Days passed, but the word spread faster than fire on dry grass.
Every villager in Frostfall had heard it — the whispers carried from the forges to the mead hall, from the hunters to the children.
"The Frostfall Reaper."
Zank heard it everywhere. Sometimes spoken with awe. Sometimes with fear.
But it always followed him like a second shadow.
He kept mostly to himself after his wounds healed, repairing arrows by the longhouse fire or helping Freja haul water from the frozen stream. The people greeted him politely, yet always from a distance. Their eyes held both gratitude… and unease.
Each night he stared into the flames and wondered which part of him they truly saw — the boy, or the Reaper.
One morning, as he carried firewood toward the hall, he noticed movement near the path.
Three children stood there, half-hidden behind a snowbank, whispering to each other. When he looked their way, they froze — wide-eyed, uncertain.
Zank sighed. He shifted his bundle and kept walking, pretending not to notice. But then he heard small footsteps crunching behind him.
"Um… sir?" a tiny voice said.
He turned. The youngest, a girl with a crooked braid, stood clutching a carved wooden charm. She looked terrified — but also determined.
Zank knelt slowly so he wouldn't tower over her. "Yes?"
She held out the charm — a small wolf carved from bone. "My brother said you saved my papa from the bear-people. So… thank you."
Zank blinked, startled. "Your papa…?"
She nodded. "Torvi the smith. He said if you hadn't come, he wouldn't have come home."
Before he could answer, she suddenly stepped forward and hugged him — a quick, shy squeeze around his waist before darting back behind the other children.
The two boys beside her grinned nervously, then both muttered, "Thank you, Reaper," before running off into the snow, their laughter trailing behind them.
Zank stood there a long moment, one hand pressed against the spot where the little girl's arms had been.
For the first time in months, the word Reaper didn't sting quite so sharply.
Later that evening, as the sun bled red across the mountains, Zank sat outside the hall sharpening arrowheads. The air was still and heavy with the scent of pine smoke.
He heard slow footsteps behind him.
"Mind if an old man joins you?" Hallar's voice rumbled softly. The elder's breath clouded in the cold as he lowered himself onto the bench beside Zank.
Zank inclined his head. "You don't need my permission, Elder."
Hallar chuckled. "Aye, but it's polite to ask the Reaper before sitting at his side."
Zank winced slightly. "I wish they'd stop calling me that."
Hallar studied him for a moment, his eyes kind but sharp. "Names carry power, lad. But it's not the name that defines the man. It's what he does with it."
Zank's hands paused on the whetstone. "And what if what I do brings death?"
"Then you make sure that death serves life," Hallar said. "You've been given something the rest of us can't understand. That makes you dangerous — but also responsible."
He leaned closer. "You can be the curse they fear, or the shield they need. The choice is yours every dawn."
Zank absorbed the words quietly. "I don't know if I can control it."
"Control starts with will. You've got more of that than most men twice your age."
Hallar extended his arm then — weathered, scarred, strong. The ancient gesture of kinship between warriors.
Zank hesitated only a moment before clasping it, his gloved hand gripping the elder's forearm.
The two locked eyes — old and young, mortal and half-spirit — and for a heartbeat, the distance between them vanished.
"Thank you, Zank of Frostfall," Hallar said with a small, proud smile. "May your shadow walk beside us, not over us."
Zank nodded, a faint smile tugging at his lips. "And may the gods forgive me when it doesn't."
The elder's laughter echoed into the cold evening air, warm and genuine.
For the first time since the battle, Zank didn't feel like a stranger among his own people.
The name Frostfall Reaper no longer felt like a curse — but a burden he could choose to carry.