The first three days of the marketplace were educational.
Not bad. Just honest about what needed fixing.
The farm produce stall ran out of stock by midday on the first day because nobody had calculated the volume a settlement of sixty people generated in daily demand. Benneth restocked twice and still closed early.
By day two he had a rotation system running with Nalvik and two Seaphero men, harvesting in shifts so the counter stayed full through the afternoon.
The fish stall had the opposite problem. Joren brought more than the settlement could absorb in a day and the surplus sat in the cold section losing freshness.
By day three he and Azylan had worked out a reservation system, the restaurant taking a fixed daily allocation, the stall selling the rest through the morning only.
The workstation produced faster than the boutique stall could move fabric. Oliver noted this on the second day and came to me on the third.
"We need outside buyers." He said. "We're producing too much for just Eryndor."
"I know." I said. "Not yet."
He went back to his notebook.
The pricing took most of the first week. I sat with the council each evening after the marketplace closed and worked through the numbers. Farm produce at kingdom market standard. Fish below market because Eryndor's supply was consistent and didn't carry the transport cost that coastal fish carried inland. Fabric at the rates I had already established with the guild master in Medalline, minus the guild's commission since there was no guild involved.
Prepared food from Azylan's restaurant was the most complicated. He had never priced his cooking before. He sat across from me at the Sequoia table on the fourth evening with his notebook and the expression of a man confronting something he found genuinely uncomfortable.
"I don't know what my food is worth." He said.
"Per dish." I said. "Material cost plus labor. Then add thirty percent."
He looked at his notebook.
"The lobster." He said carefully.
"Price it honestly." I said. "People will pay."
He wrote something down.
"The tasting menu." He said. "Can I do a tasting menu."
"Yes." I said.
He wrote more things down. Faster.
The lease structure came at the end of the first week.
I called the council together in the morning before the marketplace opened.
"Every stall and store operates on a lease." I said. "Monthly rent, paid from your income. Stalls pay less, stores more. The restaurant, the boutique, the fish hall, the larger structures pay according to their size and traffic."
Aquen looked at the table. "How much."
I laid out the numbers.
Stalls at two gold coins monthly. Mid-size stores at five. The restaurant at eight. The boutique at six. The fish hall at four.
"It starts after three months." I said. "That gives everyone time to find their rhythm before the cost comes in."
"Where does the rent go?" Favio said.
"Eryndor's fund." I said. "Infrastructure maintenance, supply costs, anything the settlement needs collectively."
"And supplies?" Elder Elka said.
"Paid for." I said. "Everything at kingdom market rate. If the herb or material isn't on the kingdom market, I'll set the price based on the closest equivalent."
Benneth crossed his arms. "We're paying for herbs we grow ourselves?"
"You're paying the settlement fund for the use of what the settlement produces." I said. "The fund pays salaries, maintains the barrier, funds the infrastructure. It cycles. Nobody's losing money."
Benneth thought about that.
"Right." He said.
The modernization happened quietly, in the margins of everything else.
I adjusted the stalls and stores over the course of several days, small changes each time, the kind that accumulated into something different.
Display lighting built into the counter edges so goods showed properly regardless of the time of day. Storage systems in the back of each stall organized for access rather than just capacity.
The restaurant got a service counter separate from the kitchen entrance so Azylan could manage orders without crossing the cooking space.
The boutique got a display window for ready made clothes. Oliver stood in front of it on the morning I finished it and looked at the fabric arranged inside it with the expression of someone seeing something they had wanted without knowing they wanted it.
"We need a sign." He said.
"Make one." I said.
He made one that afternoon. Olivia painted it. It went up above the display window by evening.
The fish hall got a wet counter with running water fed from the lake's overflow system, the fish staying live in the current until sold. Joren tested it on the first morning, put both hands on the counter, and looked at the water running through it.
"This is better than what we had in Seaphero." He said.
"Yes." I said.
He nodded slowly. "Yes it is." He said. More to himself than to me.
The vote happened on a cold morning.
I didn't call it. The council called it. Elder Elka told me about it the morning of, which was the first I heard of it, with the particular tone she used when something had already been decided and she was informing me as a courtesy.
The marketplace was closed for the hour. Everyone gathered at the Sequoia tree the way they gathered for everything important, the original residents and the Seaphero survivors and the elves and Flame, filling the benches and the grass around them.
Elder Elka stood.
"Eryndor needs a head." She said. "Someone to represent it, to make the final call when the council is divided, to be the face of this settlement to the outside world." She looked at me. "We've already decided. We're asking as a formality because Leigh deserves to be asked."
I looked at her.
"No." I said.
"We haven't asked yet." She said pleasantly.
"You were going to say king." I said.
"We were." Favio said. "But we thought you'd say no to king."
"I'm saying no to everything." I said.
"Mayor." Torra said.
Everyone looked at him.
He was sitting on the bench with his feet not quite reaching the ground, holding his fish from the market, completely unbothered by the weight of the moment.
"In the stories Brother Leigh tells me about his other life." Torra said. "The person who runs a town is called a mayor. Not a king. Not a lord. Just a mayor."
He looked at me. And everyone looked at Torra thinking it was maybe just a children's story about another life.
And I just brushed it off.
"You're not a king." He said. "You're Leigh. So mayor."
The Sequoia tree was quiet.
Aquen looked at Torra. Then at me.
"Mayor." He said. Trying the word. "Mayor Leigh."
"No title." I said.
"Just Leigh then." Elder Elka said, smiling. "Who happens to be the mayor."
I looked at the gathered settlement.
At sixty people who had arrived here by various routes, some of them barely alive when they got here, all of them standing in a functioning settlement with running water and a marketplace and a salary and a lake full of fish and a barrier that kept the night safe.
"Fine." I said. "Mayor."
The cheer that went up was disproportionate to the word. Torra was the loudest. Flame was a close second. Azylan was already back in the restaurant.
Two days later I called the council together again.
"Eryndor opens to outside merchants." I said. "Third party trade. Controlled, vetted, no access beyond the marketplace."
Elder Elka straightened slightly. "Outsiders coming in."
"Merchants only." I said. "Through the main gate. The residential zone stays private. The barrier stays active. They come to the marketplace, they conduct their business, they leave."
"Why now?" Aquen said.
"Because the salary structure works." I said. "The marketplace runs. The farm produces surplus. The boutique produces more fabric than Eryndor can absorb. The lake is overstocked for internal demand." I looked at the council. "Income needs to flow both directions or the market stagnates. Outside merchants bring money in."
Favio leaned forward. "What about the demon situation. Outsiders coming through means outsiders knowing where we are."
"The illusion on the path stays active." I said. "Merchants who come here come through a route I control. They see what I decide they see. The location stays protected."
Favio sat back.
"There's another reason." Elder Elka said. She was looking at me with that particular attention. "Isn't there."
I looked at the table.
"The original residents have been inside these walls all their lives." I said. "Before that they were inside them out of necessity. Fear of the night, fear of the monsters, fear of the winter." I paused. "That's done. Eryndor is safe. The barrier holds. The demons haven't breached it." I looked at the council. "People should be able to live. Not just survive. Outside merchants mean Eryndor interacts with the world on its own terms, from a position of safety, without anyone having to leave to find it."
The table was quiet.
Elder Elka folded her hands.
"When do we open?" She said.
"End of the month." I said. "Gives the stalls time to build stock."
She nodded.
Aquen looked at Favio. Favio looked at Elder Elka.
"End of the month." Aquen said.