Twenty days passed.
By the end of the stretch Ridgebrook had the look of a place that had been slapped back together and told to keep fighting. Smoke no longer hung like a permanent shroud—only the occasional curl from the pyres remained. New timber patched the eastern wall; fresh stakes drove where charred ones had been ripped away. The refugees had swelled the village by nearly fifty souls, and Sun Tzu had organized them into squads so precisely that even Leonidas, who rarely praised anything, gave a slow, approving nod.
Leonidas trained each morning, slow motions to coax his wound into willingness. Vlad raided the woods regularly and returned with meat and trophies, some of which the children pretended not to stare at. Orin drilled the younger militia until their shields became extensions of themselves. Elias walked with a new, careful pride, practicing footwork like a supplicant learning scripture—Rank 1 or not, he treated every motion like a promise he feared to break.
Liam felt the familiar hum first as a pressure behind his eyes, a warmth at the base of his skull that meant the Ledger had ticked. He swallowed. The system's little chime had become intimate and terrifying over the past months.
[SUMMON COOLDOWN COMPLETE] flashed only to Liam's sight, a private thing. He tightened his grip on the ledger, the paper a physical reminder of the impossible.
Sun Tzu, walking at his side, glanced at him. "You are quiet."
"Thoughts," Liam lied. "Mostly thoughts."
"Loud enough," Sun Tzu said dryly.
A whirl of air gathered near the old well. The villagers paused mid-task, the clank of hammers stuttering to a stop. Even Leonidas and Vlad looked up as a thin column of pale light and shadow unspooled into the courtyard.
When the distortion cleared, a man stood there as if he had always been meant to. He was tall and lean, hair long and matted, beard like a black tangle. His eyes shone with feverish warmth, and the aura around him—Rank 1—felt odd, oily, like smoke around a flame. He breathed in deeply, smiling as if the world tasted like a new curiosity.
"Ahh," he said softly. "New soil. Strange winds."
A woman dropped her hammer and stepped back. An old man crossed himself. Children huddled behind their mothers.
Vlad's grin split his face. "Oho. This one smells of fun."
Leonidas didn't smile. "Identify yourself."
The man — Rasputin — tilted his head, tasting the word as if it were a spice. "Grigori Yefimovich," he said. "I have walked far to find voices."
Sun Tzu stepped forward with measured calm. "You are welcome. State your intention."
Rasputin's smile stretched, a slow, unsettling bloom. "I bring hands. I bring touch. I bring… comfort for bodies that refuse comfort."
Liam moved before panic could spread. He forced an affable smile. "We recruit from far places. He—uh—he is a healer of sorts. From distant lands."
Rasputin's eyes slid to Leonidas. "You smell of iron and old orders."
Leonidas tightened his grip on his spear. "You reek of unpredictability."
"Unpredictable things are the most honest," Rasputin murmured. He shifted his focus, and a man with a bandaged rib—one of the militia, pale and still in pain—stumbled forward, curiosity eclipsing caution. "Can he help?" someone whispered.
Rasputin stepped closer to the pinned man like a tide closing over sand. He placed his hand flat on the bandaged side of the man's chest and bent forward, eyes closed in concentration. There was no miraculous light, no impossible stitchwork of bone; only the slow, deliberate movement of breath and focus.
Liam felt it like a pressure under his ribs—Rasputin guiding qi, not conjuring miracles. The man's face loosened. His drawn features slackened as pain withdrew like a tide easing from the shore. He inhaled deep, then exhaled as if waking from a long sleep.
"It hurts less," the man said, astonished. He flexed his hands, pressing at the bandage. "Still sore… but not like before. I can—breathe."
Sun Tzu watched with thinly veiled interest. "He manipulates qi flow to reduce pain and calm spasms," he observed quietly. "Stabilization, not cure."
Rasputin opened his eyes and grinned. "Yes. I make the body hear itself again. I do not mend bones with prayer. I help the living do what they must to repair."
"Not magic," Liam said aloud, relieved at the correction that rose in his own voice. He had to be careful—anything that read as supernatural would shred their fragile politics. "Natural… qi technique."
The crowd relaxed marginally. Villagers murmured, skeptical but grateful. A healer hurried over, fingers trembling as she checked the man's pulse. "He's steadier," she breathed.
Vlad clapped slowly. "He's a useful monster."
Rasputin laughed—a strange, wet sound that made several heads tilt. "Useful. Yes. Useful is a good word."
Sun Tzu inclined his head. "You will not be allowed to act without order. You will answer to the chief and to me in all matters of the village."
Rasputin's gaze slid to Liam and then back. "Rules," he said with a crooked smile. "Paper fences. I like to see what their seams hold."
Liam swallowed and forced a smile he didn't feel. "We'll find you a place to stay. Healers' hut—space near the well."
Rasputin's laugh came again, softer. "Lead me. I will lay hands where the heart aches."
As he followed Liam through the courtyard, he sniffed the air and leaned close enough to whisper, "You called me, little summoner."
Liam's fingers gripped the ledger so hard his knuckles blanched. "No—no. I said I needed a healer, not a prophet."
Rasputin's eyes flashed with amusement. "Words are nets. I slide through."
Leonidas watched the exchange like a wolf watching a fox. Vladimir—Vlad—sagged into a crate and chuckled. "A prophet who heals. A parasite who pays his dues with touch. I like the symmetry."
Sun Tzu's gaze lingered on Rasputin long after he passed. "His approach is effective. But it is dangerous. He tampers with the will as much as the body."
"Good," Vlad said, smiling wide. "Someone to pry minds open."
The healer's hut smelled of herbs and boiled broth. Rasputin settled cross-legged on the floor as if he had been there his whole life. He waved his hands lazily, and refugees clustered at the doorway, drawn by rumor and curiosity.
Over the next hours he moved through the village like a wind, placing a hand on a groaning hip here, leaning over a fever there. In some cases the relief was immediate: spasm eased, breath slowed, nausea subsided. In others, the change was ephemeral—a night without fits, a day where fever cooled for a while. No one who had been dead rose. No grievous wound vanished. The limits were plain even to the superstitious: broken bones still required splints and time; deep cuts needed stitches and watchful hands.
But the perception mattered. The villagers saw tangible benefit and clustered around him, hungry for the comfort he offered.
That evening, when the work slowed and the sun sank behind the repaired palisade, Liam checked the Ledger with a trembling patience.
[NEXT SUMMON: 30 DAYS]
He exhaled and put the ledger away. One arrival down, many more chapters to survive.
Rasputin sat by the well, humming an old song. Children dared each other to approach and then sat slack-jawed when he fed them a bone-broth and told them brief, half-sinister stories. Vlad lounged nearby, eyes bright, and Leonidas watched from the rampart, hands folded on his spear.
Sun Tzu came to Liam's side and said, quietly, "We gained a healer. We gained a wild card. Use both with care."
Liam nodded, feeling the squeeze of responsibility all over again. The village had grown stronger in twenty days—new hands, new walls, a new name that carried farther than Ridgebrook had any right to. But a strange man with a dangerous gift had come with all the discomfort of a healing that was also a promise.
Rasputin's smile caught the last light of day. "Tomorrow," he murmured to no one in particular, "we will see what else can be made to listen."
Liam forced himself to sleep not with the comfort of victory but with the thin, wary hope that they had chosen wisely.