NOVEL NEXT Chapter 203: Carving A Place
The wind changed when the ridge broke.
Not enough to howl—just enough to scrape frost across my teeth as we looked down into the hollow carved out by time and stubborn will. There it was.
My home.
It looked smaller than I remembered. But only because everything else had gotten that much bigger. War. Names. Expectations.
But the house itself hadn't changed.
The roof was thick with pine bark shingles, darkened from a year of snow and silence. Smoke didn't rise from the chimney. No one stood on the porch. But someone had cleared the path.
I narrowed my eyes.
The front steps were swept. The stack of wood under the awning was split fresh—cut clean, not by me, but by hands that cared enough to keep it from rotting.
They'd come while I was gone. The villagers. The ones who used to call me ghost or witch or nothing at all. They'd tended it anyway. Something inside of me melted at that idea.
It was like knowing that the world, my world, didn't rely on the next war, the next, battle, the next supply convoy.
That even if the rest of the world stopped, I could come back here and life my life the way I had originally intended to.
And apparently, even the villagers were waiting for me to come back home.
Yaozu said nothing.
His horse shifted beside mine, its hooves crunching against the frozen brush.
I guided us down the trail with muscle memory and old breath. Shadow ran ahead, his tail high, as he cut through the frost without pause.
When we reached the edge of the clearing, I dismounted and stepped into the silence first.
The house stood exactly where I left it… or where I had been dragged from it. The table with two stools still stood in the front, waiting for the next guest or villager with an illness. The flowerbeds in the front had been put to bed for the winter, and I was willing to put money on the fact that my vegetable garden in the back was the same way.
I still remembered when I was nine and started building this house with Shadow at my back. I remember the scraps I got from the smith, I remembered the way my palms bled and my muscles screamed as I carved out my home in a forest on a mountain.
No one helped.
I had to do it all myself based on the theories that my father had taught me.
Yaozu stopped beside the porch and didn't speak. His gaze moved across the beams, the seams in the planks, the way the corners locked together with dovetails instead of nails.
"You built this?" he asked quietly.
"Yes."
"By yourself?"
I nodded. "My father taught me how to survive. Everything else I learned because no one else was going to do it for me."
He didn't respond. Just watched.
Not with judgment. Not even admiration.
Just... understanding.
I stepped onto the porch, boots hitting the wood with a familiar creak. I reached for the door, pressed my fingers to the old iron handle I had shaped from melted hinges, and pushed.
It opened with a low groan.
No dust.
No rot.
The smell was faint but present—pine, dry herbs, and smoke from the stove long gone cold.
Inside, everything was where I'd left it. The heavy shelves. The hunting gear. The cot with the patched wool blanket folded sharp at the corners. My tools still hung from the wall. A jar of dried mushrooms sat on the counter, the lid sealed tight. The mug I carved from cedar, still on the hook by the stove. My life, pressed into the walls.
Behind me, Yaozu stood just inside the doorway.
He didn't ask if he could enter. He didn't shift or fidget.
He looked.
A place made of raw edges and survival. No polished floors. No paper screens. Just cut lumber, hammered nails, and sweat that never got washed out of the walls.
"I've never seen you like this," he said.
"Like what?"
"Still."
I hung my coat on the peg. Removed my gloves. My shoulders settled.
"You've seen me survive in an environment that was completely foreign to me the first time I stepped out of that trunk," I reminded him softly. "But this… this is where I lived."
He crossed the threshold slowly, like the air was heavier inside. His eyes tracked the table legs, the steel traps near the door, the bones carved into sewing needles along the shelf.
He stopped in front of the firewood box.
"You split this with a field axe."
"No other kind."
I crouched near the stove and opened the flue. No draft. No smoke. Still clean. I fed in kindling, struck steel, and coaxed flame from ash.
He didn't offer to help.
I didn't want him to.
When the fire caught, I stood and crossed to the back wall. My bow still hung there—strung, polished, untouched. I ran a finger down the grip and felt the knot in my throat loosen.
"This is the first place I ever felt safe in this world," I continued, looking around, trying to see it from his eyes.
"And the only place that belongs to you."
I hummed in agreement, nodding my head.
That made him turn.
I walked past him, reached the low cabinet near the window, and pulled out two wooden cups. I poured water from the jug, added a pinch of dried ginger, and handed him one.
He took it.
Sipped.
Didn't speak.
And still—somehow—everything was louder. My breath. The fire. The thrum in my ribs.
He set the cup down.
And stepped close.
His fingers brushed my arm.
Not possessive. Not hesitant.
Just present.
When I looked up, he didn't ask.
And I didn't stop him.
The kiss came slow. Bare. No battlefield. No venom. No fear. Just him, steady and warm and real. He tasted like the air outside—cold and clean and a little too sharp. But when his hand came to rest at my waist, the weight felt right.
I didn't pull away.
Instead, I leaned into it.
Just enough.
Just long enough to forget how many years I'd lived without something that didn't need to be earned in blood.
When we separated, neither of us spoke.
I reached down, took his hand, and led him toward the back of the cabin.
He followed without question.
The hallway was narrow.
The door to my room creaked open under my palm, but I didn't look back as I led him to my bed.
This was my world, the one I had carved out with blood, tears, and a small taste of fear. And this was where I was going to carve myself out one more place.