By the time the boys trudged home, the sun was low and the air cool, carrying the smell of woodsmoke and damp earth. Kaelen’s lip was split, one eye beginning to swell. He carried himself stiffly, but with the stubborn pride of someone who refused to regret what he’d done.

Eira was waiting by the hearth, her hair loose around her shoulders, Rayne swaddled at her breast. The sight of Kaelen’s bruises made her rise at once, panic flashing across her pale face.

“Kaelen, what happened?”

“It was nothing,” Draven muttered before his brother could speak. He brushed past them, grabbing a cup from the shelf. “He got in a fight, that’s all.”

Eira crouched in front of Kaelen, gently tilting his face toward the light. She frowned at the split skin, the dust ground into it, the angry puff of swelling. “Nothing? This is not nothing, Draven. He’s bleeding.” She reached for a rag, dipping it in warm water. “Who did this to you?”

Kaelen’s fists clenched at his sides. He glanced toward Draven, who stood stiff and silent, his back to them both. “It doesn’t matter,” Kaelen mumbled, though his voice trembled with the lie.

Eira sighed, dabbing at his lip, ignoring the way he flinched. “Fighting never solves anything, little one. You’ll only hurt yourself worse.”

Kaelen bit his tongue against the protest building in his chest. Fighting had solved something. It had shut Jerrith’s cruel mouth. But saying that out loud would only draw more questions.

A soft sound broke the silence: a coo, high and sweet. Rayne stirred in her mother’s arms, her little hands curling in the blanket. Eira smiled down at her, weary but tender.

“See? Even she thinks her big brother is too precious to be getting into brawls.” She tilted the bundle toward Kaelen. “Come — she’ll want to see you.”

Kaelen hesitated, then reached out, brushing the baby’s cheek with one tentative finger. Rayne’s skin was warm, impossibly soft, and she blinked up at him with her strange violet eyes. For a moment, the tightness in his chest eased.

Draven stood apart, cup in hand, staring too long at the child in their mother’s arms. Her hair, once stark white, was darkening further, streaks of silver running through it like storm clouds. Her gaze seemed to catch the light strangely, reflecting it back.

“She doesn’t look like the rest of us,” Draven said suddenly, his voice flat.

The words dropped heavy into the room. Kaelen whipped around, fury sparking in his eyes. “Don’t say that!”

“Draven,” Eira warned softly, her hand resting protectively on Rayne’s small head.

But Draven didn’t back down. He turned his face away, jaw clenched tight, though his voice had lost some of its edge. “I’m just saying what everyone else is already thinking.”

The fire popped in the silence that followed. Kaelen pressed himself closer to his mother’s side, his hand still resting on Rayne’s cheek as if daring anyone to pull her away.

Draven drained his cup in one swallow, then set it down hard on the table. “Next time, Kaelen, don’t be stupid. Words don’t hurt half as much as making them look right about us.”

He turned away, retreating to the loft, leaving Kaelen shaking with quiet rage and Eira staring after him with sorrow written across her face.

The loft was dim, filled with the smell of straw and woodsmoke, the boards beneath Draven’s feet creaking as he rocked back and forth on the edge of his mattress. His fists still ached, his pride burned worse. Below, he could still hear Kaelen’s muffled sniffles, the other children’s jeers ringing in his ears long after they’d left.

Eira climbed the ladder quietly, her long skirts brushing the steps. She sat beside him without asking, the weight of the boards dipping under her. For a moment, she just looked at him, her pale face softened by the glow of the firelight that slipped up through the cracks in the floor.

“You’re too hard on your brother,” she said gently.

Draven’s jaw tightened. He didn’t look at her. “He’s too soft on her.”

Eira sighed, folding her hands in her lap. “It isn’t Rayne that frightens you, Draven. It’s what others think of her.”

“They’re not wrong,” he muttered, sharper than he meant to. He swallowed. “She doesn’t look right. Everyone sees it. Everyone whispers about us.”

Eira tilted her head, studying him. Then her voice lowered, carrying the weight of something older than the valley itself.

“This valley,” she began, her voice quiet but firm, “lives in fear. It has learned to shrink from anything unfamiliar. Anything… extraordinary.” She turned her gaze to him, letting her words settle, strange and resonant. “And when fear rules, it blinds them. They call shadows monsters, birds omens, children with strange eyes curses. But the world is wider than they will ever know, Draven. There are wonders hidden beneath what they see, creatures and powers older than their fear.”

Draven’s brow furrowed. Wonders? He thought of Rayne, so small, her white hair turning grey too fast, her eyes too bright and too strange. Wonders looked like mistakes, like danger.

Eira reached out a hand, not touching him yet, but letting him feel her presence. “Do not believe that different is evil, my son. You may see the world with eyes sharpened by caution, but your heart… your heart must remember what the valley has forgotten. There are forces in this world you cannot yet name, powers that move beneath their sight. And one day, you will see that fear alone does not keep a person safe — only understanding, courage, and care do.”

Her words stirred something in him, something tangled between longing and fury. He wanted to believe her, wanted to feel the warmth in her voice as truth. But the echoes of Elder Bran’s warnings, the boys’ cruel jabs, the looks that followed him and Kaelen through the village — they spoke louder.

Draven clenched his fists tighter, staring at the splintered floorboards. “Maybe… maybe they’re right to be afraid,” he muttered.

Eira reached out, brushing his hair back from his face with a tenderness he didn’t want but couldn’t pull away from. “No, my son. Fear may keep you alive, but it will never let you live.”

I… I don’t know if I can trust them,” he whispered, voice barely audible.

“Nor should you,” Eira said softly, almost a whisper herself, “but remember, not all truth is spoken in fear. Some is carried in the quiet and the hidden places. You will know it when you see it, and you will know what to protect.”

Draven sat still, his fists loosening, though his heart still pounded. Her words had the weight of a warning, but also… a promise. The loft was silent but for the soft breathing of the boys, the crackling of firelight, and the faint rustle of distant leaves in the valley below.

And for the first time, Draven wondered if his mother truly understood the dangers that the valley would never see — the ones he and Kaelen might one day have to face.