As the meeting broke up and people filed out, Cael remained behind, staring at his plans. The enormity of what he'd just committed to was sinking in. This wasn't just one well or one project. This was a complete systemic transformation of an entire estate, with thousands of lives depending on his modern knowledge translating correctly to medieval reality.

"Sarek?"

He turned to find his father still sitting at the table, watching him with an expression Cael couldn't quite read.

"Father?"

"Your grandfather would be proud," Count Vance said softly. "I wish he could see this. See you."

Cael's throat tightened unexpectedly. "I wish I could have known him."

"He'd have loved to teach you everything he knew about construction. You have his mind, that engineer's way of seeing the world as systems and structures." His father paused. "I always thought I'd failed you. That I'd been too sick, too absent, let you fall into bad habits. But maybe... maybe you just needed the right crisis to become who you were meant to be."

Cael crossed to his father's chair and knelt beside it, meeting the older man's eyes. "You didn't fail me. You never failed me."

It was true, even though Count Vance wasn't really his father, even though the man he was thinking of was the original Sarek. But in this moment, with this dying man looking at him with such hope and pride, Cael meant every word.

"Don't die on me," Cael said quietly. "Not yet. I need you to see this work. I need you to see what we're going to build together."

Count Vance smiled, reaching out to clasp Cael's shoulder with a trembling hand. "I'll do my best, son. I'll do my best."

That night, Cael stood at his window looking out over the estate. Somewhere out there in the darkness, fifty thousand people were sleeping, unaware that their fates were being determined by a Korean engineer trapped in a noble's body, armed with modern knowledge and desperate determination.

"I can do this," he told himself quietly. "I've built bigger projects. Faced worse deadlines. Solved harder problems."

But even as he said it, doubt crept in. Those had been projects in his world, with modern resources, reliable materials, established building codes. This was medieval infrastructure with pre-industrial technology and a ticking clock counting down to execution.

Cael turned back to his desk, where tomorrow's plans waited. Doubt was natural. Fear was understandable. But neither would stop him.

He had work to do.

The estate wouldn't save itself.