A Cabin, Not a Home

The cabin took longer to build than I expected.

I chose a site a short distance from the main road, far enough to be quiet but close enough that those who needed me could still find their way. The land was uneven, the soil stubborn, but workable. I built the foundation myself, measuring twice and cutting once, the way she had taught me.

The structure was simple. One main room. A workbench. Storage shelves. A small stove. No unnecessary flourishes. No memories built into the walls.

I moved what I needed from her apothecary, tools, ingredients, blank journals, but left her space untouched. Preserved. Sealed. A shrine I refused to worship in.

Here, in my own space, the work was different. Cleaner. I spent my days refining formulas, improving processes, and increasing output without ever touching magic. Herbs responded predictably. Chemistry obeyed rules. Outcomes could be controlled. Magic could not. People came for remedies. For salves. For tinctures that eased pain and slowed infection. I gave them what I could, what I knew was safe.

At night, I wrote. Not about her. Not directly. I documented improvements, recorded failures, and outlined processes that could be replicated without specialized training. If the war taught me anything, it was that systems outlast individuals.

I did not open her journal again. Whatever path she had been walking, I would not follow. Not because I lacked the ability. But because I understood the cost. And I had already paid enough. The cabin did what I built it to do. It kept everything contained. The work. The silence. And everything I refused to feel.

The cabin alone wasn’t enough. Efficiency created space. Space invited thought. I needed something else to build. The cabin had become efficient, too efficient. Every movement had purpose now, every tool close at hand, every hour accounted for. There was too much space left between tasks, too many moments where thought crept in uninvited. Work, I’d learned, only kept grief at bay if it demanded the whole of you. And I needed it gone.

So, I chose fire. The settlement’s old foundry had been abandoned months ago, stripped of anything portable when the supply lines collapsed. What remained was a shell: cracked stone, rusted fittings, a chimney choked with soot and debris. It sat far enough from the road that no one bothered with it anymore.

I took that as permission. The first week was nothing but clearing. Ash, rubble, old slag fused into the floor. I hauled stone out by hand, cataloging what could be reused and what would need replacing. My shoulders ached constantly. My hands blistered, then toughened.

It was good pain. Honest pain. I rebuilt the furnace brick by brick, shaping clay with the same care I used for salves. Structure mattered here. Heat had rules, just like chemistry. Ignore them, and you paid for it. I fired the kiln for the first time at dusk, watching the glow creep through the seams. The warmth filled the space slowly, steadily, until the air itself felt alive. I sat on an overturned crate and waited, feeding the fire just enough to keep it from surging.

Fire demanded attention. It left no room for memory. It did not allow for wandering thoughts. Once the foundry held heat reliably, I began working metal salvaged from the settlement, broken tools, warped fittings, scraps no one else wanted. I reforged them into something usable. Hinges. Nails. Simple blades. Nothing ornate. Utility over beauty. The rhythm of hammer on anvil was grounding. Strike, turn, strike again. Each blow reshaped something ruined into something functional. I found myself thinking less about what I’d lost and more about what I could still make.

When exhaustion finally forced me to stop, it was the kind that dragged me into sleep without argument.

After moments of forced sleep, was when I decided it was time I added the farm. I cleared a patch of land near the cabin, testing the soil before committing to anything permanent. It wasn’t ideal, but it would do with enough effort. I built raised beds to control drainage, reinforced them with metal brackets from the foundry, and planted hardy crops that didn’t ask much of the world.

Root vegetables. Greens. Things that grew quietly. I worked the soil in the mornings and returned to the foundry in the afternoons. Evenings were for expanding the cabin, another room added onto the back, framed carefully, insulated against the coming cold. Storage space. A second workbench. Somewhere to put things that didn’t belong in my immediate line of sight.

Somewhere my thoughts could spread out without overwhelming me. The days blurred together. I measured time by progress instead of memory. A reinforced beam here. A new tool rack there. Each improvement carved out a little more distance between myself and the questions I wasn’t ready to answer.

I thought about my mother anyway. About how she would have scolded me for overworking myself, then quietly admired the efficiency of it all. She had always believed self-sufficiency was a kindness, to myself and to others. The less you needed, the more you could give when it mattered. That belief lingered, even if I refused to follow it to its logical conclusion. At night, I sat outside the cabin and watched the fire die down in the foundry’s chimney before heading in for my daily bath. The glow faded slowly, embers clinging stubbornly to life long after the flames had gone.

I understood that. I kept my boundary. Magic remained untouched, unused, a tool set aside until the world forced my hand. But the days spent building, really building, taught me something I hadn’t expected.

I wasn’t waiting to live. I was building something that could survive what came next. Even if I didn’t yet know what that was...

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Thank you for reading! This concludes the preview of Spoils of War. If you would like to continue reading, please support the full release of the book by following me on TikTok!

Thank you again, truly, for spending your time entering Veyrith's shoes as he navigates grief. I hope you return to see the trials, tribulations, healing and challenges that lie in wait ahead of him.

With much love,
Jay M.C.