Boots slowly wading through thick layers of mud, my eyes lifted upwards towards the tall, wooden wall surrounding Losthome, my home village. Fear and sadness gripped at my heart as I noticed thick, white smoke beginning to billow out from the town center. The large, heavy gates stood ajar as I slogged past them and gazed upon a sight I had seen before. Before me stood upwards of one hundred people—the entirety of the village—gathered around one central force: A massive funeral pyre covered with various crops, flowers, and foods of the village and crag. Hidden beneath the logs of the pyre, I knew the body of Jelma, my mother, was inside cloaked in the usual white cloth that cloaks the dead. I felt tears begin to fall from my eyes as I began walking towards the processions, seeing as flames slowly inched their way upwards towards the body of my family. Pushing past the villagers and shoving my way forwards, I eventually stumbled forwards in front of the crowd and crumpled before the pyre. I could feel the heat of the flames radiate onto me as I stared into them. Tears continuing to flow down my face, I dug my head into my knees and sobbed. Eventually, I felt a pat on my shoulder as a sad, familiar figure leaned down towards me and spoke.

“Laere,” he said. As my eyes rose to meet his, I could feel my sadness only growing as I met the gaze of my father, “Here is not the place for this. Come, let me take you home.”

Slowly, I nodded and—gradually and with my father’s help—stood. As I walked alongside my father towards the home I had always known, I felt the sting of judging and angry eyes fall upon me from the crowd and noticed several people recovering from my hasty advance through the crowd. Swiftly shifting my gaze back towards my father, I silently trudged with him towards our destination.

* * *

Pouring tea into the wooden mug I gripped firmly in my hand, my father smiled towards me with sad eyes betraying his emotions.

“How fared your travel?” he asked kindly, attempting to drag me from my stupor into more pleasant conversation, “You have been gone for so long and I fail to believe just how much you’ve grown.”

My father set the teapot he held down upon the table and moved to sit across from me. Avoiding his gaze, I glanced around at the home of my childhood with its warm, dry interior serving as a sharp contrast to the cold, dampness of the village.

“Of course, we always received your letters and messages from the caravans and traders that stopped through the village. Jelma was always fond of reading them aloud to any who would listen. Which, no doubt, always fell upon me to do.”

He chuckled, yet it was a sad, distant laugh that spoke of a deeper sadness and grief. The same grief I was only just experiencing, I knew, was a feeling my father had been living through for several days now.

“How did it happen?” I asked, finally mustering the words I had been desperate to express since the instant I read the first words of the letter I had received a week ago.

“We are…unsure.”

“Unsure?” I asked, more confused than anything, “What does that mean?”

“Your mother, the village overseer, became sick many days ago—”

“Sick?” I interrupted, “What illness?”

“That is what we are uncertain of,” he paused, his eyes drifting upward and gazing into the distance, almost as though he was looking into distant memories, “Many days ago, your mother began to exhibit signs of illness, but it was only common symptoms. Fatigue, fever—the makings of a common chill. And, Jelma being the woman she was, she continued her work without consideration for her own health.”

“If her symptoms were that simple, why is she now—” I stopped, realizing what I was about to say. Gradually, I continued, “Why has she passed if she only had the chill?”

“Because,” my father turned, his gaze—now with a deadly seriousness—meeting mine, “Jelma’s condition deteriorated. Rapidly. Far too rapidly for any simple ailment. In fact, near the end, Jelma’s ailment had all the makings of a plague. Yet… no other person, not even myself or the people she had frequent contact with, contracted her symptoms. She alone became sick with this disease and she alone died of it.”

There was a pause as my mind gradually processed what I had heard. I felt a burning pain slowly build in my chest, a fury I had not felt before.

“What are you saying?” I finally said, a hint of my growing fury seeping into my voice, “That she was what? Poisoned?”

He remained silent.

“Or something else? Cursed perhaps?”

Silence.

“Hexed?”

Again, silence.

“What do you mean? What killed her!”

Finally, I noticed as tears began to fall down his face. Looking up to me, my father simply shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he said in a stifled, sobbed tone. He sniffled and attempted to clear his voice as he continued, “I tried everything I could to save your mother. Truly, I did. I did everything I could to discover what was wrong with her, yet in every step I made, there was an error, a failure, a cost too high, or a dead-end. All the while, I did it fully expecting to die of her same plague and felt glad to know that at least…at least you were safe. You were nowhere near this village and its population that was soon to die. And yet…even that never came.”

At this, my father collapsed, tears fully running down his face and his sobs no longer held behind a mask of strength for my sake. Rushing to his side, I placed my hands on him and attempted to reassure him. Eventually, as his anguish slowly began to be abated, I gripped the spiral piece of iron that hung from around my neck and decreed, “I swear to you, I will discover what happened to her. I swear by the iron hanging from my neck.”

At last, my father glanced up at me with clear eyes no longer clouded with grief over the loss of his dearest friend. However, I noticed as a different kind of grief—the grief over potentially losing his son—crossed over his gaze. Yet the deed was done…I had declared my solemn vow. Ahead of me now stood a host of obstacles—yet I remained completely unaware of what was to come.