Pierre Fournier was born among the vines. His first memories were of sun-warmed earth, of his father’s calloused hands guiding his tiny fingers over tender green shoots, teaching him how to recognize a healthy vine from a sickly one. His mother would hum old songs as she crushed grapes between her fingers, their juice staining her hands like ink on a forgotten letter. The vineyard was more than land—it was legacy, written in roots and weathered stone, passed down like an heirloom from father to son.

He had spent his youth chasing the seasons, learning the language of the earth. Spring’s first buds filled him with hope; summer’s sun thickened the vines and sweetened the fruit; autumn brought the harvest, the scent of crushed grapes hanging in the air like a promise. Winter was the hardest, but his father always said it was necessary. The vines must be cut back and stripped bare so they could grow stronger come spring.

Life was simple then, measured in cycles, filled in barrels and corked by bottles. The nobility paid well for Burgundy’s finest vintages, and the monks at Saint-Étienne’s abbey always came for their share, murmuring blessings over the wine before it became a sacrament. Pierre never questioned it. The world was as it had always been.

Stolen novel; please report.

But the world changed.

His father did not live to see the revolution, nor did his mother. Pierre buried them both beneath the shade of the oldest oak on the vineyard’s edge, where their ancestors had been laid to rest. He became the keeper of the land, just as they had been, just as his son might have been—if fate had been kinder.

Now, there was no certainty. The nobles who once feasted on his wine had fled or lost their heads. The monks’ prayers had been silenced, and their abbey ransacked. The vineyard still bore fruit, but to what end? The land he had tended all his life—which had outlasted kings—was no longer his.

Still, as the sun rose over the hills, painting the vines gold in the morning light, Pierre did what he had always done. He walked the fields. He ran his fingers over the grapes. He whispered to the land as if it could hear him as if it still remembered.

For as long as he drew breath, he would care for it.

Even if it was no longer his to keep.