Six months.
Six months of peace, of quiet, of something like happiness.
My days began with sunlight through wooden shutters and the soft rustle of leaves. I woke early, tended to the garden, watered the herbs, and checked the rows of vegetables I'd planted with trembling hands and the memory of my mother's laughter in my ears.
I sold what I grew in the village nearby.
It wasn't much—just potatoes, carrots, onions, rosemary, mint—but people smiled when they saw me. They called me Auren, a name I gave myself. Simple. Forgettable.
They liked me. Maybe because I was honest.
I helped carry crates, repaired fences, offered herbs to the sick, and asked for nothing more than what they could give.
Some of the women had begun to like me too much.
Pretty eyes. Nervous hands. Smiles that lingered.
But I turned them down—gently, kindly.
Because I didn't belong to anyone.
Because my heart was still trapped in the ashes of a house I'd burned behind me.
And because I was still being hunted.
⸻
Then I heard the whispers.
Hushed voices behind carts and barrels. Faces pale with unease.
"Have you heard about the cursed twins?"
"The exiled princes?"
"They were born from the king's affair with the princess of the Western Dukedom. The cursed one."
"I heard they killed their wet nurse. Smiled while she bled out."
"They're only ten. But their hair's silver—unnatural. Eyes red like fresh blood."
"Even the king fears them. That's why he sent them away."
"They're here now. In the duchy their mother died in. Among us."
⸻
I didn't speak, but I listened.
Silver-haired. Red-eyed. Beautiful and terrifying.
The people called them the Devil Twins.
Said they weren't children, but monsters in a child's skin.
And yet... I couldn't hate them.
Because I, too, had been unwanted. Hated for what I was born as.
Unlike them, I had at least known love.
Even if just for five short years, my mother had made me feel like the world itself had meaning.
These twins... they never even had that.
"Poor children," I muttered as I walked home through the trees. "They must be so lost."
I didn't know they weren't lost.
I didn't know they weren't looking for love.
They were going to find me.
And when they did... I'd learn the truth the hard way.
Monsters don't always hide in the dark.
Sometimes... they smile.
With red eyes and silver hair.
The air was cool tonight, the sky soft with fading gold as the sun dipped behind the treetops. Birds sang their last songs of the day, and the wind danced gently through the open window of the cottage, carrying the scent of herbs from the garden.
Caelan hummed a tune under his breath—something old, something his mother used to hum while stirring pots with wooden spoons too big for her hands.
He moved around the kitchen barefoot, sleeves rolled up, hair tied back loosely. There was flour on his cheek, dirt under his nails from a day of weeding, and a peaceful silence wrapped around him like a second skin.
On the wooden counter sat a basket of freshly picked vegetables—plump tomatoes, sweet onions, soft green herbs still warm from the sun. A little butter, some salt, a clove of garlic crushed just right.
He was making stew tonight.
With soft bread he'd baked that morning.
Maybe something sweet after, if he felt like it. Something simple. Apples stewed with honey and cinnamon.
He stirred the pot slowly, letting the steam warm his face, and tasted it with a worn wooden spoon.
It was good.
Not perfect. But good.
Real.
He set the table outside, under the stars just beginning to show.
One plate. One cup. A small candle flickering in a clay jar.
He ate quietly, watching fireflies blink through the trees, listening to the river whisper nearby.
The food was warm, the air gentle, the world distant.
And for that moment, it was enough.
For that moment, he could almost believe...
he was safe.