“A talent unused is a life unchanged. A talent wielded is a future forged, for good or ill.”

  — Attributed to Paul ‘The Beggar’

  Snow weighed on the roofs of Winter Claw, each drift heavy as unspoken accusations. Days creaked past beneath a sky the color of old pewter; the air never warmed, only shifted—bitter at dawn, brittle at dusk, sharp enough to score any fool who breathed too deeply. Eike learned again how cold could move—not as wind, but as a presence, staking corners and alleys, curling inside the bones and behind the eyes. Each flake that gathered seemed another tally, another silent vote against him.

  He noticed the stares first. Wherever he wandered—fetching water in the half-light, crossing to the storehouse, gathering peat from the shed—conversation flattened to hush. Even the clang of buckets drew a hush behind it. Old Krelm angled his face away, tracing circles in the dirt with a boot made for work long outlived; girls ran their errands wide around Eike and did not quite run, but let space creep out between them like a scar. He caught the drift of their voices—low, sibilant, quick to launder fear with distance.

  “Keep the little ones in, Sima. He walks the lane today.”

  “Shh, not so loud. Miss Grayna’s in earshot.”

  It might have galled him, once. Now it simply filled him with a slow, sliding shame, like dirty water finding the seams of a boot. Each mutter, each glance fled from or held too long, pressed the memory of the hall tighter—grain dissolving, eyes burning holes in his skin, the echo of that power spitting out of him as if he were only the barrel for winter’s venom.

  He hauled the bucket, ice burning into his fingers, up and over the well lip. No one stepped near. Even Ril, whose mouth overflowed with opinion on every turnip harvest and dice throw, kept his back ostentatiously to Eike, knotting up the winch-rope with exaggerated care.

  Grayna approached, boots squashing rime into muddy print.

  “Don’t pay it mind, lad.” Grayna’s jaw clenched, lips pressed hard enough to blanch white. She fixed him with a stare that might have thawed icicles—if the warmth was meant for him. “Folk fear what doesn’t answer to sense. You don’t have to hand them reasons.” Her gloved fingers fidgeted along her belt, testing the knife’s familiar shape. “Keep your mouth shut, your work done. You’re watched, make no mistake.”

  Eike gave her no answer. What words would serve? Penance, apology, protest—all stuck in his throat, choking together.

  She snorted, pushed a twist of gray hair past her brow. “Go on home. They’ll talk less with you out of sight.”

  He left, the bucket biting his palm with each swing. The lane twisted before him, a ribbon beaten flat by boots softer than anger but sharper now, in rumor. Overhead, gray clouds pressed so low even the crows forwent their quarrels, huddling along the ridgepoles, silent as omens.

  

  


  

  Inside the cottage, the world narrowed. Lucy’s breath stewed in the hush, moist and shallow; every sound carried deeper, seemed somehow too loud for the frail frame she’d become. Eike knelt by her side, wringing out the cloth to wipe her brow, laying hands to her chest for the rise and fall—the measure of her stubborn pulse. Each time, he braced himself for absence; each time, the rhythm flickered on.

  She watched him work, eyes gleaming sharp and sly despite the fever’s haze, lips curling into a private, crooked smile.

  “Don’t scowl,” she whispered, voice thin as thawed snow. “That’s only water, not poison.”

  He snorted—a brittle, involuntary sound. “Wouldn’t trust my luck to draw less. Folk think I can spoil grain with a look. Maybe I’d sour the well, too.” The confession slipped out before he could stop it. Damned if he didn’t half believe it himself.

  Lucy propped herself up on elbows that jutted sharp as pegs. “Let ’em think that. You always hated crowds anyhow.”

  He managed half a smile, searching her face for signs—color at the cheeks, brightness at the eyes—but the illness clung, unmoved by the drama he’d unleashed. He felt for warmth, found too much.

  “Hurts,” she admitted, hushed. “In the joints. Like they’re twisting tight to crack.”

  Eike ran his hands along the shapes of her arms, careful in his touch, remembering the day in the hall—power unfurling, ruining not just sacks, but the fate of every breath he took until winter slackened. He wanted to fix it, to call on that force, to order it—heal her, clean, simple. But nothing answered, except the helpless ache in his gut.

  He pressed his cheek to the straw mattress, closing his eyes.

  Would you have me use it, if I could? Or would you be the next thing it ruins? The thought slipped through his gut, slow and cold as meltwater under ice.

  Lucy reached a hand—cooler now, damp-edged—to brush his forehead. “Don’t make that face, Eike. We’re all cursed in our way. You just went and did it proper.”

  He laughed, or tried. The sound snagged at his teeth, and he pressed the back of his hand to his mouth as if to dam something up. In the space between one breath and the next, she slipped back into sleep, jaw soft, hair askew against the rumpled wool. He watched the rise and fall—counting pulses, counting chances.

  Outside, boots thudded on the lane—measured, deliberate. Not the crowd’s restless, suspicious shuffle, but something with purpose sewn into its pattern: Master Rend.

  

  


  

  The knock was soft, insistent. Eike answered, dragging the latch. Rend stood outside—broad-shouldered, sunken-eyed, the tally-stick tucked for once beneath his cloak. Around him, the cold layered up, smelling faintly of old ink and pennyroyal.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “You keeping well, boy?” The question rang hollow, rote as any ritual.

  Eike shrugged. “Lucy’s the one as needs keeping. I do as I must.”

  Rend let his gaze drift past Eike, scanning the small rooms. “Duke wonders. Town wonders. You haven’t raised dust since the hall, but the air’s squeezed tight as vinegar.” He tapped the tally-stick, the sound dull and precise. “You’ll keep to the marked path. Go only where you’re seen. No mischief, no fuss. If the Duke asks, I say you toe the line. If not, you’ll find the tally’s sharper than your tongue.” He glanced sharp, the weight of his office crowding the tiny nook. “You got me?”

  Eike nodded, jaw clenched. “I’ve no cause to make more trouble.”

  Rend’s mouth flicked—no smile, only the ghost of a warning. “Trouble’s not always your to choose. Remember it.” He turned, boots biting the snow. “Keep her warm,” he called over his shoulder. “Spring’s not as far as it feels.”

  Eike shut the door, heart hammering. Trouble’s not yours to choose. No—perhaps not. But it lands square, all the same.

  

  


  

  If the world had shunned him before, now it merely quarantined. Days layered up, gray on gray, marked by Eike’s small rounds: fetch wood at dawn, snatch broth from Amalia’s periodic offerings, tend Lucy’s fragments of hunger and sleep. The fire offered little but routine; the stone walls pressed in close, letting less and less of the world intrude.

  Once, Amalia slipped in—shawl smelling of thyme, her voice a murmur.

  “Any change?” she asked, palm resting gently on Lucy’s brow.

  Eike shook his head. “Same fever. Same shadows underneath.”

  She pressed a chipped cup into his hands—bitter, grassy steam curling up. “You look worse than your sister. Drink.”

  He sipped, nose wrinkling. “Tastes like last year’s leaves fighting bathwater.”

  “You need strength, boy. For her—and for whatever else might tumble out of this blasted winter.” She paused, pinching the edge of her shawl. “Folk are jumpy. Most will be looking for something to blame, especially with old tales circling.”

  He understood, glancing away. “Don’t fault them. I spooked myself.”

  She touched his sleeve, gentle as dusk. “Power’s only a tool—a knife carves bread or brings blood, depending whose hand’s on the handle.”

  He wanted to believe her. But his knuckles whitened on the cup, and the fire spat dry sparks, unimpressed by hope.

  

  


  

  On the far side of Winter Claw, where the keep shouldered up against the wind, Amonvae worked in deeper quiet. Her rooms—small, meticulous—had grown congested with notes, each one a new thread drawn from the village’s discomfort. She moved between them as a weaver, teasing sense from the patterns of suffering and rumor.

  She had paid for information with careful words, not coin. A word with old broad-hipped Tilla, who remembered Eike’s birth—midwife’s lament, that one. “Storm that night, miss. Wind like teeth. His da gone by morning—fever, or worse. And when the snow thawed, they found a shape in the north field. Wouldn’t say more.” Another day, she pressed Amalia: questions about his habits, the father’s cough, the threads of blue string passed as amulet.

  From Rend she extracted timelines: a finger to the ledgers, a note there—Eike’s family marked by debt since before the scrawling of his father’s name faded. There had been a spike, a sudden frost, the burial hush stitched with rumor of “accidents” and “omens.” In each story, Amonvae parsed for traces—nights when the cold fell too quick, children wailing in sleep, bread that baked hollow, a sheep found bloodless in the thaw. She scored them on her own ledger: signs to correlate, patterns to prepare.

  But the real puzzle lay behind locked doors—the Duke’s silences, his barked commands, the nervous way his glove hovered near the winter-blunted blade, as if expecting the air itself might turn. Rend tallying his books with growing desperation, clutching closer to order with each rumor of spoiled grain.

  Amonvae pressed the nib of her quill against the parchment, thoughts turning sharp, precise. All patterns fracture, given time, she mused, watching the ink pool in a cold ring.

  If a raw talent lives here, and more—if the village knows and the Duke fears, a chain is only as strong as the links that fear being broken. Adenar’s doctrine: record, control, deploy only when the outcome can be predicted. But no new pattern comes without risk. This one: not an accident, not wild chance. A fissure, perhaps. Or a wound the world tries, too late, to close.

  She dipped her quill, ink pooling like shadow at the edge of the page. In private cipher, she wrote:

  Subject: Eike, son of v. Harn. Manifestation: spontaneous, catalyzed by distress. Pattern: untrained, possible latent line—paternal or otherwise. Older evidence of magical disturbance at approximate time of birth. Systemic stress within village; authority stretched thin. Recommendation: observe further, identify if suitable for harnessing; minimize collateral. Gauge Duke’s tolerance for irregular solutions.

  Amonvae sealed the note not with wax but with pressed salt, the village’s own sacrament. She watched the white grit curl at the ford of her palm—a small irony.

  The world outside her window crouched under chronic cold, but she sensed the heat beneath—the restless grumble of folk near breaking, the coiled wound of Eike’s guilt, the Duke’s bitter arithmetic playing out as famine and fear. Every day tightened the knot; every silence thickened the air.

  Her gaze lingered on a second page, script crowded by strike-outs and half-measures. Places like this breed monsters, saints too, if you watch long enough. Perhaps even something worth the trouble, if the knife is sharp and the cut is quick. I’ll prepare my offer. Let’s see what kind of hunger moves him.

  

  


  

  By the week’s waning, Eike found work enough on the edge of the allotments—fields blanketed under too little snow, nothing growing but old ghosts. He knelt, scraping at the crust, gloveless now, letting the raw scrape mend itself into numbness. Breathing in the cold, thinking only of breath.

  Someone passed—gave him wide berth. He didn’t bother looking up. His world had shrunk to such raw certainties: Lucy’s pulse, Grayna’s advice, Amalia’s small hopes. In the place where comfort once resided, only the weight of the gift—a thing unasked, unwanted, yet his to carry—settled deep.

  He gazed over the broken fences, mountains hunched like the scarred backs of oxen, snow seeping into every seam. In whispers, the village painted him as the boy who spoiled grain, who beckoned the Shroud. Still, beneath all that fear, there was a hint—hope, as thin and biting as wire. Maybe this cursed gift could be turned, could mend more than it broke.

  He shut his eyes. The ache in his chest was sharp, indifferent—proof he had changed, though he couldn’t yet guess what he was becoming.

  

  


  

  That evening, as clouds pressed down to meet the tinder roofs, Eike returned home by the back lane. Someone had left a bundle by the threshold—stale bread wrapped in a twist of old cloth, no name attached. A kindness, shrouded in anonymity, or an offering to appease whatever ghost he’d become.

  He knelt inside, brushing a lock of hair from Lucy’s brow, waiting for her breath to stabilize, for the world—just once—to grant reprieve.

  Out beyond, under the same cold sky, Amonvae slit open a new sheet of vellum, her quill sharpening strategy from rumor and fear. Tonight, she would write to Adenar, yes. But soon, she would write to Eike himself—an invitation extended with the weight of both necessity and design.

  Above, the wind toyed with the thatch, muttering like old grievances folded into the snowdrifts. Eike listened, unsure which voices belonged to memory, and which were yet to be made.

  The snow pressed close, relentless, and the dark beyond the window thickened—waiting.