"If we run, they'll hunt us. If we hide, we'll starve. But if we build—if we strengthen this wall, dig our trenches, and stand together—we can defend what's ours."
Elara stepped forward beside him. "The Builder is right. We've already done the impossible once. Let's do it again."
Lukas lifted one of the new bricks from the stack and raised it high. "For the village!"
The people answered with a roar.
"For the village!"
Adrian's chest tightened—not with fear, but with fierce pride. So this is what leadership costs, he thought. Not loyalty, but the burden of being the one who can't give up.
Later that night, as the torches burned low, Elara approached him by the wall.
"You know they'll come soon," she said quietly. "You can't build fast enough to stop an army."
"I don't plan to stop them," Adrian said. "I plan to make them regret coming."
She frowned. "You sound less like a builder and more like a commander."
He looked at the moonlit wall, hands calloused from work. "In this world, maybe they're the same thing."