Autumn arrives in Finland with the forest turning a morose shade of amber-red, dulled down by fog.
More than a decade ago, around this same time in October, a younger Ishmael had lain beside Neva just as he does now, his arms wrapped around her little body before a crackling hearth, while Grandpa narrated a memorized story of David and Goliath.
"The giant Goliath then fell unto the ground by but one stone hurled from David's sling, never to rise again," Grandpa said in that overly animated, enthusiastic voice he used whenever he wanted a smile from his granddaughter,
especially when she was sick, as she had been that evening, recovering from a bad bout of flu.
Neva giggled heartily, unable to tire of the gospel stories despite Grandpa having recited them hundreds of times over from whatever he remembered of his own childhood, stories passed down from generation to generation,
and the secret sermons he had attended.
Because any act connected to Christianity had been prohibited in Miraeth, and the crime was punishable by death.
Grandpa smiled, then reached forward to place his palm upon Neva's forehead.
"Are you feeling better now, my child?"
Neva nodded. "Grandpa, now tell me the story of Adam and Eve."
"It is enough for tonight."
Grandpa rose from his bamboo-woven chair to add another piece of chopped wood to the fire.
Neva sulked, turning to Ishmael with a pout on her rosy lips.
"Tell Grandpa we want to hear more, Ishmael!"
Ishmael merely grinned, playfully pinching her tiny nose, which only deepened her pout.
"You need to rest. You are still sick."
"I am not!" Neva exclaimed as Grandpa lay down at the other end of the bed.
"Grandpa, tell me one more!"
"Grandpa is tired," Grandpa said. "Are you both warm enough?"
"We are," Ishmael replied, while Neva continued to sulk for more stories, though her eyes drooped with sleepiness. Soon, soft snores slipped from her.
Wearied after the day's labour, Grandpa, too, soon fell asleep, leaving only Ishmael awake
as the night deepened, worried that Neva's fever might worsen after breaking just that morning.
The cold wind blew outside their cottage, but here, he was warm and content beside Neva, wrapped in the threadbare blanket as the fire crackled softly in the hearth. As sleepiness drew him in, he thanked God, as he did every night, for the blessings of Grandpa and Neva, who had given him a home and family after his father died and left him poor and orphaned.
And because he fell asleep reminiscing about the memories of when he first met Neva,
it was only natural that he dreamt of it.
It had been four years since he had first met them when he was a nine-year-old boy. It was around three weeks after his sadistic father's death.
Since their cottage was perched at the far edge of Ephrath, where the thick pine-draped hills began, the villagers were mostly strangers to him, a nameless boy with a pale complexion and ruddy cheeks, all skin and bones, looking far younger than his years.
He had been weak and starving that day when he curled beneath the sycamore.
He had eaten nothing but a small handful of wild blackberries he had found in the forest, after the few copper coins his father had left him were gone.
When he stirred from his restless sleep, he was startled, struck by a heartbeat of love for the doe-eyed girl peering down at him. Her cheeks
ripened to the colour of apples she offered him after he caught her sneakily watching him sleep.
Then she ran toward an old man, tall and sturdy despite his grey hair, a basket hanging from his back, brimming with apples gathered from the forest.
After that day, life felt full for the first time. Ishmael and Neva dreamed the same dreams, breathing the same air of love and peace that Grandpa's faith sent forth against the mounting chaos in Miraeth.
But soon his joy turned bitter when the priests, knowing the prophecy that a child of eight years of age had been chosen to deliver the believers, doomed
hundreds of children around that age to martyrdom.
Grandpa left him with a trusted family while he fled with Neva Ishmael was unaware then that he would not see her again for more than a decade.
A few weeks later, Grandpa returned to Miraeth, but without Neva, telling him that she was safe and that it had to be done, because she would have been killed by the soldiers had they found her, being eight years old herself. He never told him where he had left her.
His life shrivelled, his days restless and bleak, her absence stealing the very light from his world.
At fifteen, after his old man succumbed to illness and died, he, desperate for meaning in his life and for the beat of his heart, slipped aboard a merchant ship and sailed away from the island.
The world beyond was little different from Miraeth, evil permeating every which turn.
For about six months, he called the streets home, under bridges, among parks.
The few scraps of fabric he possessed were all that stood between him and the storms and cold.
A scrap of food from a dumpster, a single canned good from charity, became his treasure for days.
It was then that he realized how much he had taken for granted in Miraeth,
the comfort of home, the warmth of those who had cared enough to reach for him.
It was at that time that he met Jacob Ellis, a boy his own age,
beaten and harassed by older boys in an alley.
Jacob's father, a notorious kingpin and founder of Ellis Enterprise, learned that Ishmael
had saved his son and took him under his wing, teaching him at home alongside his own son.
When he was nineteen years old, Mr. Ellis had been murdered and, to his surprise, left half of his assets to him, while the other half went to Jacob.
He was overwhelmed by the kindness and determined to prove himself worthy of Mr. Ellis's trust. By then,
he was already more experienced than Jacob in both the legitimate business world and the underworld.
After making sure Jacob could handle both the honour and burden of running Ellis Enterprise, he founded Samuel Group,
built upon the contracts, loyalties, and obligations that had bound him to Mr. Ellis.
Beneath its legitimate façade,
he ruled one of the hemisphere's most sophisticated narcotics and trafficking empires.
Everything that he was now, he owed to her.
He survived because of her, driven by the one reason that kept him moving: to find her.
And he spared neither time nor resources until he did, only to lose her again.
But this time, he tightens his arms around her.
She is here to stay.
Even after death, he will bind her spirit to himself, or his spirit to her living self,
until they are together beyond this realm.
He'll tell her all about this once she wakes.
Reborn without wounds or scars, just a fresh white canvas for him to paint.
He inhales the fruity scent of her shampooed hair, still lingering even if she had last washed it three days before she fell asleep, and had yet to awaken.
She was supposed to wake today,
that was what the doctors had said, but night was already closing in, with no sign of her stirring.
Anxiety grips him at the sudden thought that the procedure might have gone wrong somehow.
What if she remains comatose? But what if she remembers, and it hadn't worked at all?
Will she go back to hating him and their babies again?
Have another episode in which she tries to kill herself?
It was that very same reason that finally snapped his patience.
He knew the very people who could cure her without even touching a strand of her hair. They agreed to help him, just as they had before, when they were the ones who first approached him with a contract.
But what they wanted in return was neither money nor an alliance, but a vial of the virus,
kept under strict scrutiny in the world's safest vault within the Tower of Worthon in Erriador.
It was a mutated strain of a life-threatening virus that had left millions suffering across the world three decades ago.
But before the mutated virus could unleash another plague, one of the scientists exposed their crimes, and the authorities seized and sealed the vial.
In the course of his research, Ishmael uncovered an intriguing connection between it all.
One far too intimate to ignore.
He had been given enough time to acquire the vial.
If he failed, there would be repercussions to bear, and what had been done would be undone.
But he would not give up.
Even if this leverage provoked retaliation and destabilized alliances, he would not lose her again.
His pulse quickens as her breathing changes.
Before he can begin to worry about how she'll react or what he should say, her eyes flutter open, only to close again.
He assumes the brightness of the room is hurting her eyes after more than
seventy-two hours of unconsciousness, even with the fluorescent lights dimmed to a soft glow.
He slowly pulls away as she turns to look at him.
He swallows against the knot lodged in his throat at the blankness in her expression,
uneasy over what she remembers, and how much, if anything, the procedure had erased.
Those large, almond-shaped eyes remain fixed on him for a long moment, until she blinks at the touch of his hand against her cheek.
"Where... am I?" she whispers, her voice groggy.
"Home," he says, barely containing his eagerness at what her question implies.
A small frown pulls between her brows. "Who are you?"
A smile spreads across his lips.
"I'm your husband." He places a hand over her swollen belly. "And you're pregnant. With twins."
Five months pregnant, her bump should have been bigger by now. But the babies were extremely undernourished because of her own neglect.
He had tried to improve her health, but she had been so headstrong, using his children to punish him.
They had first discovered about it when she came down with a fever about four months ago.
Even though the timing indicated that the babies were his, he had allowed himself no joy until it was confirmed.
He felt relieved when the results came back as he had hoped,
but her health only deteriorated further from there.
Tears slip down her cheeks. "Why... why can't I remember?"
"You had an accident," he says.
"The doctors said you suffered a head injury, and it caused your amnesia."
She clutches her head, a pained expression crumpling her face. "I... I can't remember anything."
"Love..." He catches her wrist, careful not to disturb the IV line running into her vein.
"It's all right. You're safe here."
"Don't touch me!" she chokes out, pushing against his chest with the other hand,
the same one she cut four nights ago.
Anger rises in his chest, but he forces himself to remain calm,
reaching for the jug of water on the nightstand.
"I can't remember my name—" Her breath catches. "I can't—"
He offers her the glass of warm water. "Drink this."
She attempts to sit up, the water spilling slightly from the glass as he gently presses her back down by the shoulder.
"Stay still," he says. "Calm down."
Her lips tremble as fat tears spill from her eyes.
"Don't be scared," he says. "I'll tell you everything."
"My... my home," she murmurs, a sob breaking through her voice.
"This is your home." He wipes her cheeks. "With me."
She shakes her head. "No... no—"
His gaze hardens. "What do you mean, no?"
"I...I..." she stammers, her face growing pale.
"Your name is Neva," he says. "Sam Neva."
She lifts her gaze to his, her lips parting as if to say something, only to close again.
A breathless sob escapes her as she covers her face and cries.
He sighs and returns the glass to the nightstand.
Looks like it'll take longer for her to come around.