The shack was crooked, half-stormwood, half-driftwood, but it stood. Jalen had stopped caring whether it leaned or groaned when the wind hit it. As long as the roof didn't cave, it was enough.
He came into the village only when he had to—dried fish for grain, rope for flint, firewood for salt. He didn't linger. The people whispered when he passed, eyes darting to the scars, the unkempt hair, the beard that hid his jaw. Stranger. Raider-slayer. Ghost. He ignored them all.
At first, Mira kept her distance. He saw her in the square sometimes, baby wrapped close, gaze sharp. When he traded with the elders, she stood on the edge of the crowd, watching. She never spoke.
Then she began to follow. Not far—just a presence at the edge of the path when he left, steps soft behind his own. At his shack she would stop, pretend to gather herbs or driftwood, her eyes lingering. He didn't send her away. He didn't invite her in. He simply shut the door and let silence be the wall between them.
Days stacked into weeks. She was still there. Sometimes she left things by the door: a strip of cloth, a scrap of bread, once even a crude little carving of a fox. He didn't touch them at first. Then the cloth disappeared into his pack. The bread was eaten on a cold night without thought. The carving sat on his shelf now, gathering salt.
One evening, as he hauled wood down to the fire pit, she finally spoke.
"They're saying storms will be worse this winter," she said, her baby fussing in her arms. "The balance is broken. A god is gone."
Jalen didn't answer. He struck flint to steel until sparks leapt.
"They say it was the God of Freedom." Her voice was quiet, like she feared the sea would overhear. "That he went into the underworld to fight Death himself. And he never came back."
The spark caught. The fire grew. Jalen stared into it until his vision blurred.
"They say the storms are his grave-song," Mira finished.
He didn't move. Didn't even blink.
When he finally spoke, his voice was flat. "Maybe gods get lost. Same as people."
The next week, she followed him again. This time she didn't stop at the treeline. She crouched near the shack while her baby tugged at her hair, watching him repair the roof. He worked in silence. She tried anyway.
"You look worse than the day you saved my life from that raider," she said. "You should cut your hair. Or braid it. Something."
He didn't reply. The hammer kept falling.
The next time, she brought cord. Sat cross-legged a few paces away, knotting it into patterns. "It helps the mind," she said, not looking at him. "When the silence is too loud."
Still no reply. But he didn't walk away.
It wasn't until nearly a month later, after another trade run, after another night when the sea sounded too much like a mouth closing around something precious, that he let her touch his hair. Not because he trusted her. Not because he wanted to. Because he didn't have the strength to say no.
She worked slow, gentle, pulling the wildness back into order. For her, it was speaking to a wall. For him, it was just another silence to endure.
And still, when she finished, he didn't take it out. "Never considered myself having dreads before…"
The traders came on a windless morning.
Two wagons dragged themselves into Hearthgrave's square, wheels shrieking, horses rib-thin. The men and women who climbed down looked worse—cheeks hollow, eyes rimmed red, clothes stiff with salt and dust. Survivors, not merchants.
Jalen had been bartering fish for millet when they arrived. He stood apart, hood low, while the villagers crowded the wagons with questions and hands reaching for news. He might have left, but Mira's voice carried close behind him.
"They're from Everlock," she murmured, as though saying the name itself required care. "Traders. Once, they came with silver and glass. Look at them now."
He did. They looked like bones wrapped in cloth.
One of the men drank deep from a waterskin, then spat into the dirt. "The king's lost himself," he rasped. "Blames his court for every shadow. Blames his allies for every storm. Men hanged for nothing. Crops seized for coin that never comes back."
Another woman shook her head. "He doesn't care for the future anymore. Doesn't even care for us. Only talks of something higher—something he's owed. He curses gods, spits on their names, calls himself the one who'll surpass them."
The crowd murmured uneasily. Someone muttered "tyrant."
Jalen didn't move. The word lodged behind his ribs.
"What about the people?" he asked at last, his voice low.
The traders looked at him like they hadn't noticed him there. Then they looked away, shame carved into their faces.
"Hungry," the woman said simply. "Afraid. Some flee. Most cannot."
The silence that followed was heavier than the smoke of the raid had been.
Jalen turned and left before anyone could look at him too closely. Mira followed a few steps behind, her baby quiet against her chest, saying nothing this time.
At the shack, Jalen set his jaw and stared out toward the horizon. The wind salted his lips, colder now, carrying the smell of storms. He said nothing to her.
But when the fire cracked later that night, and the tide hissed at the edge of the beach, he whispered one name to the dark.
"Everlock."
Sparks spit into the wind. Mira's baby had gone quiet, asleep against her shoulder, but she hadn't moved from her place near the pit.
"They say Everlock's king has outlawed talk of the God of Freedom," she murmured. "Anyone caught speaking his name is branded a traitor."
Jalen's grip on the knife faltered. The edge nicked his thumb, a bead of blood welling bright. He pressed it into his trousers until the fabric drank it.
"They say he cursed the god," Mira continued, her voice steady. "Blamed him for abandoning the world. For leaving his people to rot."
Jalen didn't look at her. "Maybe men make their own graves and call them gods' fault."
For a moment, the only sound was the tide hissing against the shore. Then Mira said quietly, "They also say the God of Freedom had a sister. A warrior girl with sharp eyes and a fox at her side." Her gaze flicked toward the grave marker down the beach, the one with salt already whitening its carved name. "They say he lost her."
Jalen turned then, slow, his eyes catching the firelight. "How do you know that?" His voice was low, rougher than he intended, like stone dragged across steel. "How do you know she was my sister?"
Mira didn't flinch. She shifted the baby's weight in her arms, calm, unbothered. "Because I've been watching you."
His jaw set.
"You work like a man who should've died already," she said. "And when you stand by that grave, it's the only time you let yourself be human. No god grieves like that. Only brothers do."
She let the silence stretch, the wind tugging at her cloak. Then, softly:
"And because I saw you."
Jalen's stomach tightened.
"Last week, when you thought no one was near. You reached out to split kindling—and it split before you touched it. You fell after, like it drained you dry, but it was enough. I know what I saw."
The fire popped. His hand curled against his knee.
Mira didn't press. She simply tied another knot into the cord she was weaving, her voice low, matter-of-fact. "You don't have to tell me. I already know."
The smoke rose into the night sky, sparks leaping up into the dark. Jalen's silence stretched so long that Mira thought he might not answer at all.
Then he drew a slow breath, eyes still on the flames.
"Can I trust you to keep it a secret?" His voice was low, almost swallowed by the sea wind. "I'm not exactly in my best position at the moment."
Mira's gaze softened, though she didn't move closer. "If I wanted to tell them, I already would have. The day you carried me out of the fire, I decided I owed you more than that."
Jalen finally looked at her—tired, hollow, but searching. He found no deceit in her face, only the steady weight of her promise.
He let out a rough exhale, almost a laugh but with no humor in it. "Then I guess that makes two secrets we're both stuck carrying."