, the village settled back into routine. People went straight back to work. Fields were tended, animals were led out, and repairs were done without ceremony. I followed Winefred, who everyone called Winnie, because she seemed like a good measure of ordinary life here. She spent her days mending clothes for other households and moving between neighbours as if that was as important as any other labour.

  Winnie brought repaired clothes to Norma’s house and stayed for tea. Norma was tired, kind, and already pregnant again while caring for small children. Winnie and Norma talked about the usual village worries. Young people leaving to chase adventure came up as if it was seasonal. So did the fact that many never came back. They spoke about deaths like they were weather, and that was the part that made it feel most real.

  That night, I saw what Norma’s home was like when Tom returned. He came in drunk and looking for a fight. He complained about his dinner, mocked her, and tried to push her into arguing. Norma stayed controlled and tried to keep the children out of it, but they saw enough. She told Tom to sleep elsewhere. He tried to intimidate her. She did not give him the reaction he wanted. In the morning, the village carried on as normal, and that was its own kind of cruelty.

  Harvest brought movement and noise back through the gates. Betty and Charles left for market with a cart full of produce, and they returned with another wagon and a crew led by an older man named Rasmus. Athelmod welcomed them like family, offered an empty house for the older folk, and organised space and water as if this happened every year because it did. Ilza helped settle them in. I listened to her talk with Rasmus and heard the shape of her life in what she didn’t say. Her sister Bianca was dead, her parents depended on her, and the world outside the village was not a daydream any more.

  The harvest itself was hard, organised work. People cut, stacked, carried, and threshed in teams. They sang while they worked, then drank and celebrated at night. I watched Tom the whole time. He stayed away from the centre of things and drank only water. I could not tell if it was shame, resentment, or a decision he meant to keep. When the festival ended, the village went back to chores. Gareth left with the seasonal workers to try his luck as an adventurer, and no one tried to stop him.

  , two scouts from Ravenrest arrived. They introduced themselves as Barnabus and Percy and said they were following up on the figures Cain’s party had reported in the forest. They spoke politely, drank the tea Athelmod offered, and left with the calm confidence of men who expected trouble and felt ready for it. I told myself I was only curious. I followed them anyway.

  They travelled through fog and bare trees, camped overnight, and moved again before dawn. Percy scouted ahead using invisibility and found a camp. From what I heard, they assumed it belonged to bandits and decided not to risk a direct fight. Percy poisoned the stew at the fire.

  When they returned to strike, they saw the truth too late. The camp was not fighters. It was families. Men, women, and children. Percy froze when he saw the children. Barnabus didn’t. He said they could not leave witnesses and made it sound like a rule rather than a choice. The poison began to work. People collapsed. Then the scouts moved in with knives to finish what they had started. They searched each shelter. They killed anyone still breathing. Percy killed a woman and her baby. He hesitated with another child and did it anyway.

  I couldn’t stop it, I did not have a voice or hands. The only thing I could do was watch, and I hated myself for it.

  Afterwards they buried the bodies and took what they could so there would be less to find. They worked like this was not new. When they left, a child crawled out from hiding and stared at the fresh soil. That was the moment that stayed with me. Not because it was hopeful, but because it proved the world could still surprise you with what it let survive.

  The scouts rode back to the village and lied to Athelmod. They said the camp had been abandoned. He believed them. He looked relieved. I floated above them and felt sick. They left again, and the village stayed warm and busy and unaware.

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  People kept themselves occupied with repairs and mending and preserving food. They visited neighbours for heat and company. I watched them do it and kept thinking about the grave in the forest, and about how easy it was for the village to stay innocent when the truth never reached the gate.

  Norma and Ilza kept talking through the season. Norma said Tom had improved, but she couldn’t trust it. She was still scared of him coming home drunk and taking it out on her or the kids. Ilza admitted she was pregnant. The father was Chris, and she expected he was gone for good. She wasn’t happy about it. She sounded trapped and angry at herself. Norma offered to help, even offered to adopt the baby if Ilza still wanted to leave one day. I don’t know if Norma meant it literally or if she was trying to give Ilza a way to breathe. Either way, Ilza heard it.

  Not long after that, Theo found a child half-buried in the snow near a fence and carried him home. Tabatha treated him like any other person who needed help and named him Ash. I recognised him. He was the child from the camp. The one the scouts had missed. He didn’t speak. He flinched at sudden sounds and stuck close to Theo like he had decided Theo was the only safe thing left in the world.

  As the midwinter festival approached, Theo helped Ilza with small jobs around her home. I watched their conversations shift from polite to personal. Ilza asked him if he planned to stay in the village. He said yes, because of his mother. She asked about marriage. He said he hadn’t found anyone. He looked at Ilza like the answer was already there and he didn’t know how to reach for it.

  At the festival, Ilza asked Theo to dance. She kissed him. Later she led him away to her house. I left them alone at first because I still remembered what privacy was supposed to mean, even if I was no longer part of it. When I checked later, Theo was open with her in a way that made my chest tighten. He wanted her. He trusted her. Ilza asked him to move in with her and he agreed without hesitation.

  It clicked for me then that this was not just attraction. Ilza was choosing stability. She was choosing someone who would stay. I don’t think she was trying to be cruel. I think she was trying to survive the consequences of a mistake.

  and early spring, Ilza lived with Tabatha, Theo, and Ash. Ilza worked hard despite the pregnancy and brushed off concerns. She felt sick often. She spent time with Norma, and I heard her admit she felt guilty about the truth she was hiding. Tabatha noticed too. It was the kind of household where people watched each other without making a show of it.

  Theo asked Ilza to marry him. He said he loved her. Ilza hesitated and then agreed. The wedding was simple and quick. Theo was proud and nervous. Ilza looked like someone forcing herself to commit to a life she hadn’t planned. Tabatha stayed quiet through the ceremony. Afterward she pulled Ilza aside and told her, directly, that she knew the child was Chris’. She warned Ilza not to break Theo. Ilza promised she would cherish him, and she meant it in the way someone means a promise when they’re trying to make it true.

  Norma gave birth to a girl, Sera. Tom was present and restrained, and he didn’t test Tabatha’s patience. As Ilza’s pregnancy pushed into late summer, she became exhausted and miserable. She told Norma she planned to tell Theo the truth. She said her biggest regret was Chris. She sounded like she’d finally stopped trying to justify it.

  She ran out of time.

  Ilza went into labour at night. Theo fetched Tabatha and Winefred. The baby was born, a girl. Ilza named her Illara. Then the bleeding started and it didn’t stop. Tabatha tried to save her and couldn’t. Ilza died within minutes.

  Theo broke in a way I can’t unsee. He begged Ilza not to leave him. He said he didn’t care that Illara wasn’t his. That was how I learned he already knew, or at least suspected, and had decided it didn’t matter. Tabatha told him it was too late. By morning, the room had been cleaned and Ilza covered as if neatness could reduce grief. Theo sat with Illara and cried until he couldn’t. Ash watched in silence, too familiar with loss to react like a child should.

  I kept thinking about the scouts, and about the grave, and about how the village still didn’t know. I kept thinking about Ash surviving long enough to arrive here, and about Illara arriving only to lose her mother.

  I don’t know what I can change. I don’t even know what I’m allowed to change. But I know what I’m going to try.

  Illara is not going to grow up with nothing but other people’s silence. If I can do anything at all, it will be to make sure she has a full life, and that whatever truth matters reaches her before it turns into another secret that rots a family from the inside.