Chapter 20 · Frontier Lord - Chapter 20: The Price of Winter Grain

The wall was splitting.

Ava stood on the scaffolding Rain had thrown up three days ago, her hands pressed flat against the stone. The crack ran diagonal, thick as her thumb, and she could feel the cold seeping through from the other side. Beyond the gap, the forest pressed close. Too close.

"How bad?" Rain called up from below.

"Bad enough." She didn't look down. Her palms were already warming against the rock, that low hum starting under her ribs. The bloodline gift didn't ask permission anymore. It just woke when something needed fixing, and lately it was awake more than it slept. "We patch it, it'll split again in a week."

"Then we rebuild the whole section."

"With what stone? We used the last of the quarry load on the barracks roof."

Rain didn't answer. He didn't need to. They both knew the math. Winter was six weeks out, maybe less if the northern winds came early. The wall had three weak points, the granary was still half-open to the weather, and they had sixty-eight people inside the fence now. Sixty-eight mouths. She'd counted this morning.

She pressed harder. The hum climbed into her chest, then her throat.