The frost came early.
By morning, Greyrest's ridges were laced in white, a thin sheen glimmering atop the wood scaffolding and stone piles. Breath misted in the air as laborers moved slower than usual, their fingers stiff, their muscles aching. But the work did not stop. If anything, the cold was a reminder: time was pressing in.
Ethan stood beside the rising gatehouse, his cloak pulled close, watching as Jorah and Brennar directed teams to reinforce the north wall footing with gravel and lime mortar. Elen crouched nearby, examining frost patterns on a sheet of discarded glass. She traced them with a fingertip, distracted, as if remembering something that belonged to another lifetime.
"Cold like this'll mess with your mix," Jorah grunted, coming up beside Ethan.
"I know. We'll heat the water before we pour. Might cost us time."
"It'll cost us more if you don't," Jorah replied. Then, with a sly glance: "But I'm guessing you knew that already."
Ethan offered a tired smile. "You're the one with more winters behind you. I'm just trying to keep up."
Jorah snorted, but there was a flicker of approval in his weathered eyes. "You're doing more than that, son. This wall... This place, it's got bones now."
Ethan's reply was cut off by the sound of hoofbeats, fast, sharp, urgent. Elyra rode hard through the eastern approach, dismounting before the horse had even slowed. Her jaw was tight, eyes scanning the workers with something close to alarm.
"We have a problem," she said.
Ethan met her halfway. "What kind?"
"Not beasts. Not raiders. A man."
She handed him a scroll, still sealed but stained at the edges. "One of the refugees from Carrowbend recognized him. Calls himself Alder Murn. Used to be part of the trade council up north, until they found out he was funneling arms to slavers. Disappeared before he could be tried."
Ethan frowned. "And he's here now?"
"He's been working with the carpentry teams. Kept his head down. But this isn't a man you let near leadership or strategy."
"Do we have proof?"
"Not yet. Just a name. But he's dangerous. Silver-tongued. Knows how to get people to listen. That's what worries me."
Ethan looked past her, toward the lines of workers. "Keep him close. Watch him. But don't confront him yet. If he thinks we know, he'll disappear again, or worse."
Elyra nodded, her expression taut with unease. "Understood."
That evening, Ethan walked the grounds alone.
Past the foundations, now marked with wooden stakes and chalk outlines. Past the forge where Lorana Velk had already begun shaping horseshoes and hinges from scavenged steel. Past the tents where children practiced writing letters in the dirt and their parents leaned over candles, sketching fragments of old lives.
There was beauty in this struggle. A raw, uncut hope he hadn't expected to find again.
But hope, he reminded himself, was a delicate weight. If mislaid, it could shatter the whole.
Later that night, as snow began to fall in drifting silence, Ethan met with Elen beneath the frame of the gatehouse. She held a shard of colored glass up to the moonlight, letting its fractured hues dance across the wooden beams.
"You ever think about leaving?" she asked suddenly.
He glanced at her. "Where would I go?"
"Anywhere. Somewhere that doesn't ask this much of you."
He was quiet for a long moment. Then: "Greyrest doesn't ask this much of me. I choose it."
Elen nodded, almost sadly. "I used to think like that. When Ashdawn still stood."
He watched her for a moment, then gently took the glass from her hand and slipped it into the frame's side notch.
"It's not Ashdawn," he said. "But we're building something that might outlast both of us."
A long silence passed between them, filled only by the hush of snowfall.
Then, softly, Elen said, "Stone by stone."
He looked out into the night, toward the eastern ridge, where shadows pooled beyond the tree line.
"Yes," he whispered. "Even if the ground shakes beneath us."
And behind those words, buried deep, was a knowing: not all threats come charging through the front gate. Some wear smiles. Some speak in reason. Some, like Alder Murn, simply wait for cracks to form, and then widen them.
But Greyrest was no longer just a town of broken people.
It was a foundation.
And they would hold.
Together.