Chapter 8

Elenor sat by the dying embers of the hearth, holding a cup of forgotten tea. By now, it had gone cold, and she couldn't remember if she had even drunk any of it. She couldn't even remember pouring it.

Her husband, Devon, paced on the opposite side of the room. Neither of them had spoken for quite some time, and this was unusual for Devon.

His steps were soft and consistent, the only noise to accompany the faint crackles from the fireplace.

"He should be dead," Devon says abruptly, breaking the silence.

Elenor remains silent, staring out the small window next to her. The full moon hangs low in the sky, as though a powerful invisible force is dragging it down.

Devon quickly adds, "Not that I want him to be. It's just Reina said the blood loss-"

"I know what she said," Elenor cuts him off, her voice flat and dry. 

But knowing doesn't help. Elenor couldn't get the image of Ross being carried into the village, shoulder torn open, pale, and half-conscious. She hadn't been there to actually see it, but she had heard enough that her vivid imagination was refusing to stop. Now, he is at Reina's, where the village's healer is paying him close attention to ensure a steady recovery.

She grips the cup tight, her hands trembling and spilling some cold tea on her lap. She doesn't ever want to see her child hurt like this again.

Except, he wasn't her child. Not entirely, was he? Not with how independent he always is.

She's made herself believe that he is simply exceptionally gifted. Inhumanly strong, yes, but she hoped that was due to some form of divine blessing. She didn't want to consider other possibilities. 

She didn't want to face the instincts that had been screaming at her since the day that Ross's first word was telescope. Her family didn't even own one, and she was positive there wasn't one anywhere in the village. Those apparatuses are expensive.

"He has never been normal," Elenor whispers, finally allowing herself to begin looking at the bigger picture. "He never was."

She recalled when Ross was half a year old, there was a major thunderstorm, and she was worried he would be frightened by it. She had held him close, but instead of being scared, he had looked out the window, not crying or afraid, but listening to it with an even calmness.

Every time the thunder clapped, his eyes flickered with a bizarre light. She remembered holding him tighter, saying, "It's just a storm." But she was the one who needed comfort. Not Ross. He wasn't scared, just curious.

She heard Devon's steps come to a halt, and she could feel the weight of his gaze. 

Devon sighed heavily. "Maybe we didn't want to admit it. Maybe we thought if we loved him hard enough, it wouldn't matter."

"But it does matter," Elenor mutters to herself. Not because she would love Ross any less if she knew the truth, but because it feels as though they are living on borrowed time right now, not knowing what secrets their boy harbors.

As though a thread pulled taut was threatening to snap, leading the precious baby away from their quaint village. And into a complex and dangerous world.

A knock on the door.

Elanor froze, her mind racing with several fears at once. Devon put a gentle, calming hand on her shoulder before moving cautiously to open the door.

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Joel, a scout in service to the crown, stood deliberately casual. His muted armor had no crest or obvious signs of rank. Only a distinct manner of lacing his boot could give him away to someone who knows what they are looking for. A style only used in the capital by reconnaissance units.

After watching the quiet home for several hours, he came to the conclusion that the modest house was the sort of place one would least expect to hide a potential anomaly.

However, from listening to various conversations around the village, he knew that this was the home of the child who was injured in the woods. Supposedly by a wild animal.

When the door opened, he greeted the man, assumedly the father of the child, with a slight, but polite bow. "Forgive me for interrupting your evening," Joel says, taking on the tone of a nearby town to sound local. "Rumors of some magical disturbances in this region have reached our town. I've been sent to inquire. Completely routine, of course. Anything unusual in the past few days?"

"Unusual?" came the calm but tense echo from the man in front of him. 

The woman comes up behind her husband. Joel's eyes move over her quickly, briefly examining the faint stain of blood on her apron. There's not a lot, and it's not fresh. But Joel finds it interesting.

She notices his gaze and says almost too quickly, "A minor injury." A brief pause as she seems to think about what to say next. "Our son took a tumble while playing in the woods. It's nothing."

Joel smiled. But his sharp gaze lingered on the blood a moment longer. An injury in the woods.

Then he bowed once more. "I see, thank you for your time."

He turned and leisurely walked away from the door. But his thoughts were already elsewhere. Back to the scene where the hellhound was killed.

Before coming to the village, he had stopped in the clearing to do a bit of information digging himself. He had noticed that the amount of blood on the ground was more than what a child could survive losing.

And yet, he lives. Joel thinks to himself. It's a mystery, and it deeply unsettles him. I've seen full-grown men on battlefields who died after losing less blood than that.

Joel shutters, determined to get to the bottom of what is happening in this seemingly peaceful village, so that he can give his superiors a complete and detailed report.