Days slipped by, each worse than the last. Their father’s drinking deepened, his temper sharpened. Where once he had been distant, now he was cruel.

One morning, Draven returned empty-handed from begging the neighbors for bread. Their father, reeking of ale and sweat, struck him hard across the face.

The crack of it echoed through the house.

Kaelen froze, clutching the basket he’d been scrubbing. Draven didn’t cry out, only staggered and clenched his fists at his sides, his jaw set like stone.

“Useless,” their father snarled. “Both of you. Can’t even fetch food like proper sons.” He shoved Draven toward the hearth. “To bed. Both of you. I’ll hear no more of it tonight.”

The boys retreated upstairs, the silence between them heavy. Kaelen touched Draven’s shoulder as they crawled under their blankets, but Draven only turned his face to the wall.

They weren’t asleep when the knock came.

Through the floorboards, the boys heard the creak of the door, the low murmur of voices. Elder Bran’s voice carried first, dry as winter reeds.

“Still no sign of her? It has been weeks, Harlan.”

Their father’s growl followed. “She’s gone. That’s all.”

Another elder chimed in, a woman’s voice sharp with disapproval. “Gone, yes — and what will you do about it? A man in your position can’t linger without a wife. Who keeps your house? Who tends your sons?”

“They are old enough,” Harlan snapped. “They work.”

“Too hard,” the woman said. “They miss their lessons, Bran tells us. That won’t do.”

Bran again, his tone heavy with meaning: “You forget yourself, Harlan. You are not of this valley. You came by marriage only, and it is Eira’s blood that binds your sons to this land. If you cannot see them raised properly, we will.”

The silence that followed was like a blade being drawn.

“Try and take them,” Harlan spat.

The elders did not rise. Bran’s voice dropped, low and deliberate: “Remember, men and women go missing in many ways. Fae are not the only danger in this world. Be careful that you are not the danger your sons need guarding against.”

The door slammed, rattling the walls. Footsteps faded into the night.

Upstairs, Kaelen clutched the blanket to his chin. Draven lay rigid, his back to him, but Kaelen could see the tension in his shoulders. Neither spoke, but both knew: the elders’ words were not only a warning. They were a threat.

And in Kaelen’s chest, where his secret throbbed faintly like a hidden heart, the egg seemed to grow heavier still.

Months had passed on. The days rolling together as sure as the tide. 

The afternoon sun slanted through the trees, dust motes drifting like tiny sparks in the light. Draven and Kaelen crouched among the tall grass with a handful of other children, baskets at their sides, plucking the pale star-shaped flowers Elder Bran prized for his tonics. The blossoms grew close to the treeline, their white petals glowing faintly against the green.

Kaelen’s fingers worked fast, but his eyes kept straying toward the shadows of the forest, where the air seemed thicker, darker. Even when no wind stirred, the leaves rustled as if something unseen moved between them.

“Don’t go too far,” Draven muttered, his back hunched over his basket. “You know the rules.”

“I’m not,” Kaelen said quickly, though his gaze lingered.

A group of girls crouched nearby, whispering as they gathered flowers. Their words carried, sharp with the thrill of forbidden talk.

“My mother said it was in the baker’s house this time,” one of them said. “A fox. Just sitting in the corner, staring. Wouldn’t leave until they threw stones at it.”

“That’s nothing,” another chimed in. “My uncle swore he saw a crow with red wings. Sat on his roof all night, watching him.”

A third girl lowered her voice to a hiss. “Did you hear about the deer? The one with antlers made of bone? Elder Bran says the forest is changing. That the fae are trying to sneak back in.”

The children fell silent, the forest hum pressing against them. Kaelen’s hands stilled on the flowers, his heart tightening.

Draven spoke before he could. “They’re just stories. You know how elders talk. Makes them feel important.” His voice was sharp, but his eyes flicked toward the woods as if daring something to come out.

One of the boys laughed nervously. “Not just stories. Your father’s the one in charge of watching the forest now, isn’t he? My da says Harlan’s been out there nearly every night with the men, hunting things down.”

At the mention of their father, Kaelen shrank closer to his brother, but Draven only pressed his lips together. He didn’t answer.

“They say,” the first girl whispered, leaning in so close her braid brushed Kaelen’s shoulder, “that the fae send animals ahead of them. Spies. Testing the valley before they come through themselves.”

Kaelen swallowed hard, the secret of the egg burning in his chest. The others didn’t notice, too busy daring each other with wide eyes and nervous grins. But Draven noticed. He always noticed.

He grabbed Kaelen’s wrist, squeezing it just enough to anchor him. “Come on,” he said flatly, lifting his basket. “We’ve picked enough.”

The children let them go, already returning to their whispers. But as Draven and Kaelen turned back toward the village, Kaelen couldn’t stop glancing over his shoulder at the tree line — certain that in the shifting shadows, something was watching them.

Kaelen’s rag-wrapped treasure sat heavy in his small hands. The egg nearly filled the box now, the thin silver veins webbing across its surface like frozen lightning. Sometimes it trembled when he wasn’t touching it, as if something inside was restless.

He knew what the elders would say. Burn it. Crush it. Destroy it before it hatched.

And yet, when Kaelen touched the shell, a strange calm filled him — the same deep, aching pull he felt when he thought of his mother. He could not let it go.

He placed it gently on the rag he’d stolen from the longhouse, smoothing the cloth around it, watching. What are you? he wondered. A bird? Something else? Would you stay with me if you could? Or would you fly away like she did?

A noise snapped him out of his thoughts.

The boy froze, ears straining. Someone downstairs.

Kaelen’s heart lurched. He scrambled to tuck the egg back into its hiding place, not noticing the faint glow that pulsed under his fingertips, like breath. He crept toward the stairs, each step careful, afraid of what — or who — might be waiting.

The lower floor was still, dust motes swirling in a sunbeam. No one.

“You’re so weak,” Kaelen muttered to himself, voice cracking. “Jumping at nothing. Just like he says. Always nothing.” He clenched his fists, trying to drown out his own fear with his father’s words. “Pathetic. Useless—”

A sound interrupted him.

Kaelen’s head snapped toward the far corner of the room.

There, half in shadow, stood a fox.

Not just any fox. The white fox.

Its fur was bright as frost, its eyes holding a depth Kaelen had only ever seen in people. They locked onto his, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe. The world seemed to narrow to just the two of them, boy and fox, bound by something he couldn’t name.

Then, with a graceful leap, the fox darted across the room, slipped out the open door, and vanished into the waiting forest.

Kaelen stumbled after it, stopping in the doorway. The forest swallowed the creature whole, not a sound left behind.

When he turned back, something lay where the fox had stood.

A scrap of blue fabric.

Kaelen knelt, lifting it carefully. The cloth was soft, worn at the edges, and carried the faintest trace of a scent he knew too well. His throat tightened. It smelled like her.

Like mother.

He clutched the fabric to his chest, trembling. This wasn’t like the whispers of other children, the half-seen crows and deer. This was different. This meant something.

And this time, he couldn’t keep it to himself.

He would show Draven.