CHAPTER 12 - UNSPOKEN TRACES
Greyhollow was never truly silent.
The wind always carried something with it. Canvas scraping against poles. Old wood creaking under its own weight. Footsteps of people whose lives were not yet finished, even as the world moved on without waiting for them.
Zio walked along the forest's edge with his dagger held low. Not a fighting stance. A habit.
There was no large game that day. He gathered dried roots and wild mushrooms growing beside damp stones. Trod had said winter would come earlier this year. Greyhollow was always the last to receive news, and the first to feel its consequences.
As he crouched, a thorn sliced across his palm.
Blood surfaced quickly. Thin. Bright.
Zio watched it for a moment. After a few breaths, the sting faded. The wound remained, but it no longer bled.
He was not surprised.
He wiped his hand with a cloth and continued.
When he returned, Trod was sitting in front of the hut.
Not working. Not repairing tools. Just sitting there, staring at the dirt road that cut through the village.
"You're back early," Trod said without looking.
"The forest was quiet," Zio replied.
Trod nodded slowly. "Sometimes that's a good sign. Sometimes it isn't."
Zio set down his modest gather. Not much, but enough. He wanted to ask what Trod meant. He did not.
Some things did not need to be explained aloud.
Night arrived without urgency.
A small fire burned inside the hut. Trod's shadow looked thinner than usual, as if even the light hesitated to remain with him.
"Have you ever thought about leaving this place?" Trod asked.
Zio stared at the fire. "Where would I go?"
"Anywhere," Trod said. "As long as it isn't Greyhollow."
Zio considered the words. "I don't need to yet."
Trod allowed himself a faint smile. "The right answer. For now."
There was no follow up. No advice. No stories.
Yet something shifted that night. Not in the world itself, but in the distance between what they chose not to say.
A few days later, a stranger arrived in Greyhollow.
Not a merchant. Not a refugee.
His footsteps were heavy and measured. His posture upright despite travel worn clothes coated in dust. A short beard. Sharp eyes. A massive hammer secured across his back.
Zio saw him from the edge of the village.
The man stopped in front of their hut.
"Trod," he said. His voice was deep. Solid. "I heard you were still alive."
Trod remained silent for a long moment.
"…Teodor."
Zio did not go inside. He stayed outside, pretending to clean his dagger, listening to fragments of conversation broken by wooden walls.
"I heard you brought up a human child."
Silence.
"…not raised," Trod answered at last. "Brought up."
Nothing more followed.
But Zio felt his chest tighten anyway.
Teodor did not stay long.
At dawn, Zio passed him on the road, returning from a small hunt.
Their eyes met.
Teodor studied him longer than courtesy required. As if searching for something not yet present, or not yet allowed to surface.
"Take care of yourself, boy," the man said.
Zio nodded.
He did not know why the words felt heavier than they should have.
After Teodor left, Trod stood for a long time in front of the hut, staring down the same road.
Greyhollow returned to its quiet.
But something had begun to move.
Slowly. Relentlessly.
INTERLUDE TROD
Trod watched the road long after Teodor disappeared into the trees.
He had known this day would come. Not the man. The consequence.
Greyhollow had never been good at hiding things. It survived by being overlooked, not by being invisible. That had always been enough.
Until now.
Trod did not look at Zio as the boy returned inside. He did not need to. He knew the sound of his steps. Too measured. Too aware.
The boy was changing.
Not in strength. Not in skill.
In restraint.
That was worse.
Trod had lived long enough to recognize the pattern. Power announced itself loudly. Danger learned to be quiet.
Teodor had seen it. Not clearly. Not fully. But enough.
Enough to remember the road.
Trod clenched his hand once, then released it.
He had made choices. Years ago. Quiet ones. Necessary ones.
He had told himself that if the boy lived long enough, the world might forget him.
He had been wrong.
The world always noticed what did not break when it should have.
Trod turned away from the road and went back inside.
For now, Greyhollow was still standing.
For now, the boy was still just a boy.
But the weight had shifted.
And once the world adjusted its balance, it never shifted back.
End of Chapter 12