A week had passed since Obrem accepted the deal and joined my team. Seven days that felt like months. The silence that once dominated my residence had been replaced by the constant sound of papers being organized and low voices in meetings that stretched through the night. My house, once a refuge of isolation for an exiled prince, had transformed into something akin to a small, improvised city hall.
With Obrem acting as my right hand, the barrier of distrust between the manor and the people began to yield, however minimally. Yet, the proximity brought to light the cruel reality of the numbers. The diagnosis was always the same: we have stagnated.
We urgently needed to increase our fertile lands. The current harvest was a miracle of survival, always at the bare minimum necessary to feed the population. There was no surplus. Without a surplus, there was no trade; without trade, the local economy was a dead organism, merely waiting for the next winter to collapse entirely. As an administrator, I knew we were walking on the edge of a razor.
That afternoon, I looked out the window and saw Lygni walking down the main street. She was carrying two iron buckets overflowing with water — a weight that would make an ordinary man's arms tremble, yet she held them without a single drop falling out of rhythm.
She was taking them toward the house of an elderly woman whose own wells had run dry months ago.
I watched her. As always, her face was a mask of indifference. A Master of the Web, trained to be a silent blade, reduced to fetching water from the low riverbed for those who could no longer make the journey themselves.
The contrast between her lethal aura and this act of forced charity was almost ironic.
"Her strength shouldn't be wasted carrying buckets, Obrem," I commented.
"Sometimes, young master," Obrem replied in his raspy voice, "the people need to see that the sword that protects them is also the hand that feeds them. But the soil of Valenreach is tired. If we do not touch the Web of the land itself, no effort will be enough."
"Touch…" I repeated the word in a whisper. A spark ignited in my mind. A bridge between the science of my past life and the mystical logic of this world.
"Show me the place where you plant most of the supplies," I ordered, with a glint of determination that made him arch an eyebrow.
"But why now, Highness?"
"Because we need to touch the root of the problem. Literally."
He guided me to the outskirts of the village. The field was vast, but the vegetation had a sickly color — a yellowish-green tone that screamed exhaustion. One look was enough to confirm my suspicions. They were planting the same crop, in the same place, cycle after cycle.
"Many farmers here touch the Web to help the planting, don't they?" I asked, feeling the dry earth between my fingers.
"Yes," Obrem replied. "But lately, not even their interference works. The harvest only dwindles."
I stood up, wiping the dust from my hands. The problem was clear: the land was so exhausted that it could no longer regenerate, not even with the Web. It was like trying to force a dying horse to gallop by using a whip.
"The problem isn't a lack of the Web, Obrem," I declared. "It's a lack of rest and variety. You are killing the land. It is like us; it has good and bad phases. This place has nothing left to offer."
Obrem seemed to process this slowly. His eyes wandered over the field, trying to grasp the logic. I noticed a small river winding through the territory.
"Do you plant here because of the water?" I asked, walking toward the bank.
"Yes, it makes it easier to water the land," he said.
It was a good logical idea, but incomplete for someone who knew better. If the soil was dead, they could pour the entire river over it and nothing would change. I approached the water and looked at the virgin land on the other side, full of weeds, but with a dark, rich soil that had never been touched by a plow.
"Obrem, forget this crop for a year," I ordered, pointing to the exhausted field.
His good eye widened.
"Forget it? Highness, if we don't plant here, we will starve before autumn!"
"We are not going to stop planting," I shot back, my voice taking on the weight of an imperial command. "We are going to move the crop. We will let this soil sleep so it can heal naturally. But for that, we will bring the water to the new land."
I pointed to the river and then to the distant lands.
"We are going to build canals. We will force this river to change its course. If the land won't come to the water, the water will go to the land."
Obrem fell into absolute silence. The idea of "moving a river" or "changing the course of nature" sounded like heresy to someone who lived under tradition. But as he looked at me, he didn't see the weak prince who arrived a week ago. He saw part of Elias — the man who accepted no limits.
"This will require the effort of every man and woman in Valenreach..." Obrem murmured, beginning to understand the scale of what I was proposing.
"Then give them a reason to work," I said, stretching my hand toward the horizon. "Tell them the Hated Prince doesn't want their prayers. He wants their arms. And in exchange, I will give them the first winter in decades where no one will go hungry."
The difficulties were colossal. I would need every soul in this territory. But at that moment, as the sun set over the river, I knew: Valenreach would no longer be a tomb. It would be my first empire.