Kaelen didn’t move. Couldn’t. He clutched the egg as it fractured further, light spilling in blinding rays until the shell gave way entirely, shattering in his hands.

And then—silence. His mother’s screams cut off, leaving only a terrible, suffocating stillness in the house.

Kaelen’s breath hitched in his throat. The world held its breath with him.

Then, from below, a sound pierced the quiet—a cry, small and thin, but strong enough to echo through the beams of the house. A newborn’s wail.

Kaelen’s hands trembled, the last of the egg’s light fading from his palms.

Moments later, the door opened, and the elders entered, voices hushed but urgent, moving quickly to where Eira lay. Their presence filled the house, their words sharp and clipped, but Kaelen barely heard them.

He stayed curled under the bed, clutching the fragments of the egg, staring at the glow still lingering faintly in his skin.

The light was gone. One moment it had burned so bright Kaelen thought it might set the whole loft aflame, and now—nothing. Just empty, broken shell dusting his hands. It was as if the egg had never been there at all.

Kaelen sat frozen, heart pounding so hard he thought it would shake the boards above him loose. His fingers trembled around the pieces that crumbled like ash between them. He didn’t understand. He didn’t understand any of it.

At last, legs stiff, he crawled out from beneath the bed and staggered toward the stairs. Each step creaked loud in the stillness of the loft. He gripped the railing with clammy hands, afraid of what waited below.

“...Mama?” His voice came out small, cracked, swallowed by the chaos beneath.

The downstairs was nothing like the silence he had left. The house was alive with bodies and voices—too many bodies, too many voices. Women swarmed through the room, skirts whipping, hands wet with red. Rags piled in basins dark with blood. The air was thick with smoke from herbs tossed hastily into the fire, bitter smells clawing at his throat.

“Quickly—more cloths!”
“She’s losing too much—”
“Hold her down, just hold her—”

It was dizzying. Words crashed into each other until they became noise, a wave of frantic sound that pressed in on him from all sides. Kaelen shrank against the wall, watching as adults moved with purpose he couldn’t follow. No one saw him. He was too small, too quiet.

The floor was slick near the hearth, red soaking into the rushes, staining the very earth beneath the boards. His small feet made sticky sounds as he walked closer. He wanted to turn back, to hide again, but he couldn’t.

And then—he saw her.

His mother.

She was lying on a heap of furs, her face pale as candle wax, beads of sweat shining on her brow. She looked so thin, so fragile, Kaelen’s chest clenched tight. But her eyes—her eyes were bright, soft, fixed not on him, but on the tiny bundle cradled to her chest.

“Kaelen.” Her voice cut through the din like a thread of light. Weak, yes, but warm. She tilted her head, smiling faintly. “Come, my boy. Come meet your little sister—Rayne.”

Kaelen froze, torn between the comfort of her voice and the storm of panic still raging around her. The other women turned then, startled, realizing he was there. Some frowned, whispering, but none stopped him. They parted just enough for him to slip through.

The baby cooed, a sound so strange it made his heart ache. She was impossibly small, swaddled tight, her skin pink and soft. Her tiny hands twitched as if reaching for him, and her mouth made little sounds that didn’t feel like words but carried meaning all the same.

Kaelen stretched a hand toward her, trembling with wonder—then snatched it back as though burned.

He couldn’t. He shouldn’t. She was too fragile, too perfect. He had broken the egg. He had ruined it. What if he ruined her too?

His mother watched him with that same tired smile, as though she knew his thoughts but wasn’t worried at all.

Eira’s smile softened as she patted the furs beside her. “Don’t be afraid, Kaelen. She won’t break from your touch. Come see your sister.”

Kaelen hesitated, shifting from foot to foot, but the way her voice curled around him—gentle, coaxing—made him step closer. He lowered himself onto his knees, staring at the bundle nestled against his mother’s chest.

“She is…” His voice trailed, too hushed for the chaos around them. He blinked, brow furrowing. “Why is she so small, Mama?”

Eira brushed a strand of damp hair from her eyes, her hand steady despite the weakness in her body. “She came early, that’s all. She’ll grow, you’ll see. Small doesn’t mean weak.”

Kaelen leaned forward, curiosity tugging stronger than fear now. The baby’s eyes opened briefly—bright, silvery, far too aware for something so new—and then fluttered shut again. A sound bubbled from her lips, not quite a cry, not quite a laugh, more like a string of soft notes pressed together. The women around them whispered uneasily, but Kaelen didn’t care.

He reached out with trembling fingers and brushed the side of her cheek. Warmth met his skin, fragile as sunlight. She wriggled, gurgling, and one tiny hand curled as though trying to grasp his finger.

Something in Kaelen’s chest unclenched. A sigh slipped from him, heavy and relieved. He didn’t even realize he was smiling until his mother chuckled softly.

“She’s perfect,” he whispered.

“Yes,” Eira said, her tired eyes never leaving him. “Perfect.”

And in Kaelen’s young, muddled mind, something clicked into place. The egg. The glow. The breaking. It had been leading to this. To her. Rayne was what he had been meant to protect all along. He understood now. She was his to guard, his to love, the same way he had sheltered the egg in secret.

Kaelen leaned closer, resting his forehead near hers. “I’ll protect you,” he breathed, so softly his mother almost didn’t hear. “Always.”

Rayne cooed again, as if she understood.

The door slammed open, and Draven nearly tripped in his rush across the threshold. His chest was heaving, face pale, eyes darting wildly until they found her.

“Mom!” His voice cracked as he sprinted toward the bed, his fear spilling through the tough mask he always wore. For one awful moment, Kaelen thought he might actually collapse from relief. Draven stopped short, just a few feet from her side, frozen as if afraid his touch might make her vanish again.

Then his gaze fell to the bundle in her arms. His jaw tightened. “It looks weird,” he muttered flatly.

A ripple moved through the women gathered there. They nodded in quiet agreement, lips pressed tight. They all saw it—the strange way the baby’s limbs stretched and curled with intention, the way her tiny mouth shaped coos instead of the expected cries, the hair that shone stark white under the dim light. Too white. Too wrong.

Eira only chuckled, a low, tired sound, stroking the baby’s head as if smoothing away the whispers. “She came early, sweetheart. Babies just born tend to look weird. You came out looking like a pear.”

A few women stifled snorts despite themselves, but Draven didn’t laugh. His eyes stayed fixed on the small girl wriggling against their mother’s chest. Still, he edged closer, step by hesitant step, until he stood beside the bed. Slowly, he reached down and brushed his fingertips across Rayne’s downy hair.

The baby turned toward him instantly, reaching out with impossibly steady fingers. Draven flinched back as though stung, fear flashing across his face. “Why did she come so early?” he asked, his voice quieter, tinged with unease he couldn’t hide.

Eira opened her mouth to answer, but before a sound could leave her lips, Harlan’s voice cut through the room like a lash.

“Your mother fell down. Clumsy as always.”

Kaelen’s body went rigid. He wanted to scream that it wasn’t true, that he had heard everything, but the words lodged in his throat like stones. His mother didn’t deny it either—she only pressed Rayne closer, her expression unreadable.

The room felt colder suddenly, thick with things unsaid.

Draven’s hand hovered in the air long after he pulled it back. His fingers still tingled where they’d brushed the baby’s hair. Too soft. Too strange. He rubbed his hand against his tunic as if to scrub the feeling away, but it lingered, a reminder he couldn’t shake.

He stared at the bundle in his mother’s arms. She was smiling down at it—at her—like nothing else in the world mattered. Like she hadn’t been gone for months. Like she hadn’t left them to carry everything alone, to suffer under Harlan’s temper and the village’s whispers.

And now she sat there, pale and bloodied, gazing at this white-haired thing like it was a blessing.

His stomach twisted. The women’s nods echoed his own thoughts: not right… unnatural… A child that didn’t cry, a child that reached too soon, a child with hair as white as bones.

The elders would say she was a curse. He almost agreed.

But then he looked at his mother—her thin, exhausted smile, the way her arms curled protectively around the babe—and something hot and sharp lanced through his chest. Anger, yes, but not at the baby. At her. At Eira.

She had caused this. All of it. The whispers, the stares, the shame. She had left them, and now she returned with this strange child that no one wanted, least of all Harlan. Draven could feel the weight of the villagers’ eyes even now, could hear the mocking laughter in their voices. The strange woman and her strange child.

His fists clenched at his sides.

He wanted to ask her—why? Why she had gone. Why she had chosen to come back like this? Why she had left him to protect Kaelen alone? But the words stuck, and the moment passed, swallowed by Harlan’s cruel voice.

“Your mother fell down. Clumsy as always.”

Draven’s head snapped toward his father. The lie sat heavy in the air, obvious as blood on the floor. Draven bit his tongue hard enough to taste copper. To speak would mean another backhand, maybe worse. And no one here would stop it. No one ever did.

So he stayed quiet, though his chest ached with unshed words. He kept his face blank, hiding the storm inside, because that’s what he had learned to do.

But in his heart, a single thought burned clear and poisonous:
She left us. She brought this on herself. And now she wants us to pretend nothing’s wrong.

He glanced at Kaelen, who was leaning closer to the baby with wide, awestruck eyes, whispering softly as if he’d found a miracle. Draven’s jaw tightened. His little brother was too eager, too trusting. Someone had to be the cautious one. Someone had to see things for what they truly were.

Draven promised himself he would. Even if it meant standing alone.