Mira had always trusted her gut.
It was how she knew which roots were safe to eat in the wild. How she could tell when rain was coming before the clouds even darkened. How she'd avoided the wrong kind of men in taverns before they ever said a word.
And her gut was whispering now.
Not screaming. Not accusing.
Just whispering.
Something isn't right about Cerric.
She stirred the pot of stew slowly in her small cottage, her fingers tense on the wooden spoon. Outside, she could hear children laughing. Birds calling. Wind rustling the daffodils. A peaceful day, if you only looked at the surface.
Cerric—he moved like someone trying to remember how to be human.
He stood too still. He never blinked until he seemed to remember he should. He asked questions like he was relearning the world from scratch. Not like a monk… more like a man displaced from time.
But she didn't feel afraid of him.
And that unsettled her more.
She had grown up among mercenaries and refugees. She'd seen what danger looked like—real danger. Yet every time she was near him, she felt something else. Not coldness, but a kind of sadness he wore like a cloak. Something broken.
Still, she couldn't shake it.
The night before, she had passed by the barn where he slept—just to drop off fresh bread. And she had heard him whispering.
Not like a man dreaming.
Like a man casting.
There were no words she recognized. No names she dared repeat. Just low syllables that made her skin tighten and the wind turn still.
She'd left the bread without knocking.
Today, she tried again to read him. They'd gone gathering herbs together—easy work, light conversation.
She watched his hands when he thought she wasn't looking.
They moved like someone who used to wield a sword—or something worse. His knuckles never flexed for comfort. His grip never fidgeted.
Too precise. Too controlled.
"You said your monks were from the east, right?" she asked while pressing thyme into her basket.
He hesitated.
"Yes."
"What order?"
A longer pause.
"…The Veil of Silence."
She smiled faintly. "Made up."
He blinked. Once. "What?"
She turned to him and laughed, brushing dirt from her hands. "You're bad at lying, Cerric. That's not a real monastery."
He opened his mouth, closed it, then gave a low chuckle.
Caught off guard—he laughed.
And for a moment, Mira forgot her doubt. Because that sound… it wasn't practiced. It was real. Sad, maybe. Bitter. But real.
"You've got your secrets," she said. "Fine. Everyone does. But don't pretend you're something you're not. It's worse than silence."
He met her eyes. Something flickered behind them—like light behind thick glass.
"I'll remember that," he said quietly.
That night, Mira stayed up late, watching the fire burn low.
She opened a leather-bound journal her mother had left her and wrote:
Cerric isn't just a man. He's someone else entirely. But he's not cruel. Not yet. Something follows him. Something deep. I just hope he isn't running from it into us.
She closed the journal as a cold wind brushed against the shutters.
Far away, unseen, the fields began to blacken at their roots. Worms writhed in the earth. And something ancient uncoiled in the dark.