The road to Crestfall was not a road so much as an agreement between people that this particular strip of ground was where walking happened.

  It was unpaved, ungraded, and in the low sections near the creek crossings it had the consistency of something that had given up trying to be solid. The horse — whose name, Pell had informed him, was Barrow — navigated it with the bored competence of an animal that had made this trip many times and had no strong feelings about it either way.

  Junho rode and thought.

  He was not a natural horseman. He had never ridden a horse in his previous life, and Lloyd's body apparently had some experience with it, because the mechanical basics came without conscious effort — weight in the stirrups, following the movement. But his lower back was registering a formal complaint within the first thirty minutes, and he suspected he would be walking strangely tomorrow.

  Add riding to the list of things I need to get better at.

  The list was getting long.

  He had left before dawn, packing the satchel with the parchment inventory from yesterday and a second sheet on which he'd spent last night drafting numbers. Not precise numbers — he didn't have enough information for precision — but ranges. Projections. The kind of thing you brought to a negotiation to show you'd done the work, even if the work was built on estimates.

  What he was proposing to Dorin Brek, the timber merchant, was a forward sale. Committed volume, future delivery, discounted price in exchange for partial payment upfront. It was a financing mechanism as old as commerce — in his previous world it appeared in everything from medieval grain markets to modern commodity futures. The principle was simple: the buyer got below-market price, the seller got cash now instead of cash later. Both parties took on risk. Both parties got something they needed.

  The problem is that I'm the desperate one and he'll know it.

  A seller who needed cash urgently was a seller who would accept worse terms. That was just the arithmetic of leverage. Brek would know about the Ashmore debt — merchants always knew about noble debt, it was practically a professional requirement — and he would price his offer accordingly.

  So I need to walk in with something he actually wants. Not just the timber. Something that changes the calculation.

  He was still working on what that something was when the tree line broke and Crestfall appeared below him on a gentle slope.

  * * *

  It was a market town. Small by the standards of Junho's memory — he was comparing it involuntarily to Seoul — but clearly the economic center of this part of the Northern March. A river ran along its western edge, wide enough to carry flat-bottomed cargo boats. A mill — a working mill, unlike his — sat at the river bend, its wheel turning steadily. The main street had actual cobblestones for most of its length, and the buildings were two and three stories, timber-framed over stone ground floors.

  His [Engineer's Eye] activated before he could stop it, cataloguing things he hadn't asked it to catalogue.

  Ping—!

  ―――――――――――――――――――――――――――

  [ ENGINEER'S EYE — SETTLEMENT ANALYSIS ]

  Crestfall (Market Town, Northern March)

  Population: est. 800–1,100

  Infrastructure notes:

  River access: functional, 2 cargo docks (1 in poor repair)

  Working mill: undershot wheel, moderate capacity

  Road condition: cobbled main street, unpaved secondary streets

  Building stock: mixed quality, timber-frame majority

  Notable: Timber storage yard visible (northeast, river-adjacent)

  Estimate: 3–4 months of current regional supply on hand

  ? High existing timber stock may suppress buyer urgency.

  ―――――――――――――――――――――――――――

  Junho read the last line and felt his jaw tighten slightly.

  Of course he has plenty of stock. Of course he does.

  He closed the panel and kept riding.

  The timber yard was easy to find — the [Engineer's Eye] had given him a direction and the smell of cut wood and sawdust confirmed it when he was still a street away. A large open yard behind a warehouse building, stacked high with lumber in various states of processing. The logs at the back, still rough. The planked boards near the front, sorted by width. A covered area where a man was running a hand plane along a long board with the patient rhythm of someone who did this all day.

  A sign above the warehouse door read: BREK & SONS — TIMBER, LUMBER, WOOD GOODS.

  Junho tied Barrow to the post and went in.

  * * *

  The interior was an office of sorts — a long counter, shelves behind it with ledgers and rolled documents, a desk to the side where an older man was writing. The man looked up when Junho entered.

  Dorin Brek was perhaps sixty, with a broad, weathered face and the careful eyes of someone who spent his life assessing value. He was not fat, not thin — the build of a man who had worked physically for decades and then graduated to managing those who did. His hands, resting on the desk, were still the hands of someone who'd handled timber himself, thick-fingered, scar-knuckled.

  He looked at Junho. A flicker of recognition — not personal recognition, but category recognition. Young, noble-adjacent by the clothing, riding in alone. He'd processed this type before.

  'Help you?' he said. Not unfriendly. Neutral in the particular way of a man who allocated warmth based on demonstrated value.

  'I'm Lloyd Ashmore,' Junho said. 'Baron of Ashmore. I'm here to talk about timber.'

  A pause. Brek set down his pen.

  'Ashmore,' he repeated.

  'Yes.'

  Brek leaned back slightly. The neutral expression didn't change, but something behind it did — a subtle recalculation. He knew the name. Of course he knew the name. 'I'd heard the barony had a new lord.'

  'Third son. I arrived recently.'

  'Mm.' Brek folded his hands on the desk. 'And you've come to talk about timber.'

  'The north forest at Ashmore is overdue for harvest by two years. You know that — you were buying from us before my father's consortium plan fell apart. The timber is still there. More of it than there was two years ago.'

  'More of it,' Brek said, 'and local markets that have sourced from elsewhere in the meantime.' He gestured at nothing in particular, meaning the yard outside, meaning the supply he'd accumulated from other sellers. 'I'm not short of timber, my lord.'

  'I know,' Junho said.

  Brek blinked. He had expected the seller to argue that point.

  'Your yard has three to four months of current supply,' Junho continued. 'Mostly pine, from the look of the stacks near the road. The oak you have is older stock — I'd estimate it's been sitting at least eighteen months based on the weathering on the end cuts.'

  A very brief silence.

  'You looked at my yard on the way in,' Brek said.

  'I did. The old oak is still good timber, but buyers will take fresh-cut over aged stock when they can get it, because aged stock needs inspection and fresh stock doesn't. Which means your older oak is sitting.'

  Brek studied him. The assessment in his eyes had recalibrated again, this time upward. 'You know timber.'

  'I know construction,' Junho said. 'Which means I know what buyers want and why. And what Ashmore's north forest has that you're short on right now is structural-grade mature oak. I walked the tree line yesterday. The canopy density tells you what's underneath.'

  Slight exaggeration — I walked the edge, not the interior. But the system's analysis was clear.

  'Even so,' Brek said carefully, 'I can't buy timber that isn't cut yet, on the word of a new lord whose barony is—' He stopped.

  'In debt,' Junho finished for him. 'You can say it. I know what the situation is. That's why I'm here talking to you instead of waiting.'

  Brek watched him.

  'What exactly are you proposing?'

  Junho took the folded parchment from his satchel and set it on the counter.

  'A forward sale. Committed volume — I'll give you specific numbers in a moment — delivered in staged lots over sixty days. In exchange for a partial advance payment now, you get the timber at twelve percent below your standard purchase price for structural oak.'

  Brek picked up the parchment and looked at it. The numbers were there — volume estimates, delivery stages, species breakdown. Not perfectly precise, but organized. Professional-looking, which in this world probably counted for more than in his own, because organized paperwork from a lord was apparently not the norm.

  'Twelve percent,' Brek said.

  'You're taking delivery risk,' Junho acknowledged. 'That discount reflects that risk.'

  'It reflects it lightly,' Brek said dryly.

  'Fifteen, then,' Junho said. 'But I want the advance payment in hand by the end of this week.'

  'How much advance?'

  Junho had prepared for this question. The answer he'd worked out last night was the minimum he could function on — enough to commission the blacksmith work, buy the materials he couldn't salvage, and keep the labor fed for thirty days.

  'Eighty silver,' he said.

  Brek set the parchment down.

  The number sat between them on the counter like something alive.

  Eighty silver was not a large sum by merchant standards. It was not a large sum by noble standards. It was, however, a significant sum relative to fourteen silver and three copper, and both of them understood the geometry of that fact without it being stated.

  'What guarantee do I have,' Brek said, 'that the timber actually gets delivered?'

  'I'm rebuilding the mill on the Ash Run,' Junho said. 'Not a grain mill — a sawmill. Water-powered frame saw. I have a carpenter and the foundation is intact. When I have a sawmill, I can deliver processed lumber instead of raw logs. Processed lumber is worth sixty to eighty percent more per cubic meter than raw timber. That means your fifteen percent discount is actually a smaller concession than it looks, because you're getting material that took work to produce.'

  Brek was quiet for a moment.

  'A sawmill,' he said.

  'Within thirty days.'

  'You're telling me you'll have a functional sawmill in thirty days.'

  'The foundation is intact and most of the timber frame is salvageable. The mechanism isn't complicated. Yes.'

  Brek looked at him for a long, measuring moment. The calculation behind his eyes was visible in the way calculations sometimes were in experienced people — not the specific numbers, but the fact that numbers were being run.

  He's trying to decide if I'm delusional or if I actually know what I'm talking about.

  Most lords who show up here are delusional. I'm aware of that. I need to be the exception.

  'The Galden Group,' Brek said. 'Their notice is public record. You have ninety days.'

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  'Eighty-nine now.'

  'And you think selling me timber is going to cover 2,400 gold.'

  'Not entirely,' Junho said. 'But it buys me the negotiating position to restructure the debt. If I show up to the Galden Group with active operations, a functioning sawmill, and a forward sale contract with a named merchant, that's evidence the barony is viable. Viable territory is worth more to them as a revenue source than as an acquisition. They're a merchant consortium — they want return on investment, not land management headaches.'

  Brek picked up his pen. Put it down. Picked it up again.

  'Sixty silver advance,' he said. 'Eighteen percent discount on contracted volume. You miss a delivery stage, the discount increases by three percent per missed stage as penalty.'

  ...He came down to sixty. He's interested.

  Sixty was less than eighty. It was also significantly more than fourteen silver and three copper.

  Can I make the construction work on sixty?

  He ran the numbers quickly in his head. Blacksmith commission, eight to eleven silver. Consumables and food for workers, call it fifteen silver over thirty days. Miscellaneous materials — rope, metal fittings, hardware — another five to eight silver. That was at most thirty-four silver. Sixty left twenty-six in reserve.

  It's tight. But it works.

  'Seventy,' Junho said. 'Sixteen percent. Same penalty clause.'

  Brek tapped his pen on the desk twice.

  Tap. Tap.

  'Sixty-five,' he said. 'Seventeen percent. And I want first right of refusal on any additional volume beyond the contracted amount, at market rate.'

  Junho thought about that last clause. First right of refusal meant Brek could buy additional timber at market price before anyone else could bid. It wasn't a concession that cost Junho anything if Brek's market price was fair, but it locked him into one buyer unless Brek declined. That was a long-term constraint.

  On the other hand, a guaranteed buyer relationship has its own value. I don't have the capital to be chasing multiple merchants right now.

  'Agreed,' Junho said. 'With one addition. The first-right clause applies for twelve months only. After that, open market.'

  Brek considered. Nodded.

  'I'll have the contract written by tomorrow morning,' the merchant said. 'If you can be back by midday, we'll sign it and I'll have your advance payment ready.'

  'I'll be here at midday,' Junho said.

  They looked at each other across the counter. Not warmly — there was no warmth in this, it was a transaction between two people who understood transactions — but with a certain mutual acknowledgment. A thing had been established.

  Brek picked up his pen again and made a note in his ledger. 'One question,' he said, not looking up.

  'Yes?'

  'The sawmill. You're sure about thirty days?'

  'I'm sure about the design,' Junho said. 'Construction timelines always have variables. But thirty days is my working target and I intend to hit it.'

  Brek made another note. 'I'll believe it when I see the first delivery,' he said. 'Which is in your interest to make sure I do.'

  'Understood,' Junho said.

  He left the office and stood in the street outside, in the mid-morning light of an alien sun that was slightly too yellow and slightly too bright, and exhaled.

  ...

  Sixty-five silver.

  It's not enough to solve the problem. But it's enough to start solving the problem.

  He untied Barrow and didn't mount immediately. Instead he stood with one hand on the horse's neck, thinking.

  He had a contract pending. He had committed to a sawmill in thirty days and a timber delivery schedule in sixty. He had, in effect, just bet the barony's one viable asset on his ability to build functional infrastructure in a medieval world with minimal tools, minimal funds, and a crew that had no particular reason to trust him.

  Standard Tuesday in construction, then.

  He mounted, wincing at the saddle, and turned Barrow toward the road back north.

  He had one more stop to make before he left Crestfall.

  * * *

  The blacksmith's name was not Ferris. That was the barony's farrier. The Crestfall blacksmith was a different proposition — a proper ironworker, with a proper forge taking up most of a building that radiated heat like a second sun even from the street.

  His name was Gorvan, and he was enormous in the way that people who spent their lives moving iron became enormous — not fat, just continuously large, as if his body had decided that more mass was operationally useful and had committed to the decision.

  Junho showed him the sketches.

  He'd drawn them last night on the back of the parchment inventory — the saw blade dimensions, the crank shaft fittings, the connecting rod. Rough sketches, but dimensioned. He'd included tolerances, which was probably unusual for this world and which Gorvan stared at for a long time.

  'These numbers,' Gorvan said. He had a voice like someone dragging furniture. 'These are how close the fit has to be?'

  'Yes. The crank shaft fitting in particular — if the tolerance is loose, you get vibration in the mechanism and the saw blade wanders. Consistent cut requires consistent movement.'

  Gorvan looked at the drawing. He turned it sideways. Turned it back.

  'The blade,' he said. 'Eighty centimeters, you said. What's a centimeter?'

  ...Right.

  Different measurement system. Of course.

  Junho spent the next ten minutes establishing a shared reference. He used his hand span, then subdivided it. He used a piece of the blacksmith's scrap iron to mark lengths on the wall. It was an improvised and deeply imprecise system of unit conversion, and it bothered the engineer part of his brain considerably, but by the end of it Gorvan had a set of marks on his workbench that corresponded closely enough to what Junho needed.

  'The blade,' Gorvan said again, once they had units established. 'You want teeth on both edges or one?'

  ...He knows about frame saw blades. Good.

  'One edge. Rip-cut pattern — teeth angled to cut on the downstroke, so the stroke that carries the most load is the cutting stroke and the return is light.'

  Gorvan nodded slowly. 'I've made blades before. Not for a water-powered frame, but for hand frames. The principle is the same, just the size is different.'

  'Exactly.'

  'The crank shaft fittings are the harder part,' Gorvan said. He was looking at the sketch again. 'This cam lobe — you want this machined to this profile?'

  'As close as you can get to that profile. The shape converts rotation into linear motion. If the cam is too round, the motion is too smooth and the cutting action suffers. If it's too irregular, you get jarring that stresses the frame joints.'

  Gorvan was quiet for a moment. Then he said, with the grudging respect of a craftsman recognizing a level of technical specificity he hadn't expected: 'You know ironwork.'

  'I know what I need the iron to do,' Junho said. 'The craft is yours.'

  This appeared to be the correct answer, because Gorvan's expression, which had been professionally neutral, warmed by a small but measurable amount.

  'When do you need it?'

  'Fourteen days for the blade and fittings. I need the crank shaft fittings first — can you prioritize those?'

  'First week for the fittings. Second week for the blade. That works.' Gorvan named a price.

  It was nine silver.

  Junho was at fourteen silver and three copper — for approximately twenty more hours, until he signed the contract with Brek tomorrow and received sixty-five silver advance. He bargained out of habit, not desperation, and got it to eight silver two copper with a promise to refer further ironwork from the barony to Gorvan's forge.

  'You'll have more ironwork?' Gorvan asked, with mild skepticism.

  'I intend to,' Junho said. 'If the sawmill runs the way I expect, we'll need regular blade maintenance and eventually additional mechanism components. That's a long-term relationship if you want it.'

  Gorvan looked at him the way Brek had looked at him — this specific assessment that people did when they were deciding whether to believe someone was serious or performing seriousness. The distinction mattered. In his previous world, Junho had learned to perform seriousness when necessary and had eventually become unable to tell the difference between the performance and the genuine article. Possibly they were the same thing after a point.

  'Pay me the eight silver two copper when you pick up the work,' Gorvan said. 'Not before.'

  'Agreed,' Junho said.

  He left Gorvan's forge with the smell of hot iron following him into the street and a slight tightness in his chest that was not cardiac — he was fairly sure — but the particular tension of a man who had just made two significant commitments in one morning and needed both of them to work.

  * * *

  He found an inn near the market square and paid two copper for a bowl of something — thick, meaty, with root vegetables — and sat at a corner table with his parchment and ate while he revised his project timeline.

  This was a thing he had always done. Every time a project variable changed, you updated the timeline. You didn't work from a plan you'd made before new information arrived; you made a new plan and you worked from that.

  Ping—!

  ―――――――――――――――――――――――――――

  [ QUEST PROGRESS UPDATE ]

  「 The Inheritance 」 — Phase 1: Restore the Ashmore Mill

  ? Assess foundation condition

  ? Conduct timber salvage inventory

  ? Secure financing (forward sale contract — pending signature)

  ? Commission ironwork (saw blade + fittings — Gorvan, Crestfall)

  □ Clear and prepare foundation (in progress)

  □ Complete mill structure (functional standard)

  □ First delivery to Brek & Sons

  Updated Timeline:

  Day 2–3: Foundation clearing + wheel housing repair

  Day 4–10: Frame construction (salvaged + new timber)

  Day 11–14: Ironwork delivery (fittings)

  Day 12–16: Saw frame assembly + installation

  Day 21: Ironwork delivery (blade)

  Day 22–25: Full mechanism assembly + calibration

  Day 26–30: Test runs + first production cut

  Funds (pending contract): 65 silver advance ? 8s 2c (ironwork) = 56s 5c

  Runway: approx. 50 days at current expenditure rate

  Days remaining: 89

  ―――――――――――――――――――――――――――

  Junho ate his stew and looked at the timeline.

  It was tight. Every phase had minimal buffer — two or three days at most before it started eating into the next phase. Any significant delay in the ironwork, any problem with the frame construction, and the thirty days became thirty-five, which pushed first delivery back, which strained the Brek contract's penalty clause, which—

  Don't catastrophize. Run the critical path and protect it.

  The critical path was the ironwork. Everything else could be worked around, adjusted, improvised. But the saw blade and fittings could only come from Gorvan's forge, at Gorvan's pace, and Junho had no substitute option if something went wrong there.

  I need to check in on him around day ten. See where he is. If he's behind, I have a few days to push before it cascades.

  He made a note on the parchment.

  The stew was good, actually. He noticed this only after he'd eaten half of it, because he'd been so focused on the timeline that the food had been happening automatically. Hearty, slightly fatty, with a grain he didn't recognize that had a pleasant nutty texture. He made a mental note to ask what it was, because if it grew locally it was information about the agricultural potential of the region.

  ...I'm thinking about crop identification in an inn in a foreign world while running a medieval construction project on a nine-day credit facility.

  This is somehow less stressful than my last job.

  He finished the stew, left two copper on the table, and went to find Barrow.

  * * *

  The ride back north was longer than the ride down, because the road chose this moment to develop a flooded section at the second creek crossing — recent rain had backed up against a natural levee and spread across fifty meters of road in a shallow brown sheet that Barrow declined to enter with any enthusiasm.

  They went around through a field, which cost thirty minutes and thoroughly re-muddied his boots.

  Junho sat in the saddle during the detour and looked at the flooded section from the side.

  The road drainage is wrong here. The natural grade runs toward the crossing and there's nothing to redirect the overflow.

  The [Engineer's Eye] wanted to analyze it. He let it, partly because suppressing the reflex had started to feel like holding his breath.

  Ping—!

  ―――――――――――――――――――――――――――

  [ ENGINEER'S EYE — ROAD DRAINAGE ISSUE ]

  Northern March Road (Crestfall–Ashmore segment, km 3.2)

  Issue: No lateral drainage at creek crossing. Overflow accumulates on road.

  Fix: Cut side ditch (upstream side) to redirect overflow to field.

  Labor: 1 person, 1 day. Cost: negligible.

  Note: Road surface at this segment is subgrade only.

  Full repair would require gravel surfacing (est. 3 days, 4 workers).

  This road segment falls within Ashmore Barony boundary.

  Road maintenance is lord's responsibility under March charter.

  ―――――――――――――――――――――――――――

  ...Of course it is.

  Road maintenance. Something else on the list.

  He filed it under 'later' and kept riding. The flooded section was a nuisance, not a crisis. The mill was a crisis. One thing at a time.

  He reached the barony boundary — marked by nothing more than a moss-covered stone post — as the sun was starting to go orange and long. The air had cooled and smelled like pine from the forest to the east. Two crows were having a disagreement in a tree somewhere. Barrow's hooves found a steadier rhythm on the drier ground.

  When he came over the low rise that overlooked the farmstead, he stopped.

  There were people at the mill site.

  From this distance — three hundred meters, maybe — he could see movement. Figures working at the foundation. Someone was hauling fallen timber, dragging it clear. Two others were at the wheel housing, crouched, doing something with tools.

  Pell had said he'd supervise. Pell had apparently done more than supervise.

  He counted. Four people at least, maybe five. The foundation already looked different — cleaner at the edges, the debris spread reduced. A day's worth of work, visible from a rise, which meant a day's worth of real work.

  ...Huh.

  He rode down.

  Calder was directing the timber sorting, moving with focused energy that Junho hadn't entirely expected from Pell's 'tends to go hunting' description. He'd organized the salvageable beams into a neat row alongside the foundation and was in the process of inspecting the mortise holes on each one, probing the wood with a thin tool to check for interior rot.

  Pell stood to one side with his arms folded, watching. When Junho dismounted, the steward came over with the expression of a man who had good news and was being careful about it.

  'Mara Dunwick sent three of her people,' Pell said quietly. 'And old Hendry Voss came himself. Said he wanted to see what his boy was getting into.'

  Junho looked at the older man working at the wheel housing. Thick build, careful hands, examining the stonework with the attentiveness of someone who knew what they were looking at. He looked up when Junho approached.

  'You're the new lord,' Hendry Voss said. Not unfriendly, not welcoming. Assessment.

  'Yes. Lloyd Ashmore.' Junho looked at the wheel housing. The man had been clearing the accumulated debris from the channel opening and rechecking the mortar on the stone courses. 'How does it look?'

  'Good stone. Whoever laid this knew what they were doing.' Hendry ran a hand along a course of the housing wall. 'Two or three courses need repointing at the top, here and here. The channel floor has silt but the geometry's right.'

  'Good. The silt comes out with rakes and a day's water flow once we open the millrace again.'

  'The millrace is silted too.'

  'I know. That's week two.'

  Hendry looked at him with the same kind of recalibrating assessment that Brek had done that morning, that Mara had done yesterday. Like everyone in this barony was independently arriving at the same question: is this one actually different.

  'Calder said you're building a sawmill,' Hendry said. 'Not grain.'

  'Sawmill first. Grain later, when we have money for millstones.'

  'Sawmill's more useful right now anyway,' Hendry said. 'Half the tenant houses need timber repair. Mine included.'

  ...Interesting. He's not just thinking about the revenue. He's thinking about what the sawmill means for the community.

  'Once the mill is running,' Junho said carefully, 'processed lumber from the barony forest — the timber that doesn't go to Brek — stays in the barony for local use. At cost, not market price.'

  Hendry looked at him. 'At cost.'

  'You'll be providing the labor to cut and haul it. Paying market price on top of that isn't reasonable.'

  A pause. Something moved in the older man's expression — not quite surprise, but something adjacent to it.

  'I'll stay on tomorrow,' Hendry said. 'Help with the foundation clearing.'

  'I appreciate it,' Junho said.

  He walked the site for another twenty minutes, looking at what had been done, making notes on the parchment. The progress was real. The foundation was mostly clear. The salvageable timber was organized and assessed. Calder had begun cutting the worst of the rot from the two compromised beams, shortening them to where the wood was still sound.

  When the light failed too much to work by, Junho gathered everyone briefly.

  'Tomorrow I'm back in Crestfall by midday to sign a contract,' he said. 'While I'm gone — Calder, I want you to start cutting the new mortise joints on the salvageable beams. Use the joint profile I sketched. Pell has a copy.' He looked at the others. 'Foundation clearing continues. If anyone has a moment, start cutting the brush back from the millrace channel — we need to see the full length of it before we start clearing the silt.'

  People nodded. No great enthusiasm, but no resistance either. The particular energy of people who had been given specific tasks by someone who seemed to know what the tasks were for.

  It was enough. For day two, it was enough.

  He helped Calder stack the last of the assessed timber and walked back to the farmstead in the gathering dark, his back aching from the saddle, his boots ruined, his mind still running numbers.

  Day two of eighty-nine.

  Tomorrow the contract would be signed. Tomorrow the money would exist, at least as a committed thing. Tomorrow the mill would have another day's work on it.

  One thing at a time.

  One day at a time.

  The farmhouse was warm when he got inside. Pell had left something in the pot over the fire — a thick grain porridge with dried herbs, utilitarian, exactly the kind of thing you ate when you needed fuel rather than pleasure.

  Junho ate it standing at the fireplace and thought about millrace geometry until his eyes started closing.

  He made it to the cot.

  This time, he slept.

  —

  [ End of Chapter 3 ]

  ~ To be continued ~