Widel stayed near the edge.
She had never swum before.
She had seen streams, ponds, and flooded pits. She had washed in cold water while watching for anyone who might come too close. She had crossed shallow water when forced to. But entering deep water by choice was different.
The reservoir looked calm, but it was quite deep—deep enough that men disappeared below the surface for long moments when they dove.
That made her stomach tighten. She did not want to drown.
Isomi noticed first.
“You’re not coming in?”
“I can’t really swim.”
“Then just stay near the edge.”
“I said I can’t swim.”
Savomi moved closer through the water. She did not speak at once, which made Widel less defensive than she might have been with someone else.
“You can stand on the lower stones there,” Savomi said after a moment, pointing towards the side of the reservoir. “The water is not deep at the edge. Isomi and I will hold you until you get used to it.”
Widel looked at the water. “I don’t need holding.”
“Yes, you do,” Isomi said.
Widel glared at her.
Isomi did not look impressed.
From farther out, Hyola’s voice rose in triumph. “I won!”
“You started early!” Yufim shouted.
“I didn’t! You breathed wrong!”
“You… You cheated somehow!”
Hyola swam back toward them, still grinning, leaving the archer behind to complain to the other guys. When she saw Widel standing on the edge, her expression changed.
“You haven’t gone in?”
“No. Not yet…”
Hyola smirked. “Afraid?”
Widel’s first answer rose at once, sharp and angry.
She bit it back.
“Yes,” she said instead.
Hyola blinked. Then she nodded, as if Widel had given the right answer.
“Good. Then come in slowly. I'll help you. Don’t jump.”
With Isomi on one side and Savomi on the other, Widel lowered herself onto the first wet stone on the side of the hill. The water was cooler than she expected, and her breath caught when it rose around her legs.
“Slowly,” Savomi said.
“I am going slowly.”
“You are gripping my arm like you want to crush it,” Isomi said.
“Then don’t give me your arm.”
“Too late. Keep going.”
Widel took another step into the water.
The water reached her waist, then higher. Her heart beat faster. For a moment, she wanted to climb out immediately and pretend she had never wanted to try. Then Hyola moved in front of her, close enough to block the sight of the deeper water.
“Bend your knees,” Hyola said. “Let the water hold some of your weight. Don’t fight it like an enemy.”
Widel did not like being told not to fight something.
But she tried.
The water shifted around her. Isomi and Savomi kept hold of her arms, and Hyola stayed close. Widel lifted one foot from the stone and nearly panicked when she felt herself float for the smallest moment.
Then she realized she had not sunk.
She was still there. Still breathing. Still held by the others, but not falling to the bottom like a stone.
Her grip on Isomi’s arm loosened.
“There,” Savomi said. “Better. Keep moving your legs the way I am doing.”
Widel swallowed. “It feels strange.”
“You'll get used to it.”
Hyola glanced back toward Yufim, who was once again boasting to Calubo and Tesyb about his swimming. “Ignore him. He has been doing this for a long time. He couldn't defeat me so he's telling them imaginary stories now.”
“I’m not trying to race him like you.”
“Good. You would lose.”
Widel looked at her sharply.
Hyola smiled. “Today.”
That was better.
Suddenly something touched the bottom of her foot. Something which was moving. Something alive.
Widel jerked like she had been bitten by a viper. “There’s… That’s… Something just touched my foot!”
Hyola took a single glance into the churning water, then shrugged. “Just a fish. Don't worry, it won't eat you.”
Widel was going to retort, but stopped. It was a rare day when Hyola was actually being helpful. Better not jinx it.
Widel stayed near the edge while the others helped her float and move a little. She was not swimming. Not truly. Mostly she was trying not to stiffen every time her feet lifted from the stone. But after a while, the fear eased enough for her to notice the coolness of it, and the weight leaving her legs, and the way the heat no longer pressed down so heavily.
She had not expected it to feel good.
But it did.
Yufim’s voice carried across the water.
“No one can beat me in a proper race!”
Hyola turned at once. “You already lost once.”
“You cheated by starting while I was speaking.”
“You’re always speaking.”
Workers nearby laughed, and Calubo shook his head as if he had heard this argument too many times already.
Tesyb swam near Yufim, not far from Savomi. He looked more comfortable than Widel had expected, though he did not have Yufim’s easy confidence in the water. For a moment, Widel thought that the archer was like a large fish with blond hair, going by the ease with which he stayed in the water.
Although he had still lost against Hyola somehow.
“Race again?” Yufim called.
Hyola looked at Widel. “You’ll be fine?”
Widel nodded. “Go beat him. Again.”
Hyola’s grin returned. “That’s the plan.”
She pushed away from the edge and swam toward Yufim who was already asking others to become the referees this time to prevent any alleged cheating by the redhead.
Widel remained near Isomi and Savomi for a while longer, practicing the same small movements until her arms began to ache. It annoyed her how quickly she grew tired. With spear drills, she could push herself longer. With swimming, every motion felt unfamiliar, and every mistake made her tense again.
At last, she climbed out and sat on the warm stone of the dam.
Water ran from her hair and sleeves, and her arms felt heavy. She did not care. The sun was hot, the stone was warm beneath her, and the reservoir spread ahead of her with workers and guards laughing in separate groups across the water.
Below the dam, the industrial area kept working.
The wheels turned. The sawmills cut. The paper-making machines pressed. The triphammers struck. Smoke rose high from the furnaces, and wagons waited to carry timber, steel, and other things back to the village.
Widel looked at it all, then back at the people in the water.
Yufim was finalizing the rules of the challenge with both Tesyb and Calubo roped in as the referees. Hyola taunted the archer with something Widel could not hear, but the workers nearby laughed and began cheering them on. Calubo raised one arm from the water, calling for Yufim to stop making excuses before the race even began. Tesyb stayed closer to Savomi, while Isomi swam back toward the edge to sit beside her.
Tesyb brought his arm down sharply, and the redhead and the archer began swimming as fast as they could. The people cheered, some supporting Hyola, others calling for Yufim to win this time.
Widel watched them swim with a smile on her face, feeling more at peace than she had ever felt in her life.
Only a few months ago, she would not have believed a place like Tiranat could exist.
A village that broke hills to make better roads. A dam that made a stream stop on its course. Machines that cut timber faster than teams of men. Furnaces that made steel—real steel, the same as the mighty knights wore. Guards who dragged one another into reservoirs after duty and argued over swimming races as if the world had not been cruel to any of them in the past.
She looked toward the south, where the valley widened and Lord Kivamus intended to build even more to expand the industrial area in the future.
Then she looked back at the reservoir, at her friends, and at the road going west that led home.
“Home…” she whispered quietly. She had just called the village her home.
Isomi glanced at her but did not say anything.
Widel was glad for that.
She sat there on the dam, tired from her first attempt at swimming and still warm from the sun, and watched Hyola and Yufim begin returning during the race while the workers cheered from the water, while betting who would win.
She thought about what she had spoken out loud a few moments ago, then grinned.
There was no doubt now. Not after today.
Yes, Tiranat really is my home now.
***
- Kivamus -
It had been a week since his last tour through the village, and Kivamus had been in the manor hall working on a blueprint since the morning.
Before long, he put the quill down and looked over the sheets spread across the table in the manor hall.
There were three of them, each filled with careful lines, small marks, and notes written in the neatest hand he could manage. The main drawing showed the general shape of the repeating crossbow, while the other two sheets showed smaller parts separately. He had avoided drawing too much of the working method in one place, partly because it made the design harder to copy if the papers ever fell into the wrong hands, and partly because Darora would need the smaller details shown clearly.
The design had been nearly ready two days ago. Since then, Kivamus had kept returning to it, changing one part, simplifying another, and redrawing a section that looked efficient on paper but would be too difficult to craft in the workshop.
Now he was satisfied.
Not certain. A design was never certain until someone built it and found the first mistake. But satisfied enough that there was no reason to delay showing it to Darora.
Kivamus gave a small nod to himself, then carefully rolled the sheets together.
The manor hall was quieter than usual at this hour. It was late afternoon, and the summer heat had driven most people into slower work. Even inside the manor, with shutters opened and servants moving through the rooms with water, the air felt heavy. Sweat had dried and returned on Kivamus’s back more than once since morning. By midday, even Lucem and Clarisa had looked exhausted, and the two of them usually had enough energy to run around the manor long after everyone else just wanted to sit down calmly in the heat.
Late summer had already begun, and the heat had reached its worst. The rain season should start in a few weeks. Until then, Tiranat had to endure the clear sky and dry ground. There had been no real rain in too long. Even in summer, some occasional showers should have come by now, but this year the days had stayed dry one after another.
That made the canal more important than ever.
Last week, Yeden had accepted the twelve extra workers sent to him and then asked for another dozen the very next day. He had said that the road from the village to the dam site was long enough that he could put more hands to use without having men standing idle, especially now that the adzee threat had passed for the moment. With the extra workers, the crew had already finished cutting a path through the last hill between the village and the dam site.
Now they were smoothing the slope from the higher hilly ground near the dam down toward the plain near the village.
It would only be rough work at first. Proper smoothing of the surface would take longer, and Yeden had already warned Duvas that the road would not be ready for easy wagon travel immediately even if a path had already been cut through the hills. But Kivamus had told him to prioritize the canal, and to start working on it as soon as they had made a reasonable slope connecting the two places. Water would always flow downward, and it didn't care if the path was gentle or not.
A smooth road would help carts, horses, and future transport. But that could wait. Water would save the wheat. And that was what mattered the most right now.
Duvas had already sent word to the farming foreman Pinoto that canal digging would begin as soon as the rough path allowed it. If nothing went wrong, water from the reservoir should start reaching the fields in just over a week. Pinoto had been relieved to hear it, since that was around a week faster than the earlier expected timeline of providing water to the farm because of the extra workers allotted to Yeden. The wheat crop was already at full height, and with the skies still clear, canal water might be the difference between a good harvest and one that lost too much grain before it could even get a chance to ripen.
The road itself would come after that.
Kivamus still wanted it properly smoothed, with a low, steady gradient from the village toward the coal mine and later toward the dam. Horses could pull loaded wagons over steeper ground if forced to, but that was not his true goal. In time, when the more immediate needs of the village were taken care of, he wanted wooden rails running from the village toward the coal mine, and later extended toward the industrial area. The village wasn't in a position to build proper iron rails and a real steam engine right now, so horses drawing wagons on those wooden rails would have to do in the beginning. But even that would require a better gradient than what Yeden was building to supply water to the farms. But once that was done, he would return to make a better and smoother roadbed.
But that was for the future.
The canal came first.
Kivamus rose from the table with the rolled sheets in hand and walked to the shelf in the corner of the hall. It already held several rolled designs, each tied and marked. He placed the repeating crossbow papers among them for now, separate from the copies Duvas kept locked in the manor’s secure storage room.