Kaine Ashford's Arc

Chapter 2 of 7

Kaine knelt beside the unconscious stranger, weighing his options. He could drag the man inside the forge before anyone came, hide him among the tools and half-finished work. Or he could move him across the clearing to the boarding house, claim some kind of right to the place before the blood trail drew attention. Boots on gravel answered for him. Two figures in formal tunics emerged from the tree line, their movements deliberate and unhurried. Elven inspectors. Kaine recognized the leather satchels they carried for documentation, the way they scanned the clearing with practiced efficiency. One of them paused, his gaze settling on the boarding house across the way. His hand went to his bag and pulled out a folded parchment sealed with what looked like dried blood. The seal bore a letter, and the inspector's face shifted from routine assessment to sharp recognition. The second inspector knelt beside a massive carved post they'd driven into the ground at the clearing's edge. Its surface was covered in winding script that named this ground under elven review, property rights suspended pending investigation. The first inspector crossed the clearing toward the boarding house, his sealed document held out like proof of something Kaine couldn't yet name. He didn't glance at Kaine or the bleeding stranger. His attention fixed entirely on the abandoned building, as if it had become more important than the wounded man between them. Kaine pressed harder on the stranger's wound and made his choice. He stood, leaving the man visible in the open dirt, and walked toward the inspector at the boarding house door. If the building held legal protection like the stranger claimed, then the elven authority already knew about it. Hiding now would cost him the one thing he needed most: a legitimate claim to this place before someone else made it theirs. The inspector looked up as Kaine approached, and Kaine met his eyes without flinching. Whatever came next, he'd face it standing in front of the building that could save the clinic he'd been fighting to build.