Nestled within the woodlands of Pinmon, a small village stood, rays of sunlight peeking out from behind rain clouds that had just passed. Located in the wildlands of the south, this village was home to farmers and those who had fled from the surrounding regions, each person seeking a better life for themselves, hidden away in nature.

  Standing in front of a small grave, a large bear-like man carefully wiped rainwater from the gravestone, the corner of his eyes wrinkling as he smiled. He had a gentle face that made everyone who met him feel safe, yet beneath it lay a deep sadness and an undeniable strength that made everyone stay respectful when near him.

  “Father, I miss Mother.”

  A little girl looked up at him, her pudgy face scrunched up. She appeared to be about six years old and was taller than most girls her age. Dark brown hair fell just past her shoulders. She wore the typical rough, woven dress common among village girls, dyed a pale purplish-blue with elderberries.

  Lifting the little girl into his arms, the man squished her into his chest. “I miss her, too, princess. But we must be strong for her,” he said. “Do you remember what she told us?”

  “That she would always be with us.”

  “That's right, now let's go home and eat supper.”

  Carrying his daughter, Letius made his way down the hill to the small hut where they lived, his large frame barely fitting through the small door. Putting her down, he took off his cloak, shook off some of the rain, and hung it and a wooden coat rack.

  “Alias, go clean up. I’ll start with the food. Some of the elders might stop by,” he said.

  “Yes, Father!”

  Smiling as his daughter struggled with her own cloak, Letius let her be; the last time he had tried to help, she had yelled at him, insisting she was old enough to do it by herself and didn’t need help.

  Watching her, Letius was reminded of his sisters, Edium and Tricia. Edium, the youngest and shyest of the family, would have gladly let him help, expecting those around her to take care of her. Tricia, on the other hand—Tricia would have insisted on doing everything herself, her stubborn little eyes glaring at anyone who offered help. Alias reminded him of her the most.

  Feeling a momentary pull of the heart, Letius made his way into the storage room, his mind lingering on the memory of his old family. Ever since his wife had passed away, he found himself thinking of them more and more, wondering how they were, what they were doing. It had been years since he had last seen them, years since he had even thought of them.

  Father must be getting along in age, he thought, rubbing his hands together. I hope Karl doesn’t struggle too much.

  Grabbing a large leg of deer meat that was hanging in the cool storage room, Letius placed it down on a large wooden board, his calloused hands reaching for his knife. Expertly, he cut the meat off the bone and cubed it.

  Nodding in satisfaction, he put the bone aside and opened a cabinet, pulling out the dried herbs and spices he had gathered the previous year. After coating the meat thoroughly, he grunted with approval.

  Wiping his hand on a rag, he stepped outside and stood beneath the small eave of the house, where he had built an outdoor stove. Using the still-warm coals, he carefully rekindled the fire, adding more wood to it until the fire was strong. He set a heavy pot over the fire, added a scoop of lard, and went back inside.

  Grabbing the wooden board of seasoned meat, he hurried back out and tipped it into the pot.

  As the raw meat struck the hot oil, a sharp hiss filled the air, droplets of grease popping and dancing, breaking the quiet. The rich scent made his stomach rumble. Working quickly, Letius peeled some potatoes, carrots, and onions, and fetched a pitcher of water.

  Once the meat was well browned, he tossed in the vegetables, poured in the water, and sprinkled in salt, stirring the mixture with a wooden spoon. It would take nearly an hour for the stew to finish.

  As he stood there, watching the water slowly come to a simmer, he heard his daughter call to him from inside the house.

  “Father! The Elders are here! Aspemo is not with them!”

  “Help them settle in. Don't be rude,” Letius called back, knowing she would ignore his words.

  “Hi, Village chief! Did you bring me anything? Just bread? Elder Sam, Elder Ama, did you bring me sweets? Where’s Aspemo?”

  Alias’s voice drifted out of the house as she ran over to the elders and searched their clothes for any treats.

  Embarrassed yet strangely warmed by his daughter, Letius shook his head before turning back to the task of cooking. Since his wife’s funeral, the Village Chief and the Elders had begun visiting him a couple of times a week, each claiming that they were too old to hunt and had come only to eat his food. Letius knew better—they were there to make sure he and Alias were doing well.

  “Father, when will the food be done! Remember, we have to wait for Aspemo!” Alias shouted, grabbing the door frame and leaning outside.

  “The food should be done by the time he gets here!” Letius reassured her, checking the meat—the elders were old and needed it to be tender. “Go inside, you're letting the smoke inside.”

  “Yes, father.”

  Almost an hour later, a knock came from the front door.

  “Aspemo!” Alias shouted, her little feet moving quickly as she ran inside, letting the young boy in.

  Aspemo was fifteen, almost sixteen, long-limbed, with the first hints of muscle, his movement an awkward jumble of arms and legs. In the past year, he had grown over a foot and now towered over most people. He was still learning to move his body around without knocking everything over.

  When Letius first arrived at the village with his wife, Aspemo had taught him how to hunt and shoot a bow. As the former son of a lord, Letius understood honor, war, and ruling, but tracking and hunting his own food, especially with a bow, had been entirely new to him.

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  Within the village, only the Village Chief—Aspemo’s grandfather— and the boy had a crest, one Letius did not recognize: a kestrel.

  Shaking his damp, dirty-blond hair, Aspemo smiled.

  “Hi, Alias, Grandfather, Elder Sam, Elder Ama, Uncle Letius, thanks for having me tonight.” He quickly closed the door behind him. “Sorry, I’m late, Vic needed help with his chores.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Letius called, pulling out a small piece of meat from the pot, and checking its tenderness. The meat was tender, soft, yet had a little chewiness. Just the way he liked it. “The stew just finished. You’re right on time!”

  Pulling out six wooden bowls, Letius carefully ladled stew into them, making sure each one had a generous portion of meat.

  “Foods done,” he announced, wiping the edge of a bowl with a rag.

  Piling the bowls onto a wooden tray, he brought them inside, proudly showing off his work.

  “That looks amazing! Let me help you,” Aspemo said excitedly, standing up, his eyes sparkling at the steaming bowls of stew. At his age, food excited him more than anything else.

  “Sit, sit!” Letius gestured, serving the three elders first before serving Alias and Aspemo.

  Seated around the large table one of the elders had brought over a few months ago, everyone passed around the bread the Village Chief had brought and started to eat, each person complimenting Letius before drifting into talk of village happenings.

  “Did you hear?” Elder Ama said, taking a bite of bread and shaking her head. “That foolish boy, Perry, fell into the stream yesterday. Ditched his job to meet Dottie, and while he was gone, the chickens got loose. Took him all afternoon to find them. He’s lucky his father only gave him a light beating.”

  Chuckling, Elder Sam ate a spoonful of soup. “You were just as bad when you were young. I remember you sneaking off with Hoss all the time.”

  “That was different,” Elder Ama snorted. “We were in love—and Hoss never fell in a stream.”

  Laughing, the Village Chief shook his head. “He was a good man. How many years has it been? Seven?”

  “Twelve,” Elder Ama said quietly. “He passed away a year before the big flood. He died too young, but he gave me happiness and two sons, so I forgive him.”

  “Hear, hear,” the elders murmured.

  As the night wore on, Letius noticed his daughter starting to nod off, her small head slowly dipping forward.

  “I think it is time we leave,” the Village Chief said, following Letius’ gaze and seeing Alias half-asleep.

  Letius stood up and gently lifted his daughter, letting her sleep on his shoulder as the others rose and tidied the table before taking their leave.

  “Letius, I’ll see you tomorrow,” the Village Chief said, pausing by the doorway.

  “Yes, Chief. Tomorrow.”

  After everyone had left and Alias had been put to bed, Letius quietly sat alone in the dark, his mind slowly coming to a stop. The exhaustion of holding a smile all day finally weighed on him. Ironically, what he had the most difficulty in doing was letting himself feel the loss of his wife; as soon as cracks appeared in his mental defenses, his subconscious would come racing in, rebuilding his defenses stronger and higher than before.

  Alcohol had once been the only way Letius could grieve, but he had given it up when he realized he was neglecting his daughter. Instead, each night, he would sit in the dark and feel nothing, simply sit and remember his wife.

  After an hour of silence, Letius slowly stood up and washed up for bed. Putting on a clean nightgown, he slipped under the covers and closed his eyes, willing himself to sleep. As he drifted off, he found himself in a familiar memory.

  “She is nothing more than a migrant! If you choose her over your family, you will never be allowed to come back!”

  The rage in his father’s eyes burned with a hatred Letius had never seen before, a hatred so hot that Letius’ soul felt branded by it. Feeling his father's rage infect him like an illness, Letius roared back, his body trembling.

  “If you cannot see her as my wife, then you are no longer my family! I renounce all claims to Leora! From this moment on, we are not father and son. We are strangers—nothing more!”

  Yelling at each other in blind fury, the two had to be physically separated. Uncle Conrad restrained his father while Karl pulled Letius back. Fueling his determination with anger, Letius had left his homeland that very night, riding into the wilderness with his new wife by his side.

  As Letius made his way deeper and deeper into his dream, he noticed he was no longer riding Midnight.

  He was walking, his infant daughter, Alias, cradled in his arms. Looking down at the beautiful baby girl, with her round, curious eyes, his heart swelled with joy. Smiling with all his heart, he reached down and tickled her chin with his finger. Alias laughed, grabbed his finger with both hands, and tried to bring his finger to her mouth.

  “Honey! Look!” he called, glancing next to him, searching for his wife.

  Nobody stood next to him.

  His stomach dropped. Letius tried to stop walking, but his body refused to listen to him. Straining his neck as far back as he could, he looked back and saw his wife lying on the ground, a black sword protruding from her.

  He screamed, but no sound came out.

  Still clutching his daughter, he watched as his body slowly kept walking, leaving his wife on the ground.

  His head started to pound as he once again lived through his wife's obsession with her family's only heirloom, a sword that seemed to slowly take her life. Knowing that he could not change the past, Letius watched in anguish as his wife crawled to her sword, choosing it over their family.

  Jolting awake in a sweat, Letius rapidly gasped for air, his heart pounding in his chest.

  Looking over at his daughter in a panic, he saw her sleeping in the small wooden bed he had built out of hardwood.

  Sighing in relief, he quietly got out of bed, changed, and then stepped outside.

  The early morning air was cool and crisp.

  Taking in a few slow breaths, Letius made his way to a small basin of water. Splashing his face with the cool water. He shook his face; the familiar nightmare still clung to him. Straightening, he dried his face with his hands, then stretched them before turning his head towards the Village Chief, who was walking up to him.

  “Good morning, Chief,” Letius said, pushing the memory down.

  “You’re up early,” the village Chief replied, chuckling lightly.

  “So are you, Chief.”

  “The older you get, the earlier you wake. I think it’s because the old are trying to outrun death,” the Village Chief joked, a twinkle in his eye. “Care to join me for a walk? I usually like to walk around the village when I wake up. It would be nice to have some company.”

  “I’d like that,” Letius said. “It would do me good.”

  Walking with the cool morning breeze, the two slowly walked around the village, the Village Chief pausing frequently to observe something.

  “How many years has it been since you came to his village?” The Chief asked, pausing again to squint at a bug on the ground. “It feels like it was just last week that you came riding into this village, your wife by your side.”

  “Seven years,” Letius muttered.

  “Seven years,” the Chief repeated. “Time moves faster and faster as you get older.” He sighed, grunting as he started walking again. “Whatever happened to that massive horse of yours? I’ve never seen such a large beast.”

  “I told him to go back home.”

  “You can do that?” the Chief said, startled. “I never knew horses were that smart.”

  “Midnight isn’t an ordinary horse,” Letius laughed. “I doubt you can find any horse that smart outside of Arioria.”

  Seeing the wide-eyed Village Chief stop in front of a large branch in the middle of the path, Letius smiled.

  “Village Chief, I want to thank you for allowing us to live here,” he said, helping the old man drag the branch off the path and into the forest.

  “No. We should be thanking you. Without you, we would have died to those raiders a long time ago,” the Village Chief said, brushing his hands off. Grunting, he tottered back to the path. “You might not realize this, but everyone in this village respects you.”

  Scratching his head in embarrassment, Letius continued to follow the old man on his stroll, both enjoying each other's company.

  Returning to their starting spot, Letius made sure that the Village Chief went into his house before returning to his own house.

  “Father?” a sleepy voice called out.

  “Where were you?”

  Alias was standing in the doorway, her messy hair surrounding her face like a lion's mane.

  “I was helping the Village Chief with his walk,” Letius said, taking off his boots and hugging his yawning daughter.

  As he lifted her, something snapped. A woven bracelet slipped from his wrist and fell to the floor.

  “Father,” Alias said, pointing down at it from his arms. “Your bracelet broke.”

  Bending down to pick up the bracelet, Letius felt a sudden chill run down his spine. The bracelet had been a gift from his younger brother.

  “Father? What’s wrong?”

  “I don't know, princess, but I have a bad feeling,” Letius said, putting Alias down and touching the back of his neck.