Our home is a small whitewashed stone cottage, with a dry-stone wall circling the garden to keep the sheep out. In the summer, the garden blooms with roses and flowering herbs, but now autumn has truly hit, it has wilted away to leave behind only the green grass and a few stubborn ferns.

My brother opens the back door and I help him out of his cloak, taking it from him and hanging it up carefully by the door. Large droplets of water shake onto the floor that I'll have to mop up later.

"Kasper, come on in dear, and sit down."

My mother is a tall, willowy woman with umber skin. Her hair is styled into a knot at the back of her neck to keep the white-blonde curls from escaping. She smiles warmly at my brother, before she rounds on me.

"And what do you think you were doing, going outside and goofing off on a day like today?" she demands, hands on her hips.

I stand there, the door still open behind me, a draft curling around the back of my legs, and take the lecture. There's a smell of fresh bread and warm cakes in the room.

Kasper, who has seemingly escaped my mother's ire, is sat at the table. He butters himself up a large chunk of bread as he watches, but doesn't jump to my aid.

We're used to the one-sided nature of these things now.

"Are they both back?"

That is my father. He is a hulk of a man. Tall, with black hair and deep brown eyes. His beard curls around his face like smoke, standing out against the stark paleness of his skin. Kasper shares his build more than I do. Even at seventeen, I have yet to fill out to anywhere near my father's size. I doubt I will ever.

"Yes. Both out the front messing around,” my mother replies, turning to pour Kasper and my father some tea. I will be expected to get my own in a moment, once her temper has calmed.

"And what were you doing?" My father isn't an unreasonable man. He is blunt, to the point, tactless almost, but the two of us share a special bond.

"We were saying goodbye to Urias.”

I leave it implied that we were saying goodbye to safety. All these years that Geudwood has been Kasper's home and it has never been attacked by Daegol's forces. I've heard stories about elsewhere in Vinculum though, and how dangerous the roads have become.

My mother waits for my father to scold me, but he does not. He instead turns to stoke the fire.

"Harriet has come to see you off," he says instead, dismissing me and turning to Kasper. "I've had her wait in the Parlour."

Kasper stuffs the bread into his mouth eagerly, ready to escape to see his friend. Harriet is a local mage, just like him, and he has a strong friendship with her.

I do not share this friendship.

Kasper disappears from the kitchen, and I set myself to work to keep myself busy. I mop up the water we've dragged in, wash up the discarded dishes, sweep out the fire to make sure that it doesn't get too smoky in the room.

My father watches me the whole time.

"Once Kasper has left for the University, your training program will increase. I have asked Lord Ifan to send a special tutor here to continue your training, so I can travel to Kasper by mid-winter," he explains.

My mother sits by the fire and lays out her skirts. She looks older than she is. Tired. The strain of raising a child like Kasper, one destined to fight evil, is not a burden easily shouldered. I'm sure she thinks of it as an honour, but it must be hard for her to send any of us out into the world, knowing that our lives are dictated by a thin thread of prophecy.

"I could go to Kasper at the University instead," I suggest. "I could protect him better there-"

"No," my father says firmly. I don't understand why he won't let me go. If he's trained me all my life for this moment, what will another nine or ten months really do? What if something happens to Kasper in that time?

"Kasper will be well-protected at the University by someone Lord Ifan trusts implicitly," my father says firmly. "You would only be a distraction until your training is complete."

I wrap the soot from the fire in newspaper carefully, and deposit it into the bin.

At that moment, there is a commotion from the front of the house.

"He's here! He's here!"

My heart leaps into my throat as I glance at the clock on the mantelpiece. I want time to slow down, or even better, to stop entirely.

Kasper is my life. My only link to a world outside this cottage outside the books I've studied. I don't want him to leave.