HE HAD BEEN RIGHT. The man behind the wall.

If he hadn’t cut the cast open, Yanick was sure his arm would’ve exploded. From pressure. That’s what the man had called it.

Yanick didn’t know this word, but he could feel what it meant.

It was like some invisible force was crushing his skull, stabbing deep into his ears, clogging his nose from the inside. His broken arm had swollen grotesquely, ballooning with every second. He felt like he was drowning, though there was no water here. Just the capsule.

That was what the man had called it. Capsule.

He refused to give Yanick his name, but he named everything else.

Capsule. Pressure. Vacuum suit. Seat belts.

Words that meant nothing before and now meant everything.

Like that noise. A terrible, groaning roar, metal screaming around them as the capsule shuddered and shook. It had begun when the man pulled the lever. Except he’d called it the yoke.

Everything had changed after that. Pressure. Noise. Vibration.

A climb, or a fall. Yanick didn’t know which.

It was puffed up and useless, swollen like the bullfrogs he and other boys used to inflate with cattail stems. Long ago. In a different place. In another life.

Only this time, there was no laughing, no daring, no game. This time, it was his arm. And it didn’t move. Not the hand. Not the fingers. Nothing.

I’m going to be crippled, he thought.

HE WAS NO LONGER in the capsule when he woke up. The suit was gone too.

He lay naked in a soft bed, his arm carefully wrapped in bandages. The kind they used back home, the kind that meant someone had taken their time, someone had known what they were doing. Someone had cared.

He sat up slowly, groggy, every muscle aching. Fingers of his right hand obeyed his will and moved. Yanick felt the relief.

It will heal, he thought. I won't be crippled.

The room was dim, comfortably so. In the corner, a bundle of sage smouldered in a small clay dish. The smoke curled gently into the air, carrying that earthy, bitter scent. Back home, the priests of Ari used to burn sage to drive away sickness and evil spirits.

A memory, sharp and sudden, pierced through the haze. His heart jumped at the sound of a door opening.

He saw it instantly. The familiar moment, familiar shape. The silhouette stepping into the room with a tray. She was carrying breakfast: bread, milk, cheese, butter. She would change his bandages, smooth the sheets, laugh softly when his hand brushed hers by accident. Her black curls would fall across his face, smelling like lavender from the garden. He could almost feel it.

But it wasn’t her.

The girl who entered was young too, but her face was pale and dusted with freckles. A thick braid of blonde hair hung over one shoulder. She smiled shyly when she saw he was awake, and a flush of shame crept up Yanick’s neck.

Not because he’d mistaken her for Amaia. But because his body had responded with an urge of lust, as if this girl were someone he desired. His body wanted that freckled girl in the bed with him. Here and now.

She lowered her eyes, blushing deeply, and even in the low light he could see it.

“I’ll bring you some clothes,” she said softly, turned and hurried out.

She didn’t make him wait long.

The clothes she brought stirred another wave of memory, another step back into a life before his people were forced to carry the consequences for the Great War, before ruin it had brought upon them.

Not the smooth, unnatural kind — tight, stifling things that never moulded to his step and never made a sound against the floor. These were old-world boots, worn in all the right places, heavy enough to remind him what solid ground felt like.

When he dressed and stepped outside, she was waiting for him. Smiling. That same shy, radiant smile that caught him off guard. She really was beautiful.

“Come,” she said. “He’s waiting for you in the Longhouse.”

Yanick stepped past her and looked around. He was home.

Not his village, he knew that much. His village had looked out over the sea, not mountains. But this… this was his land. The Northlands. The place foreigners referred to with wary respect, or cold disdain.

The birthplace of Nemeth. The place from which death had marched southward, cloaked in steel and blood. Under the banner with Black Moon.

Villagers stopped what they were doing as he passed. Every person turned to look at him, some with curiosity, others with a quiet reverence. Heads dipped, palms pressed briefly to hearts. A warrior’s greeting. An old one.

He nodded back, uncertain, uneasy with their recognition.

Everyone here looked like him. Fair skin. Pale eyes.

Not a single face bore the tired suspicion or the subtle malice he’d grown used to in other places. He hadn’t seen people like this, his people, in so long, he’d forgotten what it felt like to belong to a place.

At the end of the main road stood the Longhouse.

It was exactly as the one he remembered from his childhood, from his home. A massive timber structure, low to the ground but stretching long and wide, with wooden carvings at the gables: dragons, wolves, suns. Smoke curled from the hole in the roof. On either side of the wide doors, men stood with spears crossed in front of them, but when they saw him approach, they stepped aside in unison, bowing their heads.

This was the place where the jarl would sit on his stool. At his right hand, the priest of Ari would listen, nodding solemnly, weighing mercy and punishment.

At this hour, sun at its peak, they would normally be hearing grievances, settling disputes, offering counsel to those who needed it most. They would talk with the elders, with the most respected warriors, plan for winter, or for a next raid across the sea.

But today, the air inside felt nothing like court. It felt like the end of the week. Like a festival night.

The long wooden tables were being set in haste. Clay plates and mugs clattered down, linen cloths were unfolded, and women bustled back and forth with baskets of bread, steaming pots of stew, wild berries heaped high in carved bowls. Someone uncorked a keg of honeyed beer. The scent of roasted meat already filled the hall, thick and rich, tugging at his hunger.

Yanick blinked in disbelief. Everything pointed to the same, impossible truth: They were preparing a feast in his honour.

The crowd parted for him. They didn’t speak, just gestured silently, showing him the way, as if he didn’t already know. His feet carried him forward on instinct. Toward the throne.

And there he stood. The jarl. Back turned. Long cloak with fur collar resting on his shoulders.

Yanick’s heart leapt to his throat. He swallowed hard, unprepared for the sudden weight inside his chest. It wasn’t fear. Not quite. It was something deeper. Stranger. Something without a name.

He approached the spot where supplicants were meant to stand and dropped to one knee, as tradition demanded.

“My lord,” he said.

The jarl turned. Tall. Regal. Clothed in gilded robes under the cloak. No crown adorned his head. He didn’t need one. His face was its own coronation.

Clean-shaven now, his features looked carved from stone, every line sharpened, every trace of the gaunt, ragged prisoner gone.

Yanick barely recognized him.

This was not the starved, unkempt man who had huddled beside him in the freezing dark, whispering secrets through the wall. This was not the stranger who had dragged him into the capsule and saved his life. This was someone else entirely.

“Welcome, boy,” the man said, arms opening wide. “Rise, and rejoice—for you stand before your god.”

Yanick’s breath caught.

“I am Ari,” the man continued, voice echoing like thunder wrapped in velvet, “and you have done me a great service. Now, I shall honour you.”

He stepped closer, gaze blazing with something beyond mortal comprehension.