The first snow of winter settled on the mountains like a whispered promise—cold, beautiful, and fleeting.
Helastine knelt by the hearth, stirring a pot of medicinal broth. The scent of bitter herbs and mountain roots filled the small shrine, mixing with the smoke from the crackling fire. She blew a stray strand of hair from her face—its pale length now marked with faint blue highlights, added by Paedyn's curious hands—her fingers stiff from grinding herbs all morning.
"You'll ruin your eyes, reading in this dim light."
She didn't need to turn around to know the priest was smiling. His voice, though weaker than last winter, still carried the same warmth it had all her life.
"Says the man who taught me to read by candlelight," she shot back, but her hands moved anyway—closing the weathered book beside her and shifting closer to the fire.
A soft chuckle. Then a cough. Then a cough that didn't stop.
Helastine was at his side before his frail body finished trembling. Her hands braced his shoulders as he hunched over, a handkerchief pressed to his lips. When he pulled it away, the fabric was stained with red.
"It's nothing," he murmured, tucking the cloth away before she could snatch it.
Liar.
She swallowed the lump in her throat. "You need to rest."
"I need to finish this." His gnarled fingers brushed the half-carved wooden figurine in his lap—a small fox, its tail curled playfully. "For your birthday."
Her chest ached.
Twenty-one winters. Twenty-one little carvings. A rabbit when she was five, a wolf when she turned ten, a knight in armor at fifteen. Each one lined up on the shelf above her bed, each one a piece of him she could hold onto.
"You have time," she said, forcing steadiness into her voice. "Winter's just begun."
The priest's hands stilled. When he looked at her, his eyes—still so kind, so alive despite the sickness eating him from within—held a truth she wasn't ready to hear.
"Helastine," he said softly. "Come here."
She knelt beside him and rested her head on his knee, just like she had as a child. His fingers carded through her hair, the way they had when she woke screaming from nightmares, when she scraped her knees climbing trees, when the world felt too cruel and he was the only shelter she knew.
"Do you remember," he murmured, "when you were seven, and you tried to chase a bear cub out of the garden?"
A wet laugh escaped her. "You scolded me for an hour."
"And then you didn't speak to me for three days." His thumb brushed her cheek, catching a tear she hadn't realized had fallen. "My stubborn girl."
The fire popped. Outside, the wind whistled through the shrine's charms—paper prayers she'd written for him every morning, even though she didn't believe.
"Father," she whispered, the word cracking.
His hand stilled in her hair.
"You must go to Maruliya Temple child."
No. She clutched the fabric of his robe. Not yet. Not ever.
"I won't leave you."
"Child… don't deny the fate that calls to you. That is my one last wish..."
His voice barely rose above a whisper, already fading. His breath slowed, each one a struggle. The weariness—so long denied—dragged him under at last.
his breathing had already deepened, the exhaustion pulling him under. As his hand slipped from her hair, Helastine did something she hadn't done since childhood—she pressed her lips to his knuckles, a silent plea to a god she didn't trust.
Don't take him.
The fire burned low. The snow continued to fall.
And for the first time in her life, Helastine prayed.
------
The shrine had never been so full in the light of day, yet Helastine had never felt more alone.
The villagers had come at last—faces drawn, voices hushed—as if grief now granted them entry to a place they'd long ignored. Their boots left muddy prints and melted snow across the sacred floors they had seldom walked while the priest still breathed. They came bearing offerings—dried meats, coarse-woven blankets, jars of honey—tokens laid down with solemn hands, as though such gifts might absolve years of silence and absence.
"Such a shame," an old woman muttered, clutching her prayer beads. "The mountain saint was too kind for this world."
"And the girl?" A man's voice, low and curious. "They say she's never even seen a town. What will become of her now?"
Helastine stood motionless by the altar, her back to the crowd. She heard them. Of course she did. Their whispers slithered through the room like smoke—about her age, her beauty, her uselessness without the priest to guard her.
Twenty-one. Unmarried. A white-haired witch who talks to the wind.
Her fingers curled into fists.
A hand touched her shoulder.
"Child." The village elder, his face wrinkled like old bark, offered her a cup of tea. "You should rest. We'll prepare the—"
"No." She stepped away, his touch burning like a brand. "I'll do it."
The priest had washed her fevers away, had held her hands when they bled from sword practice, had whispered stories until her nightmares faded. She would be the one to wrap his body in the sacred white shroud. She would be the one to brush the snow from his eyelids before they closed forever.
No one else.
Night fell.
The visitors left, their hollow condolences lingering in the cold air. Alone at last, Helastine knelt before the freshly dug grave beneath the ancient pine—the tree where the priest had taught her to carve her first wooden bird.
Snowflakes caught in her lashes. The mountain air stung her lungs.
"You liar," she whispered to the undisturbed snow. "You promised to teach me the stars next winter."
No answer came but the wind.
Her hand plunged into the snow, fingers numb, until she found what she'd buried earlier—the priest's last carving, half-finished. The little fox, its tail forever mid-swish.
She clutched it to her chest.
Then, for the first time since childhood, Helastine screamed. A raw, broken sound that startled the crows from the trees. She screamed until her throat burned, until the villagers below surely crossed themselves against the mountain's wailing spirit.
When her voice failed, she pressed her forehead to the frozen earth.
"Fine," she rasped. "I'll go father."
Helastine had always avoided calling him Father. Not because she doubted his love—but because she knew, deep down, he was not the man who had given her life.
He was something more.
He had raised her with a gentleness most true fathers could only hope to offer. It was his hands that had fed her, his voice that had soothed her nightmares, his presence that had kept the cold world at bay.
If the gods truly existed, then surely the priest had been one of them—for he had saved her, protected her, and given her a home when no one else would.
He had never asked anything of her. Not once.
So when his final wish was for her to follow the path laid before her—to seek out that temple and find answers to questions she had never dared to ask—how could she refuse?
If that journey was what he needed for his soul to rest, then she would walk it.
Not because she believed in fate.But because she believed in him.
Dawn came.
Helastine stood at the shrine's gate, her pack heavy with dried food, the priest's knife, and twenty-one wooden figures wrapped in cloth. Behind her, the only home she'd ever known sat silent, its charms still fluttering like trapped ghosts.
She didn't look back.
The snow crunched beneath her boots as she took her first step onto the northern road—toward Maruliya Temple, toward answers long buried, toward a fate she had never chosen.
Somewhere in the trees, a fox barked. The wind stirred through the branches, sharp and wild, as if the mountains themselves had taken notice.
Helastine did not look back.She walked on.