Several more days passed, and the village slowly stopped feeling like a place Lucien had borrowed from someone else's memories.
He began to know it through his own experiences.
The mornings had a certain rhythm. Smoke rose from chimneys before sunrise, carts creaked toward the fields, and the river carried the voices of people washing tools or filling buckets before the day's work began.
By noon, the roads were usually dusty, the workshops loud, and the shade beneath the larger trees crowded with anyone fortunate enough to have a reason to rest.
Lucien found himself becoming part of that rhythm without realizing when it happened.
Tavian no longer looked surprised whenever Lucien appeared near the forge or volunteered to help with repairs.
Mirelle had stopped treating his increased sociability as a temporary illness and had begun involving him whenever she needed another pair of hands.
