The day had started bright, clean, and ordinary. The kind that promised nothing worse than sunburn and sweat.
They'd cleared a corner of the convent courtyard for sparring — a stretch of dry grass hemmed in by low stone walls and the smell of rosemary drifting from the garden beyond. Gulls cut across the sound of wood on wood.
Édric's boots carved half-circles in the dust as he moved, every motion clean and exact.
"Left foot forward," he called. "Don't turn your shoulder like that."
Victor adjusted, mimicking his stance.
"Like this?"
"Better. Keep your blade up—higher."
He did, grinning faintly despite the sweat running down his temple.
"You know, for someone who insists he's that good, you don't slow down much."
"Older men have tricks, boy."
"Yeah, I've noticed. Mostly about how to talk while fighting."
Adam's laughter rolled across the courtyard from his perch on the well's edge.
"Careful, lad. That one bites if you get too cheeky."
Rufus was standing near him, tongue poking out as he copied the stance with a stick.
"Like this, Adam?"
"Almost," Adam said, squinting. "Now don't hit me with it this time."
Rufus giggled.
"No promises."
Édric barely heard them — his focus was on Victor, on the smooth way he adjusted to pressure, on the sure grip that hadn't been there when they first met.
He moved with purpose now. With balance. There was pride in that — pride Édric didn't allow himself to say out loud.
"Good," he said. "Again."
Victor struck, fast and confident. The clash rang out, then again, faster. They moved like a dance — Édric circling, Victor matching him, the rhythm between them tightening.
"Eyes up."
"I am looking."
"You're looking at my hand."
"It's where the sword is!"
Édric snorted.
"And that's why you'll miss the elbow coming next."
He feinted right. Victor dodged, half laughing, half panting.
"You're impossible."
"Not impossible. Just better."
Adam's voice floated in again:
"You sound like an old married couple."
"Shut it," Édric and Victor said in unison — then grinned, both distracted for one fatal moment.
Rufus, delighted by the timing, let out a cheer.
"Victor! You did it—"
Victor glanced over his shoulder — just for a second, just a heartbeat.
The wooden sword came down faster than Édric meant.
The sound it made wasn't the clean clack of practice wood. It was a crack, deep and dull, followed by the slap of something wet.
Victor staggered back, the color draining from his face.
"Victor—"
The sword dropped from his hand. He reached up — slow, uncertain — and his fingers came away streaked in red.
Rufus froze. His mouth opened, but no sound came out before panic did.
"VIC!"
Édric's heart stopped. He was on him in two strides, catching him under the arm just as Victor swayed.
"Sit. Sit down, now."
Victor blinked hard, confusion cutting through the pain.
"What—what just—"
"Don't talk."
Édric's tone was sharp, automatic. His own pulse roared in his ears. He ripped a strip of cloth from his sleeve and pressed it against the side of Victor's head. Blood spilled through it almost instantly.
Adam was there a breath later, crouching on the other side.
"Shit. Where?"
"Above the ear," Édric muttered. "Cut's open. It's not deep, but—"
But it was bleeding too much.
But he could have taken the boy's remaining eye.
He didn't say it. He didn't have to. The thought showed in how hard his jaw set, in how white his knuckles went.
Victor grimaced as Édric pressed down.
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine," Édric snapped, voice breaking like the crack of a whip.
Rufus hovered, shaking.
"He's bleeding a lot. It's all in his hair—"
"Back, lad," Édric barked, then gentled his tone immediately. "It looks worse than it is. I promise. Head wounds do that."
Adam grabbed the bucket from the well and came back with water sloshing.
"Here."
Édric's hands were steady, but the rest of him wasn't.
"You're too still, boy. Keep your eyes open."
"Edric, I'm fine," Victor murmured again, voice softer now.
"That's a lie." Édric's tone softened too, rough with something close to fear. "Stay with me. Don't make me regret teaching you how to block."
Victor winced.
"I did block."
"Not with your skull, you didn't."
A hoarse laugh escaped him — a thin, exhausted sound.
Édric looked at it — the laugh, the blood, the brave little flicker of humor — and something twisted painfully in his chest. He'd seen too many heads go slack after blows like that. Too many faces go still.
"You stupid boy," he muttered. "You scared ten years off me."
"Didn't mean to," Victor whispered, lids fluttering.
"I know," Édric said, pressing the fresh cloth tighter. "I know, son."
The blood finally slowed. Édric let the soaked fabric fall aside and replaced it with another strip, clean and tight. The gash was ugly but clean, the kind that would crust by evening.
He tied it off, thumb brushing the line of Victor's jaw when he was done.
"There. Done."
Victor's good eye met his.
"You're shaking."
Édric let out a dry laugh.
"Try hitting someone you care about in the head and tell me how steady you are."
"I'm not dead."
"Doesn't matter. You don't bleed in front of me without consequence."
Adam snorted faintly.
"That's fatherly love, right there."
"Shut up," Édric growled, though his lips twitched faintly.
Rufus crouched close again, tugging at Victor's sleeve.
"It was my fault. I called you."
Victor reached out, resting his clean hand over Rufus's small one.
"Hey. No. Don't say that. You didn't hurt me."
"Yeah, but—"
"No 'but.' Promise?"
Rufus hesitated, then nodded.
"Promise."
Édric sat back finally, the adrenaline still buzzing through him. His hands were red, his breath unsteady. He stared at the stain spreading on his palms, at the crimson drying under his nails.
Victor leaned against the wall, hair plastered to his temple, bandage bright against the black.
"Guess I've got a new war scar now," he said.
Édric snorted.
"You think that's funny?"
"I think it's fitting."
"Don't you dare make a joke out of this," Édric said, the roughness in his voice betraying the edge of fear still in him. "You don't get to scare me half to death and then laugh about it."
"I wasn't laughing," Victor said softly. "Just—trying to make you breathe again."
That stopped him cold.
For a heartbeat, Édric couldn't look at him.
Then, quietly, "You've got a good heart, boy. That's what'll get you killed one day."
Victor smiled weakly.
"Then you'll just have to keep saving me."
Édric exhaled hard, like he was trying to push something heavy out of his chest. He brushed Victor's shoulder once, steadying him before rising.
"You'll rest the rest of the day. That's an order."
"Sure thing, Dad," Victor murmured, too quietly for anyone but Édric to hear.
Édric froze for half a second — then huffed, low and unsteady.
"You're impossible."
Adam's voice broke the silence. "He'll be all right?"
"He'll live," Édric said, staring at his bloodstained hands. His voice was hoarse. "But gods, he almost didn't."
The air felt thick again, heavy with what could've been. The gulls wheeled overhead. The wind shifted through the arches.
Adam smiled faintly, eyes following Victor's limp figure as Rufus helped him toward the tents.
---
The smell hit Emma first.
Not the warm iron tang of a fresh kill — this was sharper, saltier, too human.
She had just stepped through the cloister arch, rabbits slung at her belt, when she saw the small crowd in the courtyard. Rufus kneeling in the dust. Adam crouched beside him. And Victor—
Victor sitting against the wall, near the tents, one hand pressed to the side of his head, the other held loosely between his knees. His hair was matted where the blood had dried.
Her heart stopped.
"Victor." The word came out raw.
He looked up — startled, guilty, trying to smile as if he'd just tripped over something instead of nearly blacked out.
"Hey," he said, too lightly. "Before you start—"
"What happened?" she demanded, crossing the yard so fast the rabbits nearly slipped from her belt. She crouched in front of him, fingers already in his hair before he could protest. "You're bleeding."
"Not much."
"Not much? Your head looks like it lost a fight with a millstone."
Adam cleared his throat from a few feet away.
"Wooden swords. Édric's got an arm like a trebuchet."
Her head snapped up.
"He what?"
Édric stood a few paces off, arms crossed, face carved from stone. His sleeve was torn where he'd ripped it for bandages, and there were flecks of dried red along his knuckles.
He didn't meet her eyes.
"He moved into it," he said flatly.
She rose, slow, jaw tight.
"You hit him?"
"I swung," Édric corrected. "He stepped forward."
Adam tried to defuse the rising tension.
"It was an accident, Em. Wrong timing, that's all."
But Emma had already seen it — not guilt alone, but something deeper. Édric wasn't angry at her scolding. He was angry at himself. His voice was too level, his shoulders too rigid.
She exhaled, pushing her hair back.
"All right. Then nobody shout."
Victor blinked.
"You're not shouting?"
"I'm saving it for later," she muttered, kneeling again. "Hold still."
He winced when her fingers brushed the bandage.
"Careful—"
"Don't start." She tilted his head toward the light. "How deep?"
"Not deep."
"That's not what I asked."
He sighed, resigned.
"Édric already cleaned it. I just got dizzy for a bit."
"A bit?"
He gave a weak grin.
"Didn't faint."
Emma's lips pressed into a thin line, but her eyes softened.
"That's a low bar, love."
The word slipped out before she thought about it. It always did when she was worried.
Victor smiled at that — a small, crooked thing.
"Still beats you crying."
"I'm not crying."
"You were about to."
She scoffed, swiping her sleeve across her cheek anyway.
"You're insufferable."
He caught her wrist lightly.
"And you care too much."
Before she could answer, Rufus blurted from nearby,
"I called him! He turned his head. That's why!"
Emma turned instantly.
"Rufus—no, no, that's not your fault." She went to him, crouching so they were eye level. His hands were still shaking. "Look at me. Accidents happen, all right? Accidents are no one's fault. You didn't hurt him."
"But he bled—"
"And Édric fixed it," she said firmly. "That's all that matters."
Behind her, Édric let out a low sigh — the kind that sounded almost like a growl from someone swallowing guilt whole.
Emma looked back over her shoulder. His hands were still stained red. His eyes stayed fixed on the floor like he couldn't trust himself to meet anyone's gaze.
She stood slowly, stepping toward him.
"You okay?"
He gave a short, humorless laugh.
"Do I look it?"
"No," she said softly. "That's why I'm asking."
His jaw flexed.
"Should've seen it coming. My strike, my mistake."
"Édric."
He didn't look up.
"You don't hit a man's head, Emma. Not even with wood. That's not a slip — that's a failure."
"You didn't mean to."
"I meant the swing," he said quietly. "Doesn't matter what I meant after."
Something in her face shifted then — less anger, more understanding. She reached out, almost without thinking, and touched his arm.
"You didn't lose him," she said. "That's what matters."
Édric's throat worked once, but he didn't speak.
Victor, still sitting, broke the silence.
"She's right. You've got terrible aim, but a good heart."
That cracked the tension for just a heartbeat. Adam snorted.
"Now that's an epitaph."
Emma shot him a look.
"You're not helping."
"Wasn't trying to."
But the laughter — small as it was — pulled the moment back from the edge. Édric finally exhaled. The tightness in his chest didn't ease, but it stopped crushing him.
Emma turned back to Victor, crouching again.
"Next time you spar, you wear the bloody helm."
He smiled faintly.
"You like my face too much for me to hide it."
"Then don't break it," she shot back.
He laughed, and she sighed — that shaky kind that comes right after fear.
"You terrify me sometimes," she whispered.
"Not on purpose."
"I know." She brushed a thumb along his uninjured cheek. "That's what makes it worse."
Behind them, Rufus crept closer again, tugging on her sleeve.
"He's gonna be okay?"
Emma looked down at him.
"He already is. Look at him, milking his wound it for affection"
Rufus's shoulders dropped with relief. He leaned against her leg for a second, small and warm and alive.
Then he turned to Édric, still hovering like a guilty sentinel.
"You're not mad at him, right?"
Édric blinked, startled.
"What?"
"You said he was your son," Rufus said shyly. "Sons make mistakes."
That silenced everyone.
Édric stared at the boy for a long, still moment — then gave the smallest nod.
"Aye," he said roughly. "They do."
Emma swallowed hard and turned away before the lump in her throat gave her away.
"All right. That's enough bleeding hearts for one morning. Everyone sit down before I start patching the lot of you."
Adam threw up his hands.
"You heard the lady."
Rufus giggled, the fear finally melting from his face.
Victor leaned his head against the wall, eyelid drooping.
"She'd make a fine general."
"She already is," Édric said, voice low.
Emma looked at him then — properly looked — and saw what was really there: the remorse, the old habit of punishing himself. But also something else. Gratitude. Affection. A man who cared too much to admit it aloud.
"Don't glare at ghosts," she said quietly. "He's fine."
He met her gaze for a heartbeat, something unspoken passing between them. Then he nodded, short and stiff, as if accepting an order.
She turned back to Victor, brushing his hair away from the bandage.
"All right, soldier. You live another day."
He smiled up at her, soft and crooked.
"Because of him."
"Because of both of you," she corrected.
When she helped him up, Édric stayed a step behind, ready to catch him if he stumbled — but Victor didn't.
The young man walked steady, Emma's hand on his arm, toward their tent.
Édric watched them go until the flap closed, until the laughter started again — small, tired, real.
Adam came up beside him, nudging his shoulder.
"You can breathe now, you know."
"I'm fine," Édric muttered.
"Sure you are," Adam said. "You've only gone grey twice over since breakfast."
That earned a grunt that could've been amusement.
For a while they stood in silence, the smell of rosemary thick in the air, gulls crying high above.
Édric flexed his hand, still faintly stained red, and murmured under his breath, "Boy doesn't know how close he's got me."
Adam followed his gaze toward the tent, where shadows moved softly under the light. "He does," he said quietly. "That's why he calls you Dad."
---
The bells had rung None an hour ago. After that came silence — the particular stillness of summer afternoons in the convent, when even the wind seemed to kneel.
Livia was in the laundry courtyard, sleeves rolled to the elbow, the smell of lye clinging to her skin. The walls around her were high, whitewashed and sun-hot, enclosing a square of sky too blue to look at for long. Lines of linen fluttered overhead — veils, shifts, altar cloths — all swaying gently like the rhythm of a breath.
She had been working without pause, scrubbing, rinsing, wringing, hanging. It kept her hands busy, and that was good. Busy hands gave the mind fewer places to wander.
Still, her eyes kept drifting toward the outer wall — toward the gate that opened down to the sea cliffs, and the tents pitched somewhere beyond.
From time to time the wind carried sounds upward: a man's laugh, a hammer striking, the bark of a dog. That morning there had been shouting — training perhaps, or fighting — and later, laughter again.
Livia tried to focus on the sheets. On the rope creaking softly under their weight. On the steam rising from the wash water. Anything but the thought of the man whose voice she had heard among those sounds.
"Sister Livia?"
The voice was light, uncertain. Livia turned.
Sister Beatrix was crossing the yard with a wicker basket pressed against her hip. She was the youngest of them, all eager energy and soft curls escaping her coif. Her sandals slapped the stone path, her cheeks flushed pink from the heat.
"Forgive me," Beatrix said, setting the basket down. "I didn't mean to interrupt. I just—well, you keep looking that way."
"That way?"
Beatrix nodded toward the wall, eyes bright. "Toward the travelers. The others say you watch them every day."
Livia smiled faintly.
"Do they?"
"They wonder if you're afraid."
"I'm not afraid."
Beatrix tilted her head.
"Then curious?"
Livia reached for another sheet, careful not to meet her eyes.
"Everyone is, I think."
"They look wild," Beatrix said, half-whispering as though gossip were a prayer. "The men, I mean. With swords and uncombed hair. But the boy—did you see him? I think he's about ten. He ran right through the cloister yesterday. He wasn't afraid at all."
Livia's hands paused in the basin. She remembered that laugh — clear, bright, alive. It had startled the pigeons from the roof.
"There's a child among them?"
"Oh yes. He's small, brown-haired. Always with that tall man — the one with the scar across his cheek. You can see them from the garden sometimes." Beatrix wrung out a tunic, her voice softening. "He holds the boy's hand when they walk, not like a master or guard, but—like a father."
Livia's heart gave a slow, steady thud. She kept her voice even.
"Perhaps he is."
"Maybe," Beatrix said. "But they don't look alike. And the woman—the red-haired one—she's not his wife either. At least I don't think so."
Livia's pulse tripped.
"You've been watching closely."
Beatrix flushed.
"Only when I fetch herbs. You can't help noticing. The woman's beautiful, isn't she? She walks like she knows who she is. The older sisters don't like it."
"They said as much," Livia murmured.
"They call her proud," Beatrix went on, "and worse. But she doesn't act the way they say. She laughs, but not like those women in the tavern stories. She's kind to the boy. I saw him give her a flower."
Livia's mouth tightened, though she wasn't sure why — out of pity, or recognition, or the dull ache of something she could never name aloud.
"And the others?"
"Oh, the older man frightens me a bit. Blond hair, scar at his chin, always serious. But when the boy tripped this morning, he caught him before he hit the stones. Then there's the one with the patch—the young one. He walks close to the woman, and when she looks at him..." Beatrix trailed off, embarrassed. "You can tell."
Livia tried not to picture it, but her mind conjured the scene anyway: the red-haired woman's hand brushing the man's sleeve, the quiet familiarity between them. The tenderness of people who had chosen each other in the world.
And then, unbidden, another image came: a younger version of herself in the stables at dusk, laughing as a boy with soot on his cheek leaned close, whispered something reckless and sweet.
Beatrix interrupted the memory before it could fully bloom.
"Do you think they'll stay long, Sister?"
"No," Livia said after a moment. "People who travel rarely do."
Beatrix sighed.
"A pity. The boy brought the cat a bit of fish yesterday. Now she sits by the gate every morning waiting for him."
Livia smiled faintly.
"Animals know kindness better than we do."
They worked side by side for a while, the conversation fading into the rhythm of labor — wring, snap, pin, hang. The sun slid lower, turning the white sheets to gold.
When Beatrix spoke again, her voice was smaller.
"Do you think it's true, what they say about the young woman? That she lives with them as a wife to all?"
The question hit like cold water.
Livia kept her tone calm.
"People always imagine wickedness where they see freedom."
Beatrix nodded, thoughtful.
"She doesn't look wicked. The boy clings to her sometimes. Wicked people don't have children who smile like that."
"No," Livia whispered, more to herself than to Beatrix. "They don't."
Beatrix smiled, satisfied with her answer, and picked up the empty bucket.
"I'll fetch more water."
When she left, the courtyard fell still again. Only the sound of gulls and flapping linen remained.
Livia stayed where she was, hands resting on the rim of the basin. Her reflection wavered in the water — a pale face framed in linen, eyes older than they had been the day before.
A child. A scarred man. A woman with red hair.
She closed her eyes. Adam. Is the boy yours?
It was blasphemy to wonder — not for the sin of the thought, but for the longing buried in it. She pressed her damp fingers together, whispering an automatic prayer under her breath, though she could not have said whether it was for forgiveness or for mercy.
From beyond the wall came a distant voice — a man's laugh, low and rough-edged, followed by the boy's answering giggle.
Her heart ached at the sound, familiar as breath.
"Lord," she murmured, "if this is a test, make me steady."
But when the wind shifted and that laughter came again, closer this time, she turned toward it before she could stop herself — the habit of ten years undone by a single sound.