The peace of the morning was shattered by the sound of a distressed engine and raised voices at the main gate. Rex, who had been reviewing Isabelle's updated plumbing schematics, immediately set them aside and strode towards the commotion. The sense of calm from his walk with Elara evaporated, replaced by the sharp vigilance of a warden.
A beat-up sedan, its front fender crumpled and one headlight shattered, was parked just outside the gate. A man and a woman, their faces etched with panic and exhaustion, were arguing frantically with Jean Delahaye, who stood with his arms crossed, a immovable object in their path.
"Please! We were told this place was safe! They said there was a man here, a man with walls!" the woman pleaded, her voice cracking.
"We have nothing to offer you," Jean said, his tone firm but not unkind. "This is a private worksite. You must move on."
Rex stepped into view. "What's the trouble?"
The couple turned to him, their eyes widening as they took in his authoritative presence. "You! You are him, yes? The owner?" the man sputtered. "We come from the north. There is... fighting. Gangs. They took our car, our food. We walked for two days. We heard stories of this place."
Rex's gaze swept over them. They were soft, city-people. The man's hands were clean, the woman's shoes were impractical for the terrain. They were precisely the kind of unprepared souls he had feared would become a drain on his resources. His initial instinct, cold and pragmatic, was to turn them away.
But then his eyes fell on the back seat of the car. A figure was huddled there, motionless. A young woman, her face pale and streaked with dirt, her eyes wide with a terror so profound it seemed to have frozen her in place.
"What happened to her?" Rex asked, his voice low.
The woman followed his gaze and her face crumpled. "Liana. Our daughter. She... she hasn't spoken since they... since the men..." She couldn't finish, dissolving into sobs.
The story was clear without the words. They had been attacked. The girl had been traumatized. The cold calculus in Rex's mind warred with a newer, unfamiliar impulse—the one Elara had stirred in him.
Elara. He turned and saw her standing in the gateway, having been drawn by the noise. Her eyes met his, then went to the girl in the car. Without a word, her professional compassion overrode everything else. She walked past Rex, past Jean, and opened the car door.
"Hello," she said, her voice as soft and warm as a blanket. "My name is Elara. I'm a nurse. You're safe now." She didn't touch the girl, just knelt there, offering a presence that was calm and unthreatening.
The girl, Liana, flinched but didn't pull away. Her eyes, a startlingly light blue, flickered from Elara's face to Rex's.
Rex made his decision. It wasn't purely logical. It was a gamble. But he was learning that a kingdom needed more than stone and steel.
"You can stay," he said, his voice carrying across the courtyard. The couple sagged with relief. "But you work. Everyone works. You obey the rules. This is my land. My law. Do you understand?"
The man nodded vigorously. "Yes! Yes, anything. Thank you!"
Jean gave Rex a long, searching look, then shrugged his heavy shoulders and stepped aside. "The gatekeeper's lodge is full. They can stay in the old stable. It has a roof."
Rex nodded. "See to it." He then turned his attention back to Elara and the girl.
Slowly, carefully, Elara was helping Liana from the car. The girl was painfully thin, moving with the fragile caution of a wounded bird. As her feet touched the ground, her eyes lifted and swept across the courtyard—the high walls, the scaffolding, the solid, imposing figure of Rex. For a fleeting second, the terror in her eyes was joined by something else. A spark of awe.
Then her gaze landed on a patch of wildflowers growing defiantly through a crack in the cobblestones. She stared at them, transfixed.
Elara followed her gaze. "They're beautiful, aren't they?" she murmured.
Liana gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod. It was the first response she had shown.
Rex watched the scene, the third thread of his future weaving itself into the tapestry of Avalon. Kaelen was its strength, Elara its heart, and this broken girl... he did not yet know what she was. A reminder of the world's cruelty, perhaps. Or a symbol of what they were fighting to protect.
He had taken a risk. He had let the outside world in. But as he watched Elara lead the girl gently towards the infirmary, he felt a strange certainty. A kingdom needed its warriors and its healers. Perhaps it also needed its artists, its dreamers, those who could still see beauty in the cracks. He would protect that, too.