The frost was still clinging to the grass when I woke.
Harwin had already left the tent. His sword was gone, which meant he was out walking the perimeter or talking with the other caravan leaders. I sat up slowly, stretching my arms. My legs still ached from carrying crates the day before.
I was still sore. Still tired.
But I wasn't hollow anymore.
I grabbed the half-frozen bread from my pack and chewed slowly. It wasn't good—but it was enough.
As I stepped out of the tent, I noticed two guards warming their hands near a small fire. Familiar ones. Darrin and Tormund. Not that Tormund—this one had a lazy eye and crooked teeth, but a laugh like thunder. They were two of the few who had fought beside Harwin and survived the raid on the road.
Darrin looked up and nodded. "Levi."
"Morning," I said. "You two look half-dead."
"We feel worse," Tormund muttered, blowing into his hands. "Spent the night at a village a few miles east. Thought we'd find warm stew. Instead found cold stares and empty bowls."
My brow furrowed. "What happened?"
"Famine," Darrin answered simply. "Or something close to it. No hunting luck. No food trades. Too many mouths, not enough hands. Kids, mostly. Young ones."
Tormund spat into the frost. "Saw one lad gnawing bark. We left them what little we had, but that won't last two days."
I felt the old guilt try to crawl back in—but this time, I didn't shove it aside.
I asked, "What can I do?"
Tormund scratched his beard. "Thought you'd know. You've got… something about you. Some spark. You walked out of Winterfell like someone who mattered."
"I don't matter," I said quietly. "But I might have a way."
I walked a fair distance from camp, down past the edge of a mossy ravine, making sure no one was watching.
Then I opened the cheat engine file.
Only one value was still glowing. Swampberries: 4,923.
I could feel them in my bones now. That was the price. That was the deal.
I'd eaten one. I was bound to them.
Not meat, not cheese, not silver.
Just swampberries.
Still, they grew fast. Every minute, the number ticked upward by one or two. And even now, I could feel the strange weight of them—like if I reached out, I could pull them into being.
So I did.
One berry appeared in my palm. Real. Tangible. Tart and dark purple.
Then five more.
Then ten.
Then a full basket's worth.
I stared at the pile.
It wasn't gold. It wasn't glory.
But it was food.
That evening, I found Darrin and Tormund again. Harwin was elsewhere, speaking with traders and counting goods.
I gestured for the guards to follow me behind the camp.
When they saw the overflowing sack, their jaws slackened.
"Swampberries," Darrin said. "Gods… where'd you get so many?"
"They're real," I said. "Not poisoned. Not stolen. Just berries. Enough to fill a village. Maybe not forever, but it'll buy time."
Tormund picked one up and sniffed it. "Did you grow these?"
I hesitated. "Let's say they came from a gift. One I can't explain yet."
They both looked at me, uncertain.
"Do you think they'll take them?" I asked.
Darrin smiled faintly. "A hungry man doesn't ask where the bread came from. He just eats."
We rode out the next morning.
The village was smaller than I expected—maybe twenty homes built of timber and clay, most missing patches of roof. Smoke barely rose from the chimneys. No chickens. No dogs barking. Just silence.
Until a child peeked from behind a fence.
Then another.
Then a woman—thin and gray-eyed—opened her door and stepped out.
Tormund dismounted. "We brought food."
She stared at him.
Then at me.
Then at the sack I carried on my shoulder.
Swampberries.
Their eyes widened like we carried gold.
And for that moment—just that one moment—I felt something I'd never felt before.
Like maybe I mattered.
We left the sack and said little else.
The villagers didn't ask questions.
And I didn't offer lies.
But when I looked back at the children sharing handfuls of berries on the muddy steps of a crumbling home—
I knew I'd done something right.
That night, by the fire, Harwin sat beside me again.
"You disappeared this morning," he said.
"I helped a village," I said.
He turned his head. "How?"
"I found something I could give," I answered. "Something simple."
He grunted. "That's the start of a story worth hearing."