8; The First Thing That Changed

Serelyn’s POV

I spent most of the morning checking numbers. The supplier’s revised quotation sat open on my laptop, beside the original order confirmation. I had called twice already, hoping someone would admit there had been a mistake.

But nobody did and the price increase was real. I pulled up the old records from my first life, searching for the date I remembered the manufacturer announcing its adjustment. I had kept the information because it affected several businesses I followed, including one of Darian’s suppliers.

The announcement had come weeks later, not like it’s now. 

I called the supplier again.

“Mrs. Vale, I understand your concern,” the man said when he answered. “But we received the notice yesterday.”

“What prompted the increase?”

“Demand, apparently. Several manufacturers have reported unusually high orders.”

“From where?”

“I wasn’t given that information.”

I tapped my pen against the desk, “Are you experiencing delays as well?”

“Some, nothing severe yet, but distributors are already trying to secure stock before prices climb further.”

I thanked him and ended the call. For several seconds, I stared at the screen.

Unusually high demand, well it could have been a routine market fluctuation. Manufacturers changed prices all the time. Distributors panicked over rumors, and businesses rushed to buy before costs increased. But I knew what I remembered and this wasn’t supposed to be happening yet.

I opened my notebook and wrote three words across a blank page.

THE FUTURE CHANGES.

The sentence looked almost ridiculous. I had been treating my memories like a map. I knew which disasters were coming, when essential goods would become scarce, and which places would remain safer than others. Every decision I made was based on the belief that I had enough time to prepare.

But what if my actions were already changing the sequence of events?

What if another person made a decision I couldn’t predict?

What if the future I remembered was no longer the future I was heading toward?

I shut the notebook. Panic wouldn’t help me. Neither would pretend nothing had changed. I needed a different strategy.

Instead of purchasing supplies according to the order I remembered from my first life, I opened a new spreadsheet and divided everything into three priority levels.

Food, medicine, water, fuel and power went first. Construction materials, tools, security equipment and communication devices came second. Comfort items came last.

I reviewed every order and removed anything that wasn’t essential. Decorative furniture for the estate could wait. 

Extra household appliances could wait. Even some of the more expensive finishing materials would have to be postponed. I wasn’t building a luxury property. I was building a place where people couldn’t starve me behind a locked door again.

By the time I finished revising the list, my shoulders ached, but the plan was cleaner. If prices rose faster than expected, I could redirect the money without sacrificing the necessities. I saved the document and sent the updated schedule to the relevant contractors.

Then I noticed another problem. Too many deliveries were still scheduled through the main entrance. I was reaching for my phone when a familiar voice came from the doorway.

“Why did you change the delivery schedule?”

I looked up as Kaeldric stood there with a tablet in one hand. His dark shirt was rolled neatly at the sleeves, and his expression suggested he had already examined every change I’d made.

“Good morning to you too.”

“Good morning.” He glanced at the laptop. “Now answer the question.”

I turned the screen toward him, “One of my suppliers increased his prices earlier than expected. I’m prioritizing essential supplies and postponing anything unnecessary.”

He studied the revised list, “You’ve reduced the construction orders.”

“Some of them. I’m not cancelling the work. I’m moving money toward things I can’t afford to lose access to.”

“Reasonable.”

I blinked, “That’s all?”

“Did you expect an argument?”

“I expected questions.”

“You’ve explained the reason for the change.”

He scrolled through the schedule before looking at me again, “There’s another problem, though.”

Of course there was.

“What now?”

“If you continue bringing large quantities through the main entrance, someone will eventually notice.”

I leaned back.

“I’ve already started limiting what the workers can access.”

“That’s not enough. They don’t need to enter the storage areas to notice the number of deliveries. A driver sees one truck. A worker sees another. Someone at a nearby property sees the third. Eventually, they start asking questions.”

I looked at the schedule again. He was right. I had been thinking about what each person could see inside the estate. I hadn’t considered what the pattern itself revealed.

“How would you change it?”

Kaeldric pulled a chair closer to the desk, “First, we separate the routes. Construction materials come through the main entrance during working hours. Food and household supplies use the service entrance when possible. Anything requiring restricted access is delivered directly to an approved receiving area.”

“And the storage?”

“We divide it into zones. Contractors only enter the areas necessary for their work. Security maintains the access records. Deliveries are spread across different days, and we stop advertising the schedule through predictable routines.”

I studied the plan he began sketching on my printed map.

“What about concealed storage?”

“We can use the existing outbuildings, provided we inspect them first. But don’t hide everything in one place. If someone discovers it, you’ve created a single point of failure.”

I nodded and added the note. For the next half hour, we worked through the arrangements. He identified blind spots in my delivery plan, and I adjusted the quantities according to what needed immediate protection. 

We disagreed over the service road, checked the measurements, and found a compromise that required only minor changes. It was efficient.

More importantly, I didn’t have to explain every instinct behind my decisions to get useful advice.

Kaeldric wasn’t trying to take control of the estate. He was helping me see the weaknesses in my plan. For the first time, I understood the difference.

Then I made a mistake. One of the suppliers called to say a delivery truck was already nearby. The shipment contained water containers and packaged medical supplies, both of which I’d moved to the highest priority. I should have told the driver to wait. Instead, I gave him directions to the service entrance and went outside to meet him myself.

I wanted to verify the quantities before signing the receipt. It was a simple task, and I didn’t see the point in involving another person.

Unfortunately, the driver arrived earlier than expected. By the time I reached the service area, two workers were helping unload the containers. One of them had already opened the truck’s rear doors, revealing several rows of sealed cartons stacked behind the water supplies.

He stopped when he saw me.

“Mrs. Vale, are we expecting all of this?”

For one brief second, my mind went blank. Then I forced myself to relax.

“Yes, the estate will eventually accommodate tenants and staff, and we’re preparing for emergency operations during the renovation. Water storage and medical supplies are part of the plan.”

The explanation wasn’t entirely false. Viremont would need both eventually. The worker glanced at the cartons.

“That’s a lot of medical supplies.”

“We’re setting up a proper treatment room. I’d rather have the equipment ready before we need it than discover we’re missing something when there’s an emergency.”

He nodded.

“Fair enough.”

I signed the delivery receipt and directed them to the designated receiving area. Once the truck was empty, I checked the quantities and sent the driver away.

The worker returned to his task without asking another question. I should have felt relieved.

Instead, I felt irritated with myself. I had spent the morning talking about information control, only to create an unnecessary problem because I wanted to save myself a few minutes.

When I turned around, Kaeldric was standing near the service entrance. He had seen enough. I waited for the criticism. He glanced at the empty truck, then at the clipboard in my hand.

“You don’t need to do everything yourself.”

“I handled it.”

“I noticed.”

His voice held no mockery, which somehow made the words harder to dismiss.

“I gave him a reasonable explanation. He accepted it.”

“And what happens when the next worker asks a question you can’t answer? Or when you have three deliveries arriving at once and nobody else knows what to do?”

“I’ll manage.”

Kaeldric’s expression remained steady.

“That’s not a plan. That’s you volunteering to become the weakest point in your own operation.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it. He wasn’t wrong, and I hated that I couldn’t argue with him.

“I learned not to rely on people,” I said finally.

Something in his expression shifted, though his voice remained calm.

“There’s a difference between relying on someone and using the right person.”

I looked at him. He continued before I could respond.

“You don’t have to trust everyone with everything. You need to know who is responsible for what, make sure they can do the job, and have a backup when they can’t. That’s how you build a system that doesn’t collapse the moment you’re unavailable.”

I glanced toward the estate. For seven years, I had made myself indispensable to the Voss family. I paid the bills, solved the emergencies and covered every failure. I had mistaken being needed for being valued.

Now I was making the same mistake in a different form. I wanted to survive so badly that I was trying to carry every part of the plan alone.

“Fine,” I said, picking up my clipboard. “We’ll assign someone to oversee deliveries.”

“Good.”

“And I want access to every report.”

“Of course.”

He didn’t tell me to relax. He didn’t promise to protect me from every possible problem. He simply helped me fix the one I had created. I found that more reassuring than I wanted to admit.

That evening, I returned home with the revised logistics plan saved in three separate places. My phone buzzed while I was preparing to review the next day’s orders.

~Darian.

I considered ignoring the message, but curiosity won.

Darian: We need to talk about the company tomorrow. I read it twice.

No greeting. No explanation. No question about whether I was available. Just an expectation that I would show up because he had decided I should. I placed the phone facedown on the desk.

For seven years, a message like that would have sent me searching through my accounts, wondering how much money he needed and how quickly I could arrange it. This time, I wondered what had gone wrong badly enough that he was asking me to discuss the company.

I didn’t reply. Instead, I opened my notebook and wrote down the next day’s priorities.

Food. Medicine. Water. Fuel. Power. Then I added one more line beneath them.

Find out what Darian wants without offering him anything.

I closed the notebook. Tomorrow, I will hear him out but whatever was happening to his company, I wasn’t going to let it become my emergency again.