Outside, the camp was already alive with activity.
Men and women hauled rough tools salvaged from different domains—rusted axes, rope made from braided grass, worn baskets, bent nails. Some of the more skilled ones—blacksmiths, carpenters, farmers—had already begun sketching crude structures in the dirt, arguing over angles and designs with quiet intensity.
It wasn't like starting from scratch. They had knowledge, memories of how things were built in their old lives. But materials were scarce, and no one had the luxury of artistry.
They used what they had:
Fallen trees stripped bare. Stones pried from riverbeds. Tattered tent cloths stretched into roofs.
Fishermen fashioned nets from vines, fingers working quickly despite the cold. Farmers cleared the underbrush for vegetable plots, their hands already raw and bleeding from unaccustomed labor. Children carried bundles of kindling with solemn determination, treated as equals in survival.
This wasn't a city rising. It was a wound scabbing over, messy and desperate.
But, in their eyes, there was hope. Not that everything would suddenly get better, but I could see the spark of determination to build this place and make it incredible.
Their lives in the old domains were probably a suppressed version of hell, so they were going to make the best out of their lives outside it.
I looked to them, trying to absorb some fragment of their inspiration and determination.
No. I still felt like a sack of shit. Like a dark cloud obscuring the sun. I wasn't like them. I didn't even deserve the hope they had.
I hated this unnaturally natural feeling the Sacrament of Submission had carved into me. It felt like I was crumbling from simply existing. Either I continue on this path, or go back to Domitia's domain and be her servant.
Or I could move forward in the third path Tav had told me about. I could only offer the wages to the kindness she and everyone had shown me.
"So you finally made it, huh?" A voice rang from behind me. I turned back. The same guy that had served me soup yesterday was already carrying a hatchet and a couple vines draped across his shoulders, sweat glistening on his brow. "Get to work. This city isn't going to rebuild itself."
I joined one of the teams moving toward the treeline. My task was simple: gather vines for makeshift rope.
Simple—for anyone else.
Within minutes of hacking at the thick undergrowth with a salvaged machete, my arms trembled with fatigue. Sweat beaded on my forehead. My legs threatened to give out, every muscle protesting as if I'd been marching for days.
Pathetic.
Every movement reminded me of what I had lost—the strength to swing a sword, to scale walls, to sprint across battlefields. Now I couldn't even cut vines without wanting to collapse. The emptiness inside me seemed to grow, a void where my purpose once lived.
The others didn't say anything, but I caught the glances. Pity. Irritation. Indifference. Each look was a barb that sank deeper than the last.
As I stooped to gather another bundle, a shadow fell across me.
"You're slow," said a voice.
I looked up to see Kuti from yesterday night standing over me, the wooden box still strapped to her back. Her expression was unreadable, but her eyes held something I couldn't quite place—assessment, perhaps, or recognition.
"I know," I muttered, the words barely escaping my cracked lips.
"You're the one they're whispering about," she said eventually, her eyes scanning the treeline as if looking for eavesdroppers.
I tensed, my fingers tightening around the machete's worn handle.
"The one from Humility's domain. The broken one."
I said nothing. What could I say? The truth hung between us like a visible thing, heavy and undeniable.
"You're still working," Kuti said after a moment, her voice softer than I expected. "That's more than a lot of them."
I blinked, surprised by the unexpected words. That almost sounded like... respect? No. Not respect. Acknowledgment. From someone who clearly didn't give it easily.
"I'll carry the vines back to base for you. Just focus on cutting them down." She concluded, bending to pick up the few I had managed to hack through, her movements efficient and practiced.
I had no reason to ask, but I did anyway. "Why don't you drop that wooden box on your back? It would make it easier to carry stuff."
She paused, her shoulders stiffening as she turned away from me. "It's something important to me. No, to my family." Then she walked away with the vines, leaving me with questions I had no right to ask.
By evening, my body was wrecked. Every step was a battle against gravity itself. Every breath felt like dragging glass into my lungs. My hands were raw, blistered where the machete had rubbed the skin away, revealing the weakness beneath.
But I had gathered my bundles. I had moved. I had done something.
Back at the camp, Tav threw me a tired grin and tossed a canteen of river water my way. The day had marked him too—dark circles under his eyes, a new strain around his mouth.
"How was your day?" He asked, collapsing beside me on a log that someone had dragged near the fire.
"Horrible," I said between gasping breaths, the admission dragging from somewhere deep inside. "Cut vines. Nothing else."
"Not bad for your first day of being a functional member of society," he replied, nudging my shoulder with his own. The gesture was light, but it sent a spike of pain through my overtaxed muscles.
I drank greedily from the canteen, the water washing away the taste of blood and dust. It was lukewarm and tasted of mud, but in that moment, it was the sweetest thing I'd ever tasted.
Across the fire, Veraque had returned, speaking softly with a group of newly arrived refugees. Their faces were hollow, eyes wide with a mixture of fear and hope. More mouths to feed. More hands to work. The cycle would continue, building this fragile thing they called freedom.
"My day was fine too," Tav continued, his voice taking on a healer's professional detachment. "Just tended to a lot of sick people and injured people. Some had cholera, malaria, broken ankles and wrists from their journeys out of the domains. I even met a person with maggots growing out of a wound in their leg..."
"I wasn't intending to ask," I finished for him, draining the canteen of what was left, the water soothing my parched throat. "And that's why."
Another night fell like a heavy blanket. We entered the tent to sleep, our bodies surrendering to exhaustion. This really was my life now. I couldn't see myself doing this for the rest of my days. Was this really what Reygir Bondyek ends up as? A vine-cutter in a half-built refugee camp?
While Tav was laying down to sleep, there was a rap on the pole of the tent. Someone was knocking, the sound sharp in the quiet night.
"Who's there?" Tav yelled, his voice roughened by fatigue. It was the dead of night. No one should be knocking on people's tents.
"It's me. Kuti."
The tent flap parted, and Kuti stepped in, her wooden box still hung on her back like some strange, angular shell. The moonlight caught the edge of her face—sharp, determined, but there was something vulnerable in her eyes that I hadn't noticed before.
"And why are you here?" Tav asked, propping himself up on one elbow.
"I need a place to sleep," she said quietly, not meeting any of our gazes. Her hands twisted together in front of her, a rare show of uncertainty.
"Why not in any of the other tents?" I found myself asking.
"They're all full. I thought you guys might let me in."
So that meant she slept outside yesterday? From her numerous mosquito bites and the slight tremor in her hands, it seemed likely, though I wasn't going to probe further. And Tav didn't look like he was going to either. Even he looked too tired, the weight of healing others etched into the lines of his face.
"Fine. But there's a condition." Tav's voice was firm despite his exhaustion.
Kuti narrowed her eyes, shifting her weight slightly. "What is it?"
"Tell us what's in the box." He nodded toward the wooden container on her back. "We need to know what you're hiding. For all we know, it could be a dead body." He paused, watching her face. "And that box is probably why the others don't want to take you in."
Something flickered across Kuti's face—resignation, perhaps, or the calculation that she had no better options. After a moment of silence, she carefully lowered the box to the ground and unlocked the brass latches with practiced movements.
A dead body was close enough.