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The door creaked open.
He looked up and his heart stumbled out of rhythm.
Wren’s festival clothes caught the light and kept it, silver thread curling across dark blue fabric like frost tracing glass. Her hair—usually a tumble of unruly dark waves—had been braided and pinned, leaving her neck and horns bare save for a few curls framing her face. Sun and moon charms swayed from them, catching flashes of light when she moved.
She looked different. Not older; truer somehow, like this was a version of her people rarely got to see. It wasn’t just beautiful—and she was—it was courage stitched into fabric.
The shift was immediate and disorienting—every feeling he’d held at arm’s length rushed in, uninvited but there all the same. It took everything not to stare.
She seemed to be waiting for him to say something. Behind her, Marrowen eyed him with quiet expectation. He cleared his throat and when Wren smiled, soft and shy, his mouth went dry. What could he say without revealing too much? Everything he thought of felt like a truth even he wasn’t ready to accept.
Say something before she thinks you hate it.
“It uh,” he eyed Marrowen carefully, then looked back to Wren who was waiting expectantly. “It looks like you.”
Behind her, Garin groaned and pressed his palm to his forehead, grumbling as he walked back into the cabin.
Wren’s lips twitched and she shrugged.
“I guess that’s a good thing?”
“You look beautiful, Sproutling,” Marrowen said, kissing the top of her head and narrowing her eyes at Orzen. Then crossed to him. “I’m trusting you to keep her safe.”
He nodded once.
No oath or flourish, only a promise—heavy and simple.
Chapter 19
Hearthroot’s Shadow
Music drifted through the trees long before the village walls came into view—festival drums, flute trills, the rhythmic clapping of hands. It wrapped around Wren like a memory she hadn’t realized she’d missed, filling in the cracks she’d carried since her father’s death.
They both put their masks on well before the gate. It was like reclaiming a piece of herself she’d lost. The veil, though—gods, she hated the thing. It snagged every low branch and whispered like bird wings every time she turned her head. She was half-tempted to tear it away and throw it into the dirt, but today wasn’t the day to set Theordrin off.
Not yet anyway.
She almost didn’t recognize the village in its festival brightness. Everywhere she looked, people shimmered in their finest clothes—embroidered wool, jewel-dyed silks, tunics trimmed with lace. Orzen followed close behind, quiet and alert, scanning every alley as if Theordrin’s spies might spring from behind a fruit stand and grab her.
For once, no one stared at her. No whispers. No distance. She wasn’t Wren the Spirit Weaver. She was only another woman in silver thread, walking beside a man who carried too many shadows.
Maybe this was what it felt like to move unseen, to be normal.
They stepped into the main courtyard, and Wren didn’t know where to look first. Music, color, laughter. It was almost too much. The scent of sugar and smoke tangled in the air. All around, children shrieked with delight. It should have been joy, pure and simple. Yet every rhythm carried a strange sharpness beneath it, every cheer a little too loud.
She slowed as they reached the Tree of Memories. Children knelt in the dirt, pressing tiny loaves of rootbread into the soil while their parents hovered nearby with folded hands and misty eyes. The sight softened something in her. It had been so long since she’d done the same, her mother and father at her back. Then she glanced behind her and found Orzen staring at the children like they might brandish tiny daggers.
She laughed under her breath and touched his shoulder.
“You’re going to scare them,” she whispered.
“What? I’m making sure you’re safe.” Orzen straightened, eyes scanning the children. “Besides, they’re not even looking at me.”
She tilted her head toward the tree. A halfling boy was frozen where he knelt, loaf half-buried, eyes wide as moons. Orzen tried what might have been a smile—if it hadn’t looked so pained. The boy yelped, abandoned his offering, and sprinted for his parents.
Wren bit back a laugh and tugged Orzen away. Behind them, the boy’s parents glared like he’d hexed their harvest. She placed a gentle hand on his bracer, the leather warm beneath her fingers, and his muscles tensed beneath it.
“I’m worried too,” she murmured. “But we’ve still got hours before the end-of-day bell. They won’t move until then.” Her hand lingered. “So maybe be a little less tragic statue, a little more festival-goer. We’re allowed to breathe for a while.”
