The deep winter brought the community closer together.
Not through choice, but through necessity. The cold outside was the kind that had to be taken seriously—not life-threatening, but persistent, and it worked its way into everything if you gave it the chance. The work that needed to be done outdoors was done quickly and with focus. Everything else happened inside, around the fire, in the shelters, within the warmth they created together.
Samuel got to know more faces.
Not because he actively sought them out, but because in such close quarters it was nearly impossible to overlook anyone.
Rhan was an Orc Samuel had barely noticed before—of average height, quiet, with a habit of folding his hands on his knees whenever he sat down, as though he were waiting for something. It turned out that Rhan was one of the few people in the settlement who could sew well, and during winter that was a valuable skill. He was often found in a corner of the large shelter, repairing clothing in silence, with a concentration that reminded Samuel of Jorcx working the fields.
Then there was Vranna—young, perhaps two or three years older than Samuel, with a short, clipped laugh that appeared when you least expected it. She worked with Harra on the settlement's water supply and had a habit of commenting on things she observed, quietly, half aloud, as though carrying on a conversation with herself that occasionally escaped into the world around her.
One afternoon, while Samuel was carrying firewood into the shelter, Vranna said without looking up,
"You're stacking it wrong."
Samuel glanced at the pile.
"How wrong?" "That one at the bottom is too damp. It'll give way when it dries. Then the rest falls."
Samuel studied the wood.
She was right.
He rebuilt the stack.
Vranna said nothing more.
But she had said it.
The long winter evenings belonged to Vorzak.
Almost every night he told stories—not always creation myths, sometimes simpler things, tales from the community's past, names Samuel didn't know and events that had happened before his time. The children sat near the front, the adults behind them, and the conversations that had been loud and practical during the day became quieter and calmer in the evenings.
Samuel understood more now.
Not everything, but enough to follow the stories. When Vorzak spoke of places the community had once lived, Samuel could hear the mood in the room shift ever so slightly—not sad, but thoughtful, like someone remembering an object they had lost that somehow still belonged to them.
One evening Vorzak addressed him directly.
He did it casually, at the end of a story, when the children were already half asleep.
"Samuel. Did your homeland have storytellers too?"
Samuel thought for a moment.
"Not many anymore. It used to." "What happened to them?" "The stories moved into books."
Vorzak considered that.
"Books don't forget. But they don't listen, either."
Samuel nodded slowly.
"That's true."
Vorzak looked at him for another moment, then turned back to the children.
That was the first time Vorzak had asked me something like that.
As if my answer was something he genuinely wanted to know.
Jorcx spoke more during one long winter afternoon than Samuel had ever heard him speak before.
They sat together in the small shelter repairing tools—replacing handles, sharpening blades, hammering back in nails that had worked loose. Outside, snow was falling, a soft, steady snowfall that seemed to quiet the entire world.
Jorcx worked on a shovel while he spoke, not looking directly at Samuel, his voice even and calm as he talked about the fields.
About what would be different next year.
Where more should be planted.
Which patches of soil still needed rest.
What the harvest had revealed about the quality of the land.
He spoke of crops that struggled in this climate and others that thrived better here than elsewhere. Of streams he had discovered during autumn that could be used in spring.
Samuel listened and occasionally asked a question.
Jorcx answered every one.
It wasn't a conversation in the usual sense.
More like thinking out loud, and allowing Samuel to be present for it.
I think this is how Jorcx learns.
He thinks by speaking.
And he lets me listen.
When they finished and put the tools away, Jorcx stood up, glanced briefly at Samuel's work—the repaired handles, the sharpened blades—and nodded once.
Then he left.
Samuel remained seated for a while.
The snowfall drifting past the small window opening was steady and peaceful. Somewhere in the settlement someone laughed briefly, and then there was silence again.
He took the flat stone from his jacket pocket—he still carried it with him—and turned it between his fingers.
Dravan gave me a good stone.
He was right.
He slipped it back into his pocket and stood up.
Winter had its own way of measuring time.
Outside, every day looked almost identical to the one before it—gray skies, white plains, wind sweeping across grass hidden beneath snow.
But inside, within the warmth of the community, small things happened.
And they accumulated.
Samuel learned that Barak stepped outside every evening after supper, always alone, always in the same direction, and returned about ten minutes later.
He asked Dravan about it.
Dravan shrugged.
"He goes to visit his brothers." "He has brothers here?" "No."
Dravan said it matter-of-factly.
"They died during the attack."
Samuel looked toward the shelter entrance.
Barak had already returned and taken his seat, his expression calm and unreadable.
Everyone here has lost something.
I forget that sometimes.
He let the thought rest.
Around that time, a child Samuel had barely noticed before began appearing near him regularly.
A little girl named Yeva—younger than Dravan, perhaps six or seven years old—with two stiff braids that always sat slightly crooked. She rarely spoke, but she watched everything with an intensity that reminded him of Vorzak.
Sometimes she would simply sit beside Samuel without saying a word, observe whatever he was doing, and then stand up and leave once he was finished.
One evening she brought him a stone.
Smaller than Dravan's.
Reddish in color.
Samuel accepted it.
Dravan saw it from across the room and frowned.
"That's my sister." "I know." "She doesn't give stones to everyone." "Okay."
Dravan didn't seem entirely satisfied with that answer, but he said nothing more.
Samuel placed the red stone beside the gray one in his jacket pocket.
Around the middle of winter there was an evening unlike the others.
Earlier that day Urag had announced something Samuel hadn't fully understood, but whose effects he watched unfold throughout the day. Work ended earlier than usual. Ystra and Thessa prepared more food than normal. Rhan retrieved something from one of the crates Samuel had never seen opened before.
That evening the entire community gathered together.
Not just those who usually remained by the fire.
Everyone.
Even those who normally went to bed early.
Even the elders Samuel rarely saw.
Even an Orc he had never met before—a broad figure with a gray beard who sat at the edge of the circle and remained silent.
The meal was larger than usual.
And better.
Vorzak did not tell one story.
He told three.
Samuel sat in his usual place and watched.
Gustov settled beside him.
"What is this today?" "A day of remembrance."
Gustov spoke quietly.
"For those who are no longer with us."
Samuel looked around the circle.
Thirty faces illuminated by firelight.
He knew what some of them had lost—Barak his brothers, the community their village, their fields, their dead.
But he still didn't know most of their stories.
"What's the day called?" "We call it Cold Fire."
Vorzak spoke.
This time Samuel understood almost all of it.
He spoke of a man named Jorrath, whom Samuel had never known.
Of a woman named Seela.
Of children whose names he recited one by one, and whenever he did, the community fell silent in a way that felt heavier than ordinary silence.
Samuel listened.
At some point late in the evening, after Vorzak had finished and the community sat together quietly without feeling any need to speak, the old Orc with the gray beard—the one Samuel didn't know—approached him.
He looked at Samuel for a moment.
"You're the human." "Yes."
The old Orc nodded slowly.
"My name is Durrak."
Then he sat back down.
Samuel looked at Gustov.
"Who is Durrak?" "Urag's father."
Samuel glanced back toward him.
Durrak sat at the edge of the gathering, hands resting in his lap, quietly watching the fire.
Urag's father called me by name tonight.
He wasn't entirely sure what that meant.
But it felt like something.
The evening ended slowly, without announcement.
The children fell asleep first.
Then the elders.
Then everyone else.
The fire burned lower and lower.
No one hurried.
Samuel stayed until nearly everyone had gone.
Then he stood and made his way to his sleeping place.
He lay down, the two stones in his hand—the gray one and the red one—and pulled the blanket over himself.
Outside, the snow was still falling.