The back trail opened into the meadow with a quiet hush, the tall grass swaying in slow, golden waves. Frost still clung to the shaded edges, melting in thin ribbons beneath the morning sun.
Barius spotted her almost immediately.
Alva sat where the grass grew tallest, knees tucked to her chest, apron pooled around her like a wilted flower. She wasn't sobbing, she wasn't loud at all. Just small. Still. Trying to hide her sniffles in the crook of her arm.
Barius approached quietly, boots whispering through the grass.
"Alva?" he said softly.
She startled upright, then scrubbed her sleeve across her face, pretending she hadn't.
"I'm not crying," she said automatically, even though her voice trembled and her lashes were damp.
Barius's heart squeezed.
A fallen birch log lay half-buried a few steps from her. He lowered himself onto it slowly, the leg twinged, but he didn't show it.
For a moment, neither spoke.
The breeze rustled the grass between them.
Finally, Barius said gently, "You heard more than we wanted you to."
Alva didn't lift her head. She fiddled with a bent stem of grass, twisting it until it snapped. "You kissed Nyla..."
Barius breathed in, "I did."
"Why did you kiss her if you are going to leave? I knew you'd go," she whispered. "I just hoped it wouldn't be today."
Barius swallowed, the ache rising in his chest again. "I didn't plan for it to be."
She toed at the dirt. "Are you...different now?"
He exhaled softly. "A little...but I'm still me..."
Alva looked up then, not angrily, but searching his face with wide, earnest eyes.
"But not bad different."
"No," he said quietly. "I hope not."
She hugged her knees tighter. "You kissed Nyla." she said again. "Grown ups don't kiss each other for no reason."
Barius swallowed hard, "I shouldn't have done that..."
"Did you not want to?"
"No I definitely wanted to..." He glanced down at her, "It's complicated."
"Is it your family?"
A small, pained smile touched his mouth. "Yes."
"Does that mean you don't want to stay with us anymore?"
He shook his head immediately. "It means I shouldn't. Not that I don't want to."
Alva blinked hard. "What's the difference?"
Barius leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on his knees, a posture both thoughtful and strangely regal without meaning to be.
"Wanting," he said gently, "is the part of me that sat at your table and learned to breathe again. The part that liked fixing your firewood pile. The part that thought the Hollow felt...safe."
Something softened in her face.
"But shouldn't," he continued, voice low, "is the part that remembers I might bring danger to your door. And that I couldn't bear if anything happened to you or Nyla because of me."
Alva stared at him, lips parting in a small, trembling breath. "Will it be dangerous...where you're going?" she whispered.
He didn't lie.
"Yes."
"And you'll be alone?"
"For a while," he said gently. "But I've done it before."
She looked down sharply, twisting another stem of grass. The thought of it seemed to rise tears out of her. "What if you get into danger?" She wiped at her cheek. "People who leave don't come back."
Barius drew a slow breath. His new memories, foggy but sharp-edged, flickered painfully. His brother's training yard. His father's voice. His last night in Astai. The danger that shadowed him even now.
He didn't pretend.
"I can't promise I'll return," he said softly, voice rough with honesty. "But I can promise something else."
Alva lifted her head slightly, hope flickering timidly.
"I won't disappear without saying goodbye."
Her throat tightened, and she nodded hard, pressing her sleeve to her eyes again.
After a moment, she stood, walked the few steps to him, and leaned her small forehead against his shoulder not fully hugging him, just seeking a little contact, a little anchor.
Barius froze for a heartbeat.
Then his hand rose, steady and gentle, settling on the back of her head.
They stayed like that for a quiet, suspended moment.
The grass swayed.
The wind softened.
But beneath the ground, faint and rhythmic, something trembled.
Barius felt it before he consciously registered it.
A shiver through the earth.
A pulse.
Distant.
Approaching.
Hooves.
Alva lifted her head slightly, sensing his stillness.
"What is it?"
Barius listened.
The breeze carried the faint echo again, steady, growing, unmistakable.
He stood slowly, eyes fixed on the line of trees at the edge of the meadow.
"...We should go back," he said quietly.
"Why?" Alva whispered.
He reached for her hand.
"Back to the cottage, quickly."
And through the trees, unseen but getting closer, the riders pressed on toward the Hollow.
Nyla had just stepped outside when she heard it, a sound she had never heard in the Hollow before.
A scream.
Short. Sharp. Cut off too fast.
She froze, broom still in hand.
Who was that?
"Nyla!"
That was Maris.
"Maris?" she called, brow furrowing as she scanned the yard. "Maris, are you—?"
Another cry split the air, this one choked, panicked, unmistakably hers.
Nyla dropped the broom.
She ran. Was the baby finally coming?
Her boots pounded across frost-hardened earth as she sprinted toward the main path. Her heart was already in her throat, every instinct screaming wrong, wrong, wrong.
Maris stumbled into view around the corner, clutching her belly with one hand, the other outstretched toward Nyla. her eyes were raw, glistening with grief.
"Run!" she gasped. "Nyla, run!"
Behind her, hooves thundered.
Nyla stopped dead, breath locking in her chest, eyes widening as shadows burst through the treeline. Riders. Armoured, brass devil masks adorning their faces. Not Eodwyn's colors.
Astai's, and these were not rescuers.
The first rider swung his blade before Nyla could process the movement. She stumbled backwards, a metal swish brushing past her fast enough that she felt the air.
Ewan who had been rushing toward Maris to shield her, was struck down in one clean, brutal arc. His body folded to the ground, a wet, horrible sound following after.
Nyla's eyes widening, the sound of her own screaming drowned out by the deafening pulse of her heart. She could feel herself screaming Barius' name and feel how it was drowned out by the thunder enveloping the village.
Everything was moving in slow motion.
"Ewan - EWAN!" Maris shrieked, collapsing to her knees beside him.
Blood spread across the frost like spilled ink. The storm was here.
Nyla's entire body jolted into motion. She sprinted the last distance, skidding to Maris's side, grabbing her shoulders. "Maris!"
Maris didn't. She was trying to lift Ewan. Trying to shake him. Trying to breathe.
"Get up!" she sobbed. "Ewan, please, get up!"
Nyla's stomach turned. "Maris, please, please-"
But a sudden rip of pain tore across Maris's face and her legs buckled. Her water broke all at once, blood threaded through it, pooling onto the ground beneath her.
Nyla caught her before she hit the ground.
"Gods, Maris, your baby-" She looked wildly at the riders closing in. Panic threatened to choke her. "We have to move now. NOW!"
Maris screamed again, this one rawer, thinner, her grief tearing at her voice. "He was - he was just - he was just there-"
"I know, I know, stay with me—"
Nyla dragged her toward the closest house, heart hammering against her ribs, breath shaking as she hauled her friend inside and barred the door.
Bodies fell. People screamed. Steel clashed. The smell of smoke was thick in the air. The Hollow was being torn apart.
"Come on, Maris, just a little more, just—"
Maris collapsed again, sobbing as another contraction hit. Nyla dropped to her knees beside her, hands already shaking as she reached for the closest towel and realized her hands were already smeared with blood.
Ewan's. Maris's. The baby's.
Her vision blurred. The smoke. The heat. The way the fire licked up the walls of the hollow like a starving thing. Nyla shoved it all out of her mind and lifted Maris's dress, hands trembling as she checked for progress she barely had time to process.
"Maris," she whispered, forcing steadiness she didn't feel. "Listen to me. You're crowning. You have to push."
Maris screamed, her body curling around the pain, around the child straining to enter the world in the worst moment imaginable. Sweat rolled down her temples, soaking her hair, her breaths ragged and frantic.
"Nyla - Nyla, I can't do this without him--" Maris sobbed.
"I know," Nyla whispered, lowering herself between Maris's shaking knees, hands already moving, already bracing. "I know. But this baby isn't. He needs you. Right now. Look at me."
Maris's fingers clawed into the dirt, her whole body tightening as another contraction tore through her. Nyla felt the shift, the way Maris's body opened, the way the baby pressed against her palm.
"That's it," Nyla urged, voice raw. "You're doing it. Push, Maris, push now."
The hollow roared around them, firelight flashing across Maris's contorted face, across Nyla's shaking hands, across the small, desperate miracle forcing its way into a world collapsing in flame.
"Again," Nyla said, leaning forward, lifting the fabric higher, readying her hands. "One more. You're almost there."
"I know." Nyla's voice cracked. "I know. But your baby needs you now. Look at me. LOOK at me."
Maris met her eyes with a hollow stare.
"Push."
And she did.
Right there in the dirt, surrounded by screams, with smoke curling through the air and death only meters away.
Nyla's hands worked on instinct, steady despite shaking, blood-soaked despite the cold.
"Again, Maris, again, come on,"
A small, trembling cry pierced the chaos.
The baby.
Alive.
Nyla caught the child against her chest, tears burning behind her eyes. "It's a boy - it's a little boy, Maris, look, he's -"
Maris didn't respond.
She stared at Ewan's fallen form, body shaking uncontrollably, grief swallowing her whole.
The riders were regrouping.
Moving toward the center of the Hollow.
Toward them.
-
Barius broke from the trees at a run, the shouts carrying long before the smoke reached him. The air tasted wrong—iron and ash and fear. It took him mere seconds to understand that the Hollow was under attack.
He grabbed Alva by the arms, dropping into a crouch so fast she nearly fell forward.
"Listen to me," he said, voice low but urgent. "Go to the meadows edge. Hide where we sat this morning. Do not move. Do not make a sound."
Her eyes were huge, wet, frightened. "Barius-"
"I will come for you," he said, gripping her shoulders. "But you must hide."
She nodded, lip trembling, then turned and darted into the brush. Barius waited just long enough to hear the rustle of ferns swallow her before sprinting toward the Hollow.
The moment he broke through the treeline, the world stopped.
Homes were burning.
People were screaming.
Bodies, too many, littered the snow.
His stomach plunged.
No. No. No.
He staggered forward two steps, breath breaking in his chest, every instinct screaming to find Nyla, to undo what he'd brought down on them.
Guilt cinched tight around his ribs.
This destruction...this horror...this is because of me.
A rider dragged someone by the hair across the square. Three more torched the bakers shed as Lysa screamed out hopelessly. A fourth raised his blade toward.
Nyla.
She was on her knees, shielding Maris and a newborn with her body, blood smeared across both her hands, sword trembling in her hands as she swung it out against soldiers - his soldiers - who laughed and taunted her efforts.
Barius's vision tunneled and something in him snapped.
Magic, raw, wild and instinctive surged beneath his skin. He didn't think. He didn't shape it. He simply released it.
A pulse rippled outward from him, invisible yet unmistakable, a shockwave of energy that rattled windows, shivered through flames, and sent snow lifting off the ground in a shimmering ring.
Every rider froze.
And atop a black war-steed at the far end of the square, the Emperor, helmeted, grim, a living blade in human form, jerked his head up.
A second of silence.
Then, "Barius," he breathed. He tore off his helm.
His face was drawn, hardness carved deep into the lines of a man who believed he'd lost a son to the wilds. There was fury there. And grief. And something far more dangerous: relief.
The Emperor raised his hand.
The assault halted instantly.
Flames were snuffed under boots.
Swords lowered.
Even the horses stilled.
The piercing wail of a newborn filled the still air as the sound of suffering turned into dull cries.
Barius stepped forward, chest heaving.
Nyla's eyes locked on him, wide, stunned, alive.
The Emperor exhaled once, a shudder barely contained. He did not dismount. He didn't move at all for a long heartbeat.
Then, quietly, "My son." he went to him, saw the evidence of the cut above his eye and the bandages wrapped around him, "You look like shit."
Barius swallowed hard. "These people saved me."
Something registered across the Emperor's expression, some emotion too sharp to name, but he masked it immediately and gestured toward the great hall.
Only once his father turned his back did Barius allow himself a single, trembling breath because Nyla was alive.