The morning came slow. A soft grey light crept over the hills, brushing the tops of the trees and the roofs of the village with pale light.
Kain stood alone at first. He watched the sky change as he sipped from a chipped clay cup filled with warm water. It didn't taste good. But it was warm, and that was enough.
The field in front of him was still a mess uneven, hard in places, soft in others. But there was a path through it now. Someone had laid stones at the edge. A child, maybe. Or someone too shy to ask if it was allowed. He smiled at that.
In his hand was a cloth sack of seeds. Not many. Just enough for a test. Wheat, and seeds that could grow a crops related to potatos mostly. A few other mystery grains they'd scraped together from the storeroom. Not much, but alive.
One by one, people came.
An older woman with thick arms and a scarf tied around her head. A boy with a missing shoe. A man who hadn't spoken much since the drought, carrying a rusted spade. And the little girl from last night, wrapped in the same blanket, this time carrying a wooden bowl filled with tiny black seeds.
No one spoke at first. They just stood. Watching.
Kain nodded. "We start today."
They didn't cheer. There was no need. They weren't here for speeches. They were here because they were hungry and tired of waiting.
Kain pointed to the softest patch. "We'll do one row at a time. Dig. Drop the seed. Cover. Water. That's it."
He knelt down and began. His fingers dug into the dirt. It wasn't rich, not yet. But it would be. He could feel it.
They joined him.
Some moved slowly. Unsure. Others worked like they remembered. A rhythm formed rough, awkward at first, but steady. Tools scraped against soil. Water splashed gently from jugs. Birds chirped on a distant fence.
Kain didn't give orders. He showed, and then stepped aside.
Midway through the morning, he noticed something laughter. Quiet, but there. Someone had made a joke about the mud sucking the boot off their foot. Someone else had offered to trade their hoe for a nap. Small things. Human things.
He worked until his back hurt. Until the sweat soaked through his shirt.
At noon, they sat in the shade of the old stable wall. Someone had brought a pot of stewed turnips and a crust of bread. It was passed around without fuss.
Kain sat with his back to the wall, legs stretched in front of him, shirt sticking to his skin. The girl from the night before sat beside him again.
"Your hands are dirty," she said.
He looked at them. Cracked, brown, raw. "Good. That means they're working."
She seemed to think about that. "Ma says a man's hands tell the truth."
"And what do mine say?"
She tilted her head. "You used to be rich."
He laughed. "Used to be?"
She shrugged. "You still have the look. But your eyes don't shine like the others."
He turned to her. "What does that mean?"
She picked at a blade of grass. "It means you see us. Most lords don't."
Kain didn't know what to say to that. So he just nodded.
After the break, they returned to the field. The sun was higher now, brighter. The air smelled like dirt and sweat and something else — hope, maybe.
They planted more rows. Covered the seeds carefully. Watered with hands and buckets and cracked jugs.
A few times, Kain stopped to breathe and look around. The villagers were working together. Not fast, but steady. People who had barely spoken to each other for months were now side by side, passing water, sharing tools.
Even the quiet man with the rusted spade spoke once just to say, "Feels good."
Kain looked over the work as the sun began to dip. Ten rows. Maybe more. Not much in the grand picture, but here it was everything.
They stopped when the light began to fade. The last bit of water was poured over the final row. The tools were leaned against the wall.
Kain stood in the middle of the field, hands on his hips, chest rising and falling. He looked out across the dirt, the seeds buried beneath.
He turned slowly in a circle, taking it all in. The villagers standing quietly nearby. The field they'd shaped. The low hum of life in the village behind them.
The girl came to stand beside him again. "Do you think it'll grow?"
"I hope so," he said.
"That's not a yes."
"No," Kain admitted. "But hope is enough for today."
She nodded again, like she understood that completely.
The sun dipped lower. Shadows stretched long across the field. A dog barked somewhere in the village. Someone lit a fire.
Kain watched the smoke rise. It curled into the sky, soft and steady.
"We'll check the rows tomorrow," he said. "Water again. Maybe add ash to the soil. We'll find more seeds if we can."
Someone asked, "What about tools?"
"We sharpen what we have. Or make new ones. I'll show you how. I read about it last night."
A few people blinked at that.
"You read about it?"
He smiled, just a little. "Let's just say… I have good books."
The villagers didn't push. They didn't need the whole truth.
They just needed someone to stand in the mud with them.
As they walked back to the village, Kain lingered. He looked up at the sky. The stars were starting to show again.
No towers. No city noise. Just sky.
And beneath it, a field filled with buried hope.
He whispered, "Tomorrow, we build again."
This time, the silence wasn't lonely.
It felt full.