Chapter 3: Desertion

The foul-smelling paste Old Martha had left behind burned like liquid fire as it slid down Jack’s throat, but the practical effect was immediate. The tight, vice-like constriction in his chest loosened. For the first time since waking up in this body, he could take a deep breath without feeling like his lungs were going to tear themselves apart.

But physical comfort was a relative term.

Jack slowly dragged his legs out from under the stiff blanket. His feet touched the floor, and a sharp, icy shock ran straight up his shins. He shivered violently, his teeth clicking together so hard his jaw ached. He was still incredibly weak. The simple act of sitting up made his head spin, and his vision blurred at the edges with dark, swimming spots.

He needed to see what was happening outside.

Gritting his teeth, Jack leaned forward and placed his hands on his knees. He pushed. His muscles trembled, screaming in protest as he forced his thin, hollow-cheeked frame into a standing position. For a second, his knees buckled, and he had to throw his weight against the stone wall to keep from collapsing. He stood there for a long moment, panting, his forehead pressed against the rough masonry.

“One step at a time,” he told himself. “Just one step.”

He shuffled toward the window, dragging his left foot slightly. The geometric, skeletal frost patterns he had accidentally created earlier had faded back into a dull, uniform crust of ice, but the glass was still freezing to the touch. He reached out with a trembling hand, scraped a small circle clean with his fingernails, and pressed his eye to the clear spot.

Below, in the snow-covered courtyard, a silent tragedy was unfolding.

The gray sky hung over the castle, promising another massive snowfall before nightfall. Down in the yard, three families were frantically packing their belongings onto rickety wooden handcarts. Jack recognized them from John’s memories.

There was Old Miller, a man bent double by decades of carrying heavy sacks of grain, now struggling to tie down a bundle of thin, gray blankets onto a cart with frayed rope. His wife was frantically wrapping their youngest child’s feet in layers of rags, trying to create some semblance of boots. Beside them, another family was loading a mismatched set of wooden stools, a rusted iron pot, and a few precious bags of dried grains perhaps.

They weren’t speaking. They didn’t need to. The desperation in their movements spoke loud enough. They were moving with the frantic, terrified speed of people who knew that staying meant certain death, yet feared that leaving might mean the same.

Jack’s chest tightened, and this time, it wasn’t the mana-burn.

In his previous life, Jack had been a middle manager at a logistics firm. If a project failed, people lost money. Here, if he failed, these people—the tired mother wrapping her child’s feet, the old man struggling with the rope—would freeze to death in a mountain ditch. He hadn’t asked to be a lord, let alone the lord of a frozen graveyard, but these people were his responsibility now.

If they abandoned the valley, the fief was dead. And without them to maintain the castle, split what little wood remained, or keep the basic structure of the estate from falling apart, Jack would die alone in his bed within a week. His Grey Core needed a stable, living anchor to survive. He needed them, and they needed a miracle.

He had to stop them.

Jack turned away from the window, his gaze landing on a polished wooden cane with a brass handle shaped like a bird’s head—one of the few family relics that hadn’t been sold for grain. He hobbled over, grabbed it, and leaned heavily on it.

He opened the door of his bedchamber and stepped out into the corridor.

The castle draft was brutal. The air in the hallway was even colder than in his room, smelling of damp stone, old dust, and the faint, biting scent of woodsmoke from some distant chimney. Every step was a battle. The stone stairs leading down to the Great Hall felt like a sheer cliff face. He had to grip the banister with one hand and lean on his cane with the other, descending one step at a time.

Halfway down, he met Karen. She was carrying a small bundle of splinters and broken wood she had scavenged from some closet.

“My Lord!” she gasped, nearly dropping her meager pile of fuel. She rushed up the steps, her mismatched shawls fluttering. “What are you doing out of bed? Old Martha said you must rest! You’re going to catch your death!”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Gather everyone, Karen,” Jack said, his voice quiet but steady. He paused to catch his breath, his chest rattling slightly. “Every head of household. Tell them to meet me in the Great Hall. Now.”

“But, Lord Jack, the hall is freezing, and—”

“Do it, Karen,” Jack interrupted, looking her in the eyes.

The sheer authority in his gaze, a remnants of the old noble blood mixed with his own desperate resolve, made Karen freeze. She swallowed hard, nodded rapidly, and set her bundle of wood on the steps before hurrying down the corridor.

Ten minutes later, Jack sat in the high-backed wooden chair at the end of the Great Hall.

The room was vast, dark, and utterly miserable. The high stone walls were covered in ancient tapestries depicting the historical victories of the Frost-Grip family, but now, those tapestries were frozen stiff, clinging to the stone like sheets of dirty ice. In the massive stone hearth, a single, green log smoldered pathetically, producing more thick, stinging smoke than actual heat. The air in the room was so cold that every breath Jack took came out in a thick white cloud.

The remaining villagers shuffled into the hall. There were only about forty of them left in total—the last survivors of a once-thriving mining community of hundreds. They stood huddled together, their arms crossed over their chests, shivering violently.

They looked at Jack. Some looked at him with pity, seeing a sickly boy who was about to die alongside them. Others looked at him with quiet resentment, blaming his family’s decline for their current suffering.