Robert spent his first full morning walking around the clan alone.
He had seen the growth in glimpses the previous evening, moving through the crowd that had gathered to welcome him home, but there was a difference between being greeted by it and actually walking through it with time to look.
He crossed the training grounds first, larger now than the space he remembered leaving, packed with more disciples than he could easily count, their forms running through drills under the supervision of instructors who had themselves been junior members not so long ago.
The market beyond it carried a steady hum of activity: merchants calling prices, cultivators moving between stalls, and the particular busy energy of a place that had outgrown its original purpose and kept building around the overflow.
