like he was testing whether your bones would hold. He wanted to know if Zavian had any metalworking skills — "Always need someone who can work the bellows without fainting after ten minutes." A weaver named Brenna, who offered to make him new clothes if he could provide labour in trade. A group of young men who asked, with poorly concealed excitement, about the monsters he'd faced in the Wildwood.

  Not everyone was welcoming. He caught a woman at the far table pulling her children closer when he glanced their way. An older farmer whose name he hadn't learned met his eyes across the square, held the look for a deliberate beat too long, then turned away without nodding.

  And midway through the meal, a voice carried from three tables over, not shouting, just loud enough to be heard. "Last time someone walked out of the Wildwood, the Thornhaven plague followed six months later. Just saying."

  The table around the speaker went quiet. Someone muttered something Zavian couldn't catch, and the conversation moved on, but the words lingered like smoke.

  He didn't blame them. A stranger walking out of a place that killed people — there were easier things to trust. And then Tom arrived.

  He didn't approach so much as materialise. One moment the space by the table was empty; the next, a lean figure stood there, bow across his back, watching Zavian with the particular stillness of something that hunted for a living. He didn't speak. Just looked. The silence stretched until it became a test. Zavian held his ground.

  Finally, Tom's head tilted a fraction--acknowledgement, maybe, or reassessment. His fingers touched the wood of the table, a gesture that looked nearly a greeting.

  "So you're the one who walked out of the Wildwood," he said, taking a seat across from Zavian. His voice was rough, like something rarely used.

  "That seems to be my defining characteristic."

  "It's a noteworthy one. I've been hunting these woods for thirty years, and I don't go into the Wildwood alone. Ever." He took a drink from his cup, still studying Zavian over the rim. "What did you fight in there?"

  "Creatures about the size of large dogs. Long ears, fur that changes colour. Fast. Smart. They work in packs."

  "Forest Hoppers." Tom nodded. "Nasty things. Territorial as hell, but they usually don't attack humans unless provoked. What did you do to provoke them?"

  "Existed, mostly."

  Tom snorted, a sound that might have been amusement. "That'll do it, with Hoppers. They don't like strangers in their territory." He set down his cup, leaning forward. "Elder Mara says you might be useful as a hunter. That true?"

  "I'm a fast learner. But I won't pretend I have experience."

  "Honest. That's good. Overconfidence gets people killed in the forest." He stood, pushing back from the table. "Come find me tomorrow morning. I'll take you out, see what you're made of. If you can survive the Wildwood, you can probably learn to hunt properly."

  "I'd appreciate that."

  "Don't appreciate it yet. My training's not easy, and I don't tolerate excuses." But there was something almost like approval in his eyes. "Get some rest, stranger. Tomorrow's going to be a long day."

  ———

  Later, after the meal had ended and the villagers had dispersed to their homes, Zavian stood alone in the square, looking up at the stars.

  They were different from Earth's stars, different constellations, different patterns, but they were still beautiful. Still distant and eternal, unconcerned with the small dramas of mortal creatures below.

  {Zavian} NOVA said. {It has been a significant day.}

  "It has."

  {We have found shelter. Established potential allies. Gained access to information that may help our search. By any measure, this is progress.}

  "Then why do I feel so strange?"

  {Strange how?}

  He thought about it. The kindness he'd been shown. Children playing in the square. Nessa's words: Kindness costs nothing, but it can mean everything.

  "I feel like I don't deserve this," he said. "These people, they don't know anything about me. Some of them want me gone. And I'll probably leave as soon as I find what I'm looking for."

  {Does that change the fact that you need their help right now?}

  "No. It makes me feel guilty for needing it."

  {Zavian.} NOVA's voice was gentle. {Guilt is not useful here. You have two days to prove your value before the village votes. I suggest we focus on that.}

  "Always practical."

  {One of us has to be.}

  He lay back on the straw, staring at the barn ceiling. Rough beams, gaps where starlight leaked through. Not the worst roof he'd slept under since arriving on Kronum, but a long way from the bed he'd been hoping for.

  Somewhere in the village, Aldric was probably already talking to his neighbours. Building his case. Counting the reasons a stranger from the Wildwood would bring nothing but trouble. He had two days to prove the man wrong.

  "NOVA?"

  {Yes?}

  "What are the odds the village lets me stay?"

  {Based on available social dynamics data, Elder Mara's authority, Aldric's influence, general rural suspicion of outsiders, I would estimate about fifty-five percent in favour, with significant uncertainty. The margin is narrow enough that your actions in the next forty-eight hours will be determinative.} Fifty-five percent. Barely better than a coin flip.

  "Great."

  {Would you have preferred I rounded up?}

  "Goodnight, NOVA."

  {Goodnight, Zavian. Try to sleep. Tomorrow, your audition begins.}

  His eyes fell shut. The straw scratched. A cow shifted in the stall below, breathing slow and unconcerned with the politics of strangers.

  Two days. Fifty-five percent odds. A hundred million lives that wouldn’t wait while he figured out how to make strangers trust him.

  He pressed his palm flat against the straw. Felt the rough weave of it, the animal warmth beneath. Not comfort. Not safety. Just a chance.

  Below him, the cow breathed on, unbothered. Above him, the stars leaked through the thatch like pinpricks in a dark curtain, each one a sun that someone else’s world orbited. He wondered how many of those worlds were dying too.