The sun hung high in its appointed place, bright and unyielding—a flare announcing that change had already begun. Winter had loosened its grip at last. The great tree within the shrine grounds had answered first, its branches tipped with young leaves and hesitant blossoms, as if testing whether the world truly meant to continue.
I sat beneath the corridor eaves, the light at my back and the shrine's shadow before me. A breeze passed through, playful but cool, and I tucked my hair behind my ear before it could become a nuisance. Across the yard, Victoria stood with bow in hand, her posture rigid with effort. Her archery had improved, yes—but only enough to reveal how far she still had to go.
I raised the small porcelain cup Miss Lakshmi had gifted us for the New Year, the wine catching the sunlight like amber. It had arrived later than the others, carried in by a trader with more enthusiasm than tact. We had yet to return the gesture—a failure of courtesy we would have to correct soon. I let the sweetness linger on my tongue, indulgent, distracted, while my fingers folded paper into deliberate shapes. Crane. Fox. Flower. Small things, made precise by patience.
Behind me, the soft twang of a bowstring sounded again.
"Now that I am… relatively settled," Victoria said, her voice tentative, as though she feared startling the air itself.
I paused, fingers holding the crease in place.
"I've noticed I've done nothing since arriving but panic," she continued. "Running from one thought to the next. As if movement itself might keep fear from catching me."
Silence followed. Not an uncomfortable one—just unclaimed.
"If there's something you'd like to do," I said at last, careful not to sound like pity, "we could make time for it."
She drew another arrow, inhaled, and released.
It struck just off-center.
"Hm," she replied—neither agreement nor refusal.
Peace returned, fragile but sincere.
Then voices rose from the direction of the main gate.
I stood, smoothing my sleeves, curiosity tugging me forward. Victoria followed without comment. At the gate, Miss Li Hua stood with several foreigners—engineers, by the look of them—gesturing sharply while workers measured timber and marked stone. She spared us no explanation, merely nodded before returning to her instructions. The men listened. That alone was telling.
The air smelled different here. Not incense or ash, but cut wood, oil, and warm earth. The scent of rebuilding—not holy, not noble, but deeply human.
The same scent lingered throughout the town.
The church had arrived first, of course, offering aid swiftly and loudly. Some of it had helped. Much of it had been misused. Now, quieter hands worked faster. Housing blocks rose where ruins had been cleared, built with practical haste rather than ceremony. Entire rows of homes were said to be nearing completion within days.
The railway had become the artery of it all.
Tracks damaged during the war were being relaid, iron replaced and reinforced. Steam engines—scarred but functional—waited in the yards like beasts aware their time was coming again. With the labor came people: former residents returning, strangers arriving, merchants following opportunity as faithfully as carrion birds once followed battlefields.
The port and market reflected it best.
Ships unloaded coal, metal fittings, crates stamped with foreign seals. Restaurants reopened—some new, some familiar—feeding workers with money in their pockets and no patience for ceremony. The sound of hammers and voices replaced the hush grief had imposed for months.
Life, blunt and persistent, had returned.
There was still no word from my brother. None official, at least. But the absence of bad news had become its own assurance. He was alive. Everyone believed that now.
As the shrine gate repairs continued, I climbed the slope overlooking the town and stopped there, letting the view settle into me. The streets below looked unfamiliar and yet unmistakably ours. Change had arrived not as a single moment, but as accumulation—rail by rail, brick by brick, hand by hand.
This was man's power, I realized.
Not the power to destroy—that had proven easy enough—but the quieter strength to rebuild without waiting for gods or absolution. No hymns accompanied it. No banners marked its progress. It simply moved forward, stubborn as the seasons.
Behind me, the bowstring sang again.
This time, the arrow struck true.