The wind smelled of barley and smoke when Lloyd came down the ridge.
Thistlemead lay below, all patchwork fields and moss-eaten fences, roofs bowed under years of rain. Beyond it, the Green loomed—dark, endless, whispering. A sea of trees that used to feed them and now only watched.
Even from here he heard the old mill wheel complaining and the dull ring of someone beating rust out of a plow. Chickens scattered as he crossed the ditch. Smoke rose in thin, stubborn threads. Life hanging on by grit and habit.
A few of the village folk spotted him first.
"Back from the Green, boy?" called old Mara, stooped over her baskets. "Tisn't right, tisn't fair, wanderin' that far these days."
Lloyd managed a grin. "Someone's got to, else we'll be lickin' turnip peel come winter."
"Mmph. Moss keeps better'n boys," she muttered, flicking a warding sign.
A pair of trappers trudged past with nothing but mud on their boots and apology in their eyes. "No boar today," one said to no one in particular. "Just quiet. The wrong kind." A few heads turned toward the communal pot by habit, recalculating supper—more roots, thinner porridge.
On the tavern porch the barkeep lifted two fingers in a lazy salute. "Lloyd! You bring me anything worth a pint?"
"Maybe," Lloyd called, patting his satchel. "But you'll have to wrestle Nora for it."
That earned some weary chuckles. Everyone knew what that meant.
He passed the half-collapsed chapel; the bell was long gone, the doorway dressed with a woven ring of dried witchweed threaded with red twine and holly leaves—a frontier charm for luck, or memory, or both. The wind rattled the reeds like breath through teeth.
Nora's cottage sat where barley met treeline, a stitch between tame and wild. Smoke curled from the chimney, and the smell inside was all warm wood and bitter green. The door creaked beneath his hand.
The light was soft, caught in linen curtains. A little girl lay on the cot by the hearth, skin waxy, breath too fast. Beside her knelt Nora, grinding something in a stone bowl.
She looked up when he stepped in—and froze.
Nora Merren: village healer and reluctant chief by need and by nerve. Copper-red hair braided with a strip of red ribbon, a few strands escaping where the day had tugged loose; sun-browned skin, freckles across her nose, green-grey eyes steady as river stone. A plain wool dress under a scuffed leather bodice, apron stained with blood and herb paste, sleeves rolled to show strong, nicked forearms. A tin thorn-charm hung at her throat, her fingertips stained faintly green.
"Lloyd." Relief flickered first, then anger. "Saints save me, you went in, didn't you?"
He shut the door quietly. "You said we needed more than willowroot. So… I found more."
He unhooked the satchel, set the shimmering orb on the table. The Aqua Bloom glowed a gentle blue, like a cupped piece of sky.
Nora's eyes widened. "You didn't."
"Guess I did."
"You reckless—" She bit off the rest. Torn between scold and thanks, she let the thanks win by the width of a hair. "Do you have any idea what could've happened?"
"Plenty," he said softly, nodding toward the girl. "But she didn't have time for me to be sensible."
Nora's jaw worked; then she reached for a knife. "You're lucky the Green didn't swallow you whole."
"Would've spat me out anyway," he muttered.
She ignored that, cutting the orb open over a cup. The liquid that spilled out glowed soft as moonlight. When she poured it between the girl's lips, the color began to return to her cheeks. Slowly.
Lloyd let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
After a moment, Nora set the cup down, hands trembling slightly. "You did good, Lloyd," she said softly. "Foolish, but good."
"You can be both."
"Don't make a habit of it." She set the cup aside, fingers still trembling, then pulled a wrapped bundle from the shelf and unfolded it. A crude dagger lay inside—ill-kept steel, leather-bound grip, the edge dark with something oily.
She pulled a small dagger from a cloth wrap. The metal was crude, but the hilt was bound in leather and the edge darkened with something oily.
"They found it near where the girl was taken," she said. "Parents gone. She'd been hiding under the floorboards when a patrol found her."
Lloyd frowned. "That's no hunter's knife."
"No. And the wound—it was poisoned. Weak, but deliberate."
He stared at the blade, the oily sheen. "Goblins."
She looked up sharply. "You're sure then?"
He nodded. "Tracks were small, deep-set. Group of them. But goblins don't use steel. And they don't make traps."
Nora's gaze moved to the curtained window, to the line where field became forest. "It's not just goblins. Mid-tier beasts coming where they never dared, little ones learning new tricks, dumb ones getting… ideas. The Green's like a fever breaking—sweat and shivers both."
Lloyd nodded, jaw tight. "And our good baron's men won't cross the hedgerow unless it's to count coins. Lazy lot couldn't find their own boots if the laces taxed 'em first."
"Lloyd." Sharp, quick. She glanced instinctively at the door, as if the walls had ears. "Don't. Not where it can be carried."
He looked away, heat still in his voice. "Someone ought to say it."
"Someone does," she said, softer. "Every time you come back with meat, or herbs, or hope. You're doing the work of ten men—and I'd like to keep you in one piece while you do it."
He huffed something that wanted to be a laugh and wasn't. "Aye, healer."
Silence settled. The hearth popped. Outside, the wind combed the barley and came back from the trees with a sound like distant whispering.
Nora touched the girl's hair, checking the heat at her temple. "Folk go missing now," she said, almost to herself. "Paths we used to know turn wrong. And if this is only the Green's edge…"
"The crown won't help," Lloyd said. "Not till the taxes come short, and even then they'll just squeeze us harder."
Her mouth tightened. "Then it's us. As it's always been." She looked at the tiny thorn-charm at her throat, thumb resting on the metal. "But saints help me—there's only so much a village can hold. We've no guardian left to stand between us and that." Her eyes flicked toward the forest.
Lloyd hesitated. The Bloom's half emptied shell lay pale on the table, catching the firelight. He tried to put words in a shape that didn't sound like madness.
"If someone told you," he said slowly, "a horned rabbit nicked a Bloom right out of Wyrdwell and gave a Vespa a proper thrashing… what would you say to that?"
Nora blinked; an incredulous smile tugged at her mouth. "I'd say the Green's turned folk silly. A horned rabbit, Lloyd? You're overtired."
He looked at the window instead of at her. The barley bent and rose again. The trees listened.
"Yeah," he said. "Just a joke."
The fire cracked. The girl slept easier.
Nora sighed, rubbed her eyes, and glanced at the muddy footprints leading from the door to the hearth.
"Next time," she muttered, grabbing a rag, "you can save the village after wiping your boots."
Lloyd smiled faintly. "Deal."