They came home laughing.
The cottage door swung open, and warmth spilled out—the hearth, the simmering pot, the familiar smell of onions and herbs. Brynn was still talking a mile a minute about the view from the hill, about the clouds that looked like sheep, about everything and nothing.
Logan followed, smiling despite himself.
Then he saw his mother's face.
She stood by the table, one hand pressed to her chest, the other frozen mid-reach for a cup. Her eyes were wide. Too wide. The color had drained from her cheeks, leaving her pale as winter moonlight.
She looked like she'd seen a ghost.
Logan's bag hit the floor. He crossed the room in four strides, hands finding her shoulders, steadying her.
"Mom. Hey." His voice dropped low, urgent. "What's wrong?"
She blinked. Swallowed. Forced her lips into something that tried to be a smile and failed completely.
"Yes, I—everything is fine."
"You don't look fine."
Brynn hovered by the door, sensing the shift, her usual chaos muted to stillness.
Logan's mind raced through possibilities. Illness. Injury. Someone had come. Someone had—
"I'm sorry we're late." The words tumbled out before he could stop them. "The hill, we stayed too long, I wasn't watching the sun, if you were worried—"
"No." Her hand found his cheek, warm and trembling. "No, it's not that. Don't worry." She pulled away, turning toward the hearth where the pot bubbled over. "Dinner is nearly ready. I knew you'd be back around this hour."
She was lying.
Logan had never seen his mother lie before. It sat wrong on her, like a borrowed dress.
"What's going on with Mom?" Brynn whispered.
He didn't answer. He couldn't.
Dinner passed in silence.
Not comfortable silence—the kind that settled over them on quiet evenings, full of peace and belonging. This was different. This was the silence of words unsaid, of questions hovering just out of reach.
Logan chewed without tasting. He watched his mother push food around her plate. Felt Brynn's confused glances like small weights on his skin.
Afterward, Brynn's head hit the pillow and didn't rise. She'd been running on joy all day, and joy, Logan had learned, exhausted a person as thoroughly as work.
He stood in her doorway for a moment, listening to her soft breathing. Then he pulled the door closed and turned to face the front room.
His mother stood at the table, wiping the same spot over and over.
He crossed to her. Stopped within arm's reach.
"Mom."
She didn't look up.
"You want to tell me what's wrong?"
Her hand stilled. For a long moment, she didn't move at all. Then, so quietly he almost didn't hear:
"It's your father."
Something cold settled in Logan's chest.
"Father?" The word came out harder than he intended. "What does he want now?"
"No, it—it wasn't him."
Logan's jaw tightened. "Then whoever it was, if they came to say something about him, it shouldn't move you. That man hasn't had the decency to visit his own family in four years."
The words spilled out hot and bitter, years of disappointment finally finding a voice.
Elara flinched.
But she didn't correct him. Didn't defend. Didn't explain.
She just stood there, clutching the rag like it was the only thing keeping her upright, and said nothing at all.
And for the first time in his life, Logan felt real fear.
Not for himself.
Deep in the forest, a little more than a kilometer from the cottage, a man sat alone.
He'd found a small clearing—barely enough room for himself and his horse—and built a fire from fallen branches. The flames crackled low, casting flickering shadows against the trees. Above, the stars watched in silence.
He removed his helmet first, setting it beside him on the moss-covered log. Then his gauntlets. Then he unbuckled the heavy plate across his chest, leaning it all against a nearby oak. His longsword stayed close, point driven into the earth at his side, hilt gleaming in the firelight.
The horse nickered softly. He reached over and patted its neck without looking.
"I know," he murmured. "Tomorrow."
He'd come prepared for a quick visit. A message delivered. A reply received. Ride in, ride out, back home before the week's end.
Instead, he'd found a closed door and a woman's voice—sharp, angry, unconvincing—telling him through the wood that the people he sought no longer lived there.
He'd believed her. For about three seconds.
Then he'd noticed the fresh tracks leading to the door. The smoke rising from the chimney. The small boot prints in the mud—two pairs, one larger, one smaller.
She was lying.
Which meant she had something worth lying about.
He pulled bread from his satchel and tore off a piece with his teeth, chewing slowly, staring into the flames. The forest pressed close around him, ancient and indifferent.
"I'll try again tomorrow," he whispered.
The fire popped. An owl called somewhere in the darkness. His horse shifted, settling for the night.
He hoped, for her sake, that she'd tell the truth in the morning. Not because he wanted to cause trouble—he was a messenger, not a soldier—but because finding them on his own would take days. Weeks, maybe. And the message he carried wasn't the kind that waited patiently.
—
The first light of dawn was still hours away when Logan opened the cottage door.
He moved on instinct, muscle memory guiding him through the familiar routine. Stretch. Breathe. Prepare the body for what it would be asked to do.
He started with his neck, rolling slowly, feeling the tension release. Then his shoulders—rolling them back, forward, in circles that grew wider with each rotation. His arms followed, then his chest, his back, his hips. He dropped into a deep lunge, holding, feeling the burn in his thighs. Switched legs. Repeated.
He was thorough. He'd always been thorough. His mother once joked that he stretched like a man preparing for war, not a morning workout.
He hadn't laughed.
He straightened, rolling his shoulders one last time, and looked out at the forest. The sky was just beginning to lighten at the edges, deep purple fading to pale grey. Somewhere out there, birds would start singing soon. Squirrels would chase each other up trees. The world would wake.
He took a deep breath, held it, and let it go.
Then he began to jog—easy, steady, following the path he'd worn into the earth over years of mornings just like this. The forest blurred past in shades of green and brown, his bare feet finding familiar purchase on roots and stones.
The first kilometer passed beneath him like it was nothing.
A time most seasoned runners would struggle to match, and this was merely his warm-up. His light jog. The thing he did before the real work began.
He stopped at a random point—not because he was tired, but because this was where he always stopped. Where the trees opened just enough to let him see the sky. Where he could breathe.
He exhaled slowly, rolling his shoulders, preparing for strength training.
Then something caught his eye.
Off in the distance, rising from a clearing he'd never explored, a thin column of smoke curled against the pale morning sky. Not much—just a whisper of grey—but enough.
Smoke meant fire. Fire meant people.
And people didn't come this deep.
Hunters stayed closer to the edge, four or five kilometers back where the game was plentiful and the trees less wild. His family had chosen this spot for its isolation. For the peace of being alone.
Logan's brow furrowed.
Could someone be lost?
He shifted direction, curiosity pulling him forward. His steps were quieter now, instinct taking over. The forest had taught him how to move without sound, how to become part of its shadows.
The clearing opened before him.
And there—silver glinting in the first light—was a knight.
At least, Logan assumed it was a knight. He'd only ever heard of them in bedtime stories, tales his father told of castles and courts and kingdoms far away. But here one was, sprawled beside a dying fire, looking nothing like the heroes of those stories.
The man wore a light leather tunic, stained and worn. His armor—what little of it remained—lay scattered around him like the discarded shells of some strange creature. A longsword rested against a nearby log, close but not close enough.
And the man himself?
He looked... soft. Out of shape. The kind of soft that came from years of sitting rather than fighting. Logan was mildly surprised they even made armor in his size.
He tried not to judge. Appearances could deceive.
But this man looked less like a valiant knight and more like an old man playing dress-up.
Logan crouched beside him and poked his shoulder.
"Ahh!" The knight bolted upright, eyes wild, arms flailing. "Get away from me, you wretched animal! You won't eat me today!"
He scrambled backward, teeth bared, fists raised—a burst of desperate energy that lasted exactly three seconds before he realized nothing was attacking him.
He blinked.
Turned his head.
Found himself face to face with a lean, shirtless man, crouched low, pale grey eyes fixed on him with an expression that could only be described as mild curiosity.
The knight screamed again.
"Wh-who are you?! Why are you shirtless?!" His voice pitched upward in disgust, as if Logan's bare chest were the most offensive thing he'd ever witnessed.
Logan tilted his head. "What are you doing this deep in the forest?"
It was a simple question. Genuine curiosity. Nothing more.
But Logan's face had never done him any favors.
His mother called it his "resting murder face." Brynn called it "the reason small children get scared." Whatever name it went by, the effect was the same: people looked at Logan Thorne and saw danger.
Even though he rarely saw people outside of his mother and sister.
He had no reference point for how he looked to strangers. No way to know that his grey eyes—pale as winter sky, sharp as broken glass—held no warmth when he was simply thinking. No way to see that his features, honed by years of survival and silence, fell naturally into something that resembled a predator sizing up prey.
To Logan, he was just... looking.
Thinking.
Wondering.
The knight saw none of that.
He saw death.
He scrambled backward, kicking at the dirt, one hand fumbling for his sword. He grabbed it, dragged it close, held it between them like a talisman against evil.
"I am a valiant knight of the Kingdom Valemont!" The words tumbled out, brave and terrified in equal measure. "I don't have any valuables, but if you so wish it—" His voice cracked. He swallowed. Pressed on. "—we will duel to the death!"
His arm shook. The sword trembled in his grip. But his jaw stayed set, his eyes fixed on Logan with the desperate courage of a man who expected to die and intended to do it standing.
Logan stared at him.
A long moment passed.
Then, very slowly, very calmly:
"I'm not going to hurt you." He raised one hand, palm open, the universal gesture of peace. "I just wanted to know if you were lost. Or something."
The knight's sword didn't lower.
His eyes didn't soften.
But something in his expression shifted—confusion now, layered over the fear. As if the idea that this terrifying forest creature might simply be asking a question had never occurred to him.
"Oh," he said faintly.
Logan waited.
The knight lowered his sword by approximately three inches.
"...Oh."