Grog walked the walls at dawn.
He'd been doing it for days now—weeks, maybe. Time blurred when you were healing. The same routine, the same path, the same gray light rising over the hills.
His body was better. The wounds were closed, the scars pink and new. His legs were steady, his arms were strong, his chest no longer screamed when he breathed too deep.
The apple had done its work.
He walked.
---
The wall was old.
Stone worn smooth by centuries of wind and rain, crumbling in places where no one had bothered to repair it. The keep had been built for defense once, back when the border was closer, back when enemies came with armies instead of shadows.
Now the wall was just... there. A reminder of things that had been important once.
Grog walked its length. Tower to tower. End to end.
The guards knew him now. They nodded when he passed, didn't ask questions, didn't try to make conversation. They'd learned that he came for the walking, not the talking.
He liked that about them.
---
He stopped at the eastern tower.
The hills rolled away below, green and gold in the morning light. Farms dotted the valleys. Smoke rose from chimneys. The world was waking up, ordinary people living ordinary lives.
He watched.
In the old timeline, he'd never had time to watch. Always moving, always fighting, always running toward the next thing. The next battle. The next death. The next moment when everything would end.
Now he stood on a wall, watching the sun rise, and nothing was ending.
It was strange.
---
"Mind if I join you?"
Grog turned. A guard—young, maybe twenty, with a face that hadn't seen enough battles yet. He was holding a cup of something hot, steam rising in the cold air.
Grog shrugged. "It's your wall."
The guard laughed. "The wall belongs to Renshaw. I just walk it." He offered the cup. "Tea. Marta's. She puts honey in it when I ask nice."
Grog took it. Drank.
It was good.
"I'm Ren," the guard said. "I've been watching you walk. Every morning, same time, same path. You don't miss a day."
Grog nodded.
"That's discipline." Ren leaned against the wall. "My father had discipline. He was a soldier too. Died on the border when I was twelve."
Grog looked at him.
"You followed him."
Ren shrugged. "What else was I going to do? Stay on the farm? Watch the sheep?" He shook his head. "This is better. The wall, the view, the tea." He gestured at the hills. "You see things up here. People down there, living their lives. They don't know we're watching. Don't know we're the only thing between them and what's out there."
Grog thought about the hunters. The door. The things that might still be waiting.
"They know," he said quietly. "They just don't want to."
Ren looked at him for a long moment.
"That's true." He was quiet. "You saw things. At the battle. Things most soldiers don't see."
Grog didn't answer.
Ren didn't push.
---
They walked together.
Ren talked—about the keep, the soldiers, the cooks who made the food and the servants who cleaned the rooms. He talked about his father, about the farm, about the girl he'd left behind when he joined the guard.
Grog listened.
He'd learned to listen. In the old timeline, he'd been too busy fighting to hear the stories around him. Too busy surviving to notice the people who were just... living.
Now he had time.
"She writes letters," Ren said, flushing slightly. "Every week. She tells me about the crops, the weather, the new foal that was born last spring. Small things. Nothing important."
"It's important," Grog said.
Ren looked at him.
"If she writes, it's important."
Ren was quiet for a moment. Then he smiled.
"Yeah. It is."
---
They stopped at the western tower.
The sun was higher now, burning off the mist that clung to the valley. The hills were clearer, sharper, the farms visible below.
Ren leaned against the stone.
"The other guards talk," he said. "About you. About the battle. About the things you killed."
Grog waited.
"They say you fought a monster. Something bigger than anything they've ever seen. Something that shouldn't exist." He met Grog's eyes. "Is that true?"
Grog considered the question.
"There are things in this world," he said slowly, "that don't belong. Things that come from somewhere else. Things that want what we have."
Ren absorbed this.
"And you killed one of them."
"The hunters killed it. I just helped."
Ren shook his head. "That's not what I heard."
Grog said nothing.
---
They walked the rest of the wall in silence.
Ren didn't ask more questions. He seemed to understand that some things didn't need to be talked about. Some things just needed to be carried.
At the end of the wall, he stopped.
"Same time tomorrow?" he asked.
Grog nodded. "Same time."
Ren smiled. Walked away.
Grog stayed on the wall, watching the sun climb higher, watching the world wake up.
---
That afternoon, he found Lira in the training yard.
She was shooting—arrows punching holes in targets, leaving clean circles in the wood. Her bow was a blur in the afternoon light.
"You're getting faster," he said.
She didn't stop. "Always."
He sat on a crate. Watched.
She shot for another hour. By the time she stopped, the targets were unrecognizable, nothing but holes and splinters.
"Good session," she said, sitting beside him.
"You're getting restless."
She looked at him. "You notice everything."
"Not everything."
She leaned back. "We've been here a month. A month of healing, waiting, pretending we're normal." She looked at the sky. "I'm not normal."
"None of us are."
"That's the problem." She turned to him. "The mages think the door is out there. Somewhere. Mirena found something on the map. Something close."
Grog's jaw tightened. "She didn't tell me."
"She's waiting. Making sure." Lira shrugged. "That's what she does. She waits until she's certain."
He thought about that.
"The door could be anywhere."
"It could be here." Lira's voice was quiet. "Right now. Waiting. Just like the hunters waited."
He had no answer for that.
---
That night, Grog stood on the wall alone.
The stars were bright, the sky clear, the world quiet. Below, the keep was dark, the soldiers sleeping, the servants resting.
He thought about the old timeline. About the years he'd spent fighting, running, trying to change things. About the moment when it all ended.
Now he was here. Healing. Waiting.
And the door was still out there.
He looked at the hills, the farms, the ordinary lives spread below him. People who didn't know what was coming. Who might never know, if he could help it.
He stayed on the wall until the sun rose.