It was my first visit to Eerb, and as it came into sight, I experienced a sense of both nostalgia and unease. The town nestled in a verdant valley, so like Erihseht, but distinct in many ways. The outer ring of the town was all farmland and grazing fields. A herd of sheep were congregating on a sunny hill a mile ahead of me like a cloud too lazy to fly. It was so peaceful, but that could change in an instant. For once, I wasn't wearing armor of any kind. My hand clutched Esmelda's comb in the pocket of my linen trousers.

Our last meeting kept playing through my mind. She had kissed me. Not much of a kiss, admittedly, but my first in a very long time. Prison had not been conducive to romance, and after my release, I hadn't made much of an effort to meet anyone. What were we to each other? Married, but not really. I was nervous about seeing her again. There were sure to be lots of other women in the world, but I wasn't worried about that.

Soul-mates had always struck me as a silly idea. There was no one special person for everyone. The math on that just wouldn't work out. My view on relationships was that you found someone you could stand to be around and put in the effort to build something with them. It wouldn't always end well, and some people who thought they were compatible were really terrible for each other, but I felt like I was lucky to have a chance to build something with someone like her. I hoped she felt the same way about me.

A handful of buildings, houses and barns, were interspersed among the fields, but the town itself was densely constructed. Ehriseht had sprawled, whereas Eerb was more contracted. The structures themselves were the same, lillits built on a slightly smaller scale than humans. It wasn't a massive difference, and from a distance, it could have been any other village. But I was only five-nine, and still at risk of bumping my head on most of their doorframes. Gastard had been forced to duck whenever he entered the mayor's home. Cozy looking homes, tiled roofs and brick chimneys. It would have been a nice place to live at any other time.

Eerb was close to the mountains that separated Drom from the Wastes, but far north of the crossing the Dargothians used to attack Erihseht. It made me wonder if Beleth simply hadn't scouted the area well, and the fact that Erihseht had been attacked instead of this village had been mere chance. I followed a dirt path through the fields on my approach to the town, waving at the shepherd and trying not to appear like an ominous stranger.

Children played in the main street, too many children. Eerb had absorbed the refugees from the Wastes, but it wasn't built to sustain having its population doubled overnight. Lillits were working, and others were milling about or chatting in front of houses. The only inn was more of a bed and breakfast with a few extra rooms. They got little in the way of travelers here.

The first face I recognized was Brenys, out watching the kids. She was busy disentangling what appeared to be an impromptu wrestling match between two boys, so I saw her first. Before I could call to her, a lillit I didn't know walked up to me and grabbed my hand.

It was hard to guess their ages. He could have been fifty or a hundred, with neatly trimmed brown hair and a few wrinkles under his wide-set eyes.

"Thank you," he said, so earnestly that I felt uncomfortable. "I didn't get to say it before. You brought my family home."

"You're welcome." I didn't know what else to say. My name was spreading down the street, and I was getting a lot of stares. As I hadn't camped with the lillits during their return journey, there were many whom I had never spoken to. The man held my hand a moment longer, then stepped away.

"I'm sure you have a lot to do," he said. "But when I have a home of my own again, you'll always be welcome there."

"Thank you," I said. Brenys had looked up from the miniature brawl, brushed the dust off of her yellow dress, and strode over with purpose.

"Took you long enough," she said, but there was no bite in her words. I didn't think I'd ever seen her happier.

"I worked things out with Godwod," I scratched my head, "sort of."

She nodded, resting one hand on the wide leather belt wrapped around her waist. "Let's get everyone together and talk about it."

"Everyone?"

"The important people."

We ended up at the church, our progress slowed by a stream of handshakes, waves, and one child who very insistently asked me what it was like to wrestle a chimera.

"I didn't wrestle it," I said.

"Yes, you did. My brother saw you." It was one of the boys who'd been skirmishing in the dirt. His hair was a mess, and one of his sleeves was torn, but he didn't otherwise seem any worse for wear.

"Oh, well. Then it was scary."

"I thought so." He rushed away.

The church was a mirror of the one in Erihseht, a simple hall with a steeple and a bell. It smelled like cedar. Gastard and Tipple were both there, having a discussion with whom I took to be the local pastor. He had a stole like Tipple's, but he was rail thin, whereas even after the trial of the Wastes, Tipple still had a sizeable belly on him. Gastard, ever vigilant, spotted us as soon as we entered, waving at the others to look in our direction.

The church looked to be in use as a makeshift hospital, with the pews having all been moved to one side to make room for bedrolls. There were at least a dozen lillits sitting or laying along the walls, most of them in bandages. Brenys and I made our way around a few cots to meet the others.

"How was the city?" Gastard asked. Was he wondering if I had seen Johanna there? I hadn't, and didn't want to bring it up if his mind wasn't on her.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"About the same." I said. "I stopped by Hoxna's on my way out. Dongle was still there, but I think he might come here soon. The others should meet us at the mine when we get there."

"The mine?" Tipple looked nonplussed.

"Yeah, it was hard to get a straight answer out of Godwod, but he's going to give me the barony. We can build a town there."

Gastard's eyebrows raised. "He gave you permission to settle a town?"

"More or less," I shrugged. "We're going to do it, and he's going to act like it was his idea afterward. That seems to be his mode of operation."

"Boffin needs to hear this," Brenys said. "All of you stay here."

She spun on her heel, her dress swishing, and bounced off.

"Where else would we go?" I said.

"Brenys enjoys giving orders." Tipple suppressed a smile, his face turning serious. "I'm happy to hear about the barony. You certainly deserve recognition for what you've done. But can that land support all of us?"

"I can make it support us." Survivor may have not been the best class for fighting demons, but it would be hard to come up with a combination of abilities that would be better suited to town-building. Carving out a space for myself alone in the wilderness hadn't been all bad, but I looked forward to being a part of a community.

"Feeding a village is a tall order," Tipple said, "even for you."

Gastard nodded. "We will need to ensure you adhere to a strict training schedule. It will be easy to forget what is most important if you spend all day in the fields."

Feeding people struck me as important, but he had a point. War would come eventually, and harvesting endless crops of fast-growing carrots and wheat would not prepare me to take on the next demon.

"You can bop me on the head whenever I miss a lesson."

"You will not be missing them." Gastard's mouth firmed into a hard line. "I will bop you before you do."

The other pastor was hovering in the background, and he chose that moment to introduce himself. His name was Woffin, which I did not laugh about, and he had a lot to say regarding the significance of my being chosen as a hero and how gracious and wise it showed Mizu to be. It mostly went over my head, as my thoughts had turned to Esmelda's impending arrival. Brenys returned with the mayor and his daughter after only a few minutes, sparing us from any further sermonizing.

She practically threw herself at me. Almost as soon as I turned at the sound of the opening door, her arms were around my waist and her face had pressed against my chest. It caught me off guard. Esmelda had always been more reserved than that, but saving her entire village from servitude at the hands of the Dark Lord must have won me an awful lot of gold stars in her book.

"Hey," I said, very much enjoying the feeling of her body against mine. "It's good to see you, too."

She stepped away; her face reddening slightly. "I thought you would return straight away, but you went to Henterfell first."

"I needed to make sure he heard the right version of the story." Brenys was grinning, I wasn't sure why, and Boffin had come in just behind his daughter. He looked better than he had in the Wastes, but the experience had aged him, and there were still deep shadows underneath his sharp, gray eyes.

"I'm glad he didn't see fit to chastise you for taking action without him," Boffin said. "Is it true that he is making you a baron?"

"It is. He was leaning in that direction anyway after I brought him a gold sword, I think, but the situation with Dargoth put us on a fast track for promotion. It would have looked weird if he didn't promote me. He's going with the version of history that says he sent me and some men-at-arms to stop Kevin from taking you all away. Having me as a returning hero is more politically convenient than having me as a renegade vassal."

Boffin frowned, unready to take the gift at face-value. "Can you tell me everything he said?"

We moved the reunion into Woffin's study, and I went through my meeting with Godwod for them as well as I could recall it. There wasn't much additional information to share. The Margrave had promised he would have me added to the official records of the peerage within a few days, as well as send along a messenger with documents I could use as proof. I was still expected to provide him with gold, and he could always rescind his favor at a later date, but I didn't feel as if he planned to throw me to the wayside in the near future. Godwod would always do whatever he believed would benefit him the most. It made him trustworthy, sort of. Predictable, at least.

Boffin filled me in on what the last few days had been like for the lillits of Erihseht. A lot of them had relatives in Eerb, and would stay, but he thought most of the townsfolk would follow me almost anywhere after what had happened in the Wastes. Building a village from scratch was a tremendous undertaking, but he seemed excited by the prospect, and was soon reeling off a laundry list of what we would need and who could help and how.

Woffin's study had a single window, and when the light began to deepen, I stood. Whatever else was going on, we couldn't forget the danger my presence would pose as soon as night arrived. We said our goodbyes, agreeing to gather for a planning session in the morning, and Esmelda accompanied me outside. We stood under the shadow of the steeple, the scent of wood-smoke in the air, and I gave her back her comb.

"I wasn't going to ask," she said, putting up her hair. "I was worried you might have lost it."

"Never."

Her eyes softened, and a slight smile played around the edges of her mouth.

"I'm keeping the lotus you carved me."

"Is that what it was?"

"You're the one who made it," she laughed. "You don't know?"

I held her hand, small and warm in mine.

"I'm sorry I can't spend more time with you," I said.

"I've been thinking about that," she looked toward the falling sun. "It does seem strange for a husband and wife to always part when evening comes."

"We can build an actual house when we get where we're going," I said. "Something solid. Troll-proof." It was nice to hear that she had been considering living with me. It made sense in the long-term. I just hadn't thought we were there yet.

"A proper home would be best," she said, meeting my eyes. "But for tonight, a simple shelter will do. It wouldn't be the first time we shared a coffin."

My heart kicked up a notch. She wasn't necessarily suggesting anything amorous. Our first night together had been entirely chaste, after all. But there was a chance.

"I stole Kevin's bed."

Her mouth dropped open, her expression one of absolute delight. "You stole the Dark Lord's bed?"

"It's pretty comfortable." As I general rule, I tried not to think about sex. It was a habit from the seemingly endless period in my life when it simply hadn't been an option. When I was younger, sure, I'd been pretty salty about conjugal visits not being a thing in the state where I was incarcerated. As the years went on, however, I became thoroughly resigned to my involuntary celibacy. It wasn't a big deal if you didn't make a big deal out of it. There were a thousand things I had missed having a lot more than sex.

She shifted closer to me, her gaze narrowing in a way that caused me to temporarily forget how to breathe. How did she always smell like flowers? I definitely didn't smell like flowers.

"I will be the judge of that," she said.

Okay, Will. Do not ruin this. It's probably still not going to happen. You're making progress. Chill.

We left Eerb together, heading for the mountain. There weren't any farms in the foothills, so it was the fastest route to getting away from people. The sun was warm on our backs, and there was time enough for me to throw up a stone A-Frame substantial enough to accommodate the bed. I finally remembered to ask Esmelda what her favorite food was. Apparently, it was apples. That boggled my mind a little. So much so that I forgot to be nervous.

It happened.