Zach Brenner's Arc

Chapter 63 of 86

Three months passed. The cabin stood finished on Zach's land. Four bedrooms rose under a steep roof. A garden grew in neat rows beside the river. Overhead, a small airship swayed on its mooring line, a gift from Talon so they could reach the kingdom in an hour. Zach set down his hammer and looked at the work. His companions had come to help. Now the last board was nailed. He should have felt done. Raven stood in the doorway with her arms crossed. "You keep staring at it," she said. "Like you're waiting for something." "I built a house," Zach said. "But I don't know what a man does after that. Back home I had a job. A trade. Here I'm just the one who used to swing a sword." The sword was gone. So was his old world. He rubbed the ink on his forearm and felt useless. Garrok dropped an armful of firewood by the porch. The tall barbarian wiped his brow and snorted. "You think a house is the end?" He pointed his axe handle at the empty land past the garden. "That's raw ground out there. Good ground. A man with a river and a keep builds a town on it." Lyra came around the corner. The elf mage pressed her palm flat to the soil and closed her eyes. Her power let her feel life through stone and earth. "Water runs sweet under this whole clearing," she said. "Deep and clean. People would settle here." She opened her eyes and smiled at Zach. "You'd need to lead them, though." That word stopped him. Lead. He had led six people up a tower and won a war. He had never thought of leading anyone in peace. Ayla arrived last, her white robes brushing the grass. She had healed Zach through every fight. Now she studied his face with the same care. "You crossed worlds and lost the way back," she said gently. "You stopped searching for where you came from. Maybe the answer was never a place you'd find. Maybe it's a place you make." Zach walked to the edge of his land. The river bent away toward open fields. He saw it then, not as empty ground, but as room. Room for barns. For neighbors. For children in the garden Raven had planted. He turned back to them. "Then I'll make it," he said. "Not just a cabin. A settlement. King Aldric wanted this border held. I'll hold it by filling it with people." Raven's ears lifted. She crossed the grass and took his hand. "A village," she said. "On our clearing." "Our clearing," Zach agreed. He looked at the four of them, at the airship, at the river. For the first time he was not lost between two worlds. He belonged to this one, and it needed building. He picked up his hammer again. "We start tomorrow."