Had the creature she had come face to face with escaped from Driochmor?
Her chest tightened slightly. It made no sense. Nothing from that cursed land had been seen in Scotara—not in her lifetime, nor in the telling of those who came before. The king had forbidden it. Banished it.
Her thoughts lingered there, unease curling deeper within her. If such a thing truly walked the woods, why had it left Driochmor?
Turning, she made her way through the village, her steps slower now, the quiet pressing in around her. Lamps glowed softly in windows, their light offering little comfort against the stretch of darkness beyond.
The healing cottage stood at the edge of the village on purpose. It was meant to be a place of calm and quiet so the ill could heal peacefully.
A faint unease settled in her chest as she approached, though she told herself it was nothing more than the weight of the night.
She reached the door, lifted her hand, rapped enough to be heard, then pushed it open. The hinges gave a soft, familiar creak.
“Kaelan?” she called gently.
She was met with silence.
She stepped inside. The cottage was dim, the last of the fire’s glow casting faint shadows along the walls.
“Kaelan?” she called again, louder this time.
Nothing.
The space remained unchanged, undisturbed… empty.
He was gone.
A chill slipped through her, sharper than the night air outside. She glanced around the cottage slowly. Aside from the slightly rumpled bedding, it was as though he had never been there.
It was there her attention settled, where he had rested. It was the only sign that he had been there at all, the only proof that the man who had unsettled her thoughts more than she cared to admit had not been some passing imagining.
She found herself stepping closer before realizing she had done so. Close enough that she need only reach out.
Her hand lifted, hovering just above the bedding, the faint impression of his presence still there, as though the warmth of him had not yet fully faded.
The thought came quietly, but with enough weight that she did not ignore it.
Would it work?
The question lingered, unsettling in its persistence. She had not meant to consider it, yet once it had taken hold, it refused to be dismissed so easily.
And if it did…
Her fingers curled slightly, hesitation taking hold. It was not simply curiosity that gave her pause, but something deeper. Areluctance born not of uncertainty, but of knowing too well what might come of it.
She had never sought such knowledge and had never wished for it. Yet she could not deny that it had found her all the same.
The memory rose unbidden. A simple task, no different from countless others. A necklace brought to her for repair, the delicate wiring loosened around a deep red stone that had caught the light with quiet beauty. The man who carried it had spoken easily, claiming it his own, something of little value beyond sentiment.
She had taken it in hand without thought, and the moment her fingers touched the gem, something struck her. It had come without warning, a sensation that did not belong to her work, nor to any skill she had been taught. There had been nothing gentle in it, nothing familiar. It had unsettled her so deeply she had nearly let the piece fall from her hands, though she had forced herself to remain composed, to finish the repair, to return it without question.
Yet she knew the truth of the piece. It did not belong to the man who carried it—he had stolen it.
She had said nothing of the strange incident. Even when word reached the village days later of a thief moving from place to place, taking what was not his and passing himself off as something he was not, she had kept her silence.
What she had felt that day and what she had known, she had made sure to keep buried.
Bria drew her hand back, folding her arms lightly as if to contain the lingering urge to reach again. Whatever stirred within her when she allowed such thoughts to take hold, whatever truth it threatened to reveal—the consequences of what it might bring, unnerved her.
