There it was.

  Sloped and hillcrested, shaded by oaken trees and the pale sway of birch. Pastures stretched between buildings and forest like soft oceans of grass, rolling gently under the wind’s hand.

  It was a picture of innocence. Or it had been.

  Now, Felthaven was little more than another word for collapse. Collapse of order. Collapse of silence. Collapse of what we called certain.

  Our procession had parked on the hill, just off the main road that wound downward into the village proper.

  Such a huge, ill-fitted racket would surely close more doors than it opened. Soldiers too mean. Scholars too inquisitive. Saints too… holy. We looked like a judgment dressed in banners.

  Frankly, an official visit was overdue. Anomalous deaths are catalogued for a reason. If a village turns sour with unseen powers, it can rot entire regions. One scream in the grass becomes ten in the city, if left unanswered.

  Felthaven supplied wool. Large quantities. Its pastures fed the looms of settlements east and south, downriver and across marsh. That wool fed industry. And industry, civilization.

  This was no backwater. It was a gear in the grand machine. And now it had stopped turning.

  I turned away from the peaceful promise of doom, back toward the expedition.

  Renhard of the Bull Hounds leaned against a tree, pipe in hand. He watched with the idle patience of a man who had nothing to prove. He blinked—long and deliberate—before letting his eyes settle on the town below.

  No sign of Halvdan or John. Ahlia was, I presumed, cloistered in prayer or trance.

  I walked the few paces it took to come within speaking distance of our sellsword. He slow-blinked back at me.

  “’Tis our goal for the day?” he asked, voice low, smoke curling from his mouth like some ancient beast exhaling.

  I nodded.

  “Crossed here many a time. Fastest way to the border. That’s where the coin sings.” He puffed. “Stopped here mainly for joy. Drinks and girls. You know.”

  Something between a smile and a snarl twisted across his face. Then silence. Maybe remembrance. Maybe regret.

  “A girl is the mission today,” I said. “Died of malformity. Anomalous in nature. Not previously recorded.”

  He raised an eyebrow, pipe paused mid-air.

  “No, nothin’ of the sort here,” he said after a moment. “That kind o’ thing shows up further up the road. The Blue Grass.” He pointed, vague but certain, as if we could see it from where we stood. “The Singing Rock. The Dead Deer. ’So on.”

  A long, drawn-out puff followed. Smoke curled up into the drizzle.

  “Blue Grass is a week from here, if the men are whipped.” He turned his eyes back to me. “Charters changed?”

  “As they have all over,” I said. “You know the situation. The presumed Closing—this shouldn’t be new.”

  “Aye,” he grunted. “I’m frankly not paid to read up on trade and roads, Preceptor.”

  The light was already leaving his face.

  “‘Am usually paid to kill.”

  That much was plain. His cuirass was dented in old patterns—close-range strikes, corner fights, a lifetime of surviving poorly planned charges. His buff coat, once vivid with color, was now darkly stained. Blood and rain and powder.

  The pistol at his hip looked like it had seen as much smoke as his pipe. Maybe more.

  Approaching steps promised me reprise from the dark posture of Renhard. Halvdan had finally seemed fit to come, and he brought company. Robe-clad hands and assistants from the University were at his heel—tired-eyed, water-flecked, carrying folios wrapped in waxed cloth.

  "Otto. Renhard."

  "I assume all is readied," I said, looking at the group of hopefuls behind him.

  None of them answered. One adjusted his collar. Another blinked too often, as if to clear the fog not just from his glasses, but from the weight of the moment.

  Halvdan gave no reply either, only a slight inclination of the head—as if anything further would be wasted breath.

  He pulled me closer and raised a pointed hand toward the cluster of hobbles and huts. “There. The gaardsplass in the center, thatched roof. Home of Iseline, and her father Hendel. Mother, Sigrid.”

  He opened his notes, flipping once, then drew out a folded letter bearing the seal of chartered witness. Its edges were softened by damp, but the ink held.

  “No need to repeat the story,” he said. “But we’ll need to be thorough. Find out her routine. Where she was going. Where she fell.”

  "I ask that your hands be a respectful distance from us during the interview." I did not look at the assistants as I spoke. The words were not for them, but the air shifted all the same—one of them straightened, another stilled his pen.

  "They know their role," Halvdan answered, voice thin with practiced detachment. "They carry our instruments, and write down our every breath."

  No irony. No exaggeration. As he finished the sentence, I heard it—the faint, insistent scratch of nib on paper. Immediate. Obedient.

  My God. They truly were.

  A distant bleat from the pastures yonder snapped me back. A puff of pipe smoke blurred the approach.

  “We secure the camp. We will not hinder your work.” Renhard tapped his pipe clean as he spoke. “Bring wine if they have. The men 'ave spoken of little else.” With another wolfish grin, he turned and retreated upslope away from the forming mist.

  Another bleat. A bell, faint but definite, sounded from the village.

  I glanced toward the thatched roof, then toward Halvdan.

  “Let us see what Iseline has to tell us.”

  Up close, the gaard told tales of brighter times.

  An ornate storehouse stood on raised stones, its beams carved with care—spirals, knotwork, a pair of antlers rendered in weathered relief. A sword etched into the doorframe, its point downward, to ward off rot and spirits both.

  The house itself had been whitewashed once, though the lime had begun to peel in long, curling sheets. Yellow flowers—painted with care, now faded—curled along the window sills like a child’s blessing left too long in the sun.

  And the door was closed.

  Not barred. Not broken. Simply… closed.

  A truer sign of grief, if there ever was one. I sighed.

  It had been years since I was tasked with recording the misfortune of those who had misstepped. My position now merely required me to read the tear-stained records, not gather them. Yet here I was—once again sent to bear witness, not in office, but in presence.

  "I ask you to lead, Halvdan." He sighed back.

  “I will listen and ask when needed.” I continued.

  "Indeed you will." He took the hard labour with a modicum of grace, if nothing else.

  He stepped forward and knocked—a rapid tap, not too forceful. The sound of bureaucracy. Measured. Unapologetic.

  Silence followed. Then, the bolt snapped and the door opened.

  A man stood before us. Broad-chested, red-cheeked, hair gone to grey at the temples. A loose linen shirt and simple britches hung from a frame that had once been tidy but now sagged under absence. The dress of someone usually kempt—now lacking.

  We nodded, as courtesy demands.

  “Good day, Hendel. We are with the High investigators of Anomalous Routes and Farings. Condolences to you and your kin.”

  Halvdan knew how to bear resemblance to a human when it mattered. A talent I never had.

  “We are on a search to understand how this tragedy could have befallen you. If it were not too much trouble, we would like to hear what you saw. And what you recall.”

  Hendel looked Halvdan up and down, and then turned his gaze on me. The bags beneath his eyes were not from age, but from something heavier—grief sunk in and packed firm.

  I nodded again. He nodded too.

  “Aye,” he said. “It was the greatest tragedy.”

  He glanced behind him, toward the dim hallway within, before stepping out of the threshold with a slow, grounded motion. “My wife would not like to speak. She is in the mourning period. Speaks hardly to anyone. Not even me.”

  “The loss of a loved one to such an end is heavy. I have seen it before, and it breaks me every time.”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Halvdan removed his tripointed hat and lowered it to his chest. A gesture not rehearsed, but measured still—ritual drawn from duty, if not sentiment.

  “We live in a world of glory, and doom, Hendel. We would like to share the glory—and end the doom—where we can.”

  Soft-spoken, yet with purpose.

  Good, Halvdan.

  Hendel’s face darkened a shade—red drawn, the full-blooded strain of grief held upright too long. He gave another slow nod. Something in it—a surrender of woven defences, an assent—settled between us like the first settling of dust in a long-shut room.

  “Aye, sir. I would not like to see another lass, nor lad, see the same fate.” He drew a breath. “It was the hardest battle I’ve been through. And I partook in the Holy War.”

  “Glory to you, Hendel,” Halvdan said, eyes lifting toward the sky as he spoke.

  Theatrics, all the way down. But he knew what to say.

  My turn.

  “Hendel, what task was Iseline set to? Where was she headed?”

  “To fetch water. To wash our face and feet before labour.”

  Halvdan already had his notebook drawn. The sound of graphite on paper followed each word, steady and precise, as though even grief required transcription.

  “What route?”

  “Just behind thee,” he said, lifting a hand and pointing past the low fence and weathered posts that marked the edge of the gaard. “Our well is dug behind the byre, eastward. Twenty paces beyond.”

  I followed the line of his finger. A thin path cut through overgrown grass, no wider than a footstep. The byre slouched against the hill, its moss-dark roofline sagging like an old spine. Beyond it, nothing but mist and the suggestion of treeline.

  No flowers there. No icons. Just the shape of a girl’s last errand.

  "Hendel," Halvdan began, snatching the reins from me. Better for it. I knew where he was headed. "What happened? What did you see? What did poor Iseline endure?"

  A dull silence. A heavy sigh.

  "We heard a scream."

  His voice was flat—detached, dulled by repetition. The words had been spoken before, to others, and each time chipped away a little more.

  "It sounded like she was in great pain. I imagined a misstep took her ankle, maybe a loose hound got her. But we ran out, and nothing was there. Just Iseline."

  His gaze dropped to the ground, and did not lift.

  "She was shaking. Eyes rolled back. The screams would not stop."

  From the back of the house came a faint sound—a whimper, high and cracked. The sound of someone holding grief with both hands and still losing grip.

  Recalling the image was hard for both. But there it was. Spoken. Made real again.

  “Was there anything out of place where she had fallen?”

  A voice—out of line. From behind us.

  I turned, sharp as a blade, toward the assistants. A younger woman stood there, linen-bound head low, eyes already shrinking behind the mistake. Her mouth had the look of someone trying to swallow the words back whole.

  Before I could scowl further, the father answered.

  “No. Just grass and dirt. We saw nothing and felt nothing.”

  Halvdan, steady as ever, reclaimed the moment. “Any sounds? Any movement? Anything that could point to energies or malign forces beyond?”

  “No, sir.”

  He sniffled, before he worked up the courage to continue.

  “Our girl shook so hard… I think I heard a bone snap. We carried her in to her bed, where she shook until her joints were red, and mind was finally at ease. We had our local crone here to help, but no help could be done.”

  A tear fell—quick and unceremonious. No sob, no flinch. Just the body yielding to what the mind could no longer contain.

  “She finally fell silent when the sun was at noon,” he said. “And did not awake.”

  None among the assistants lacked the wit to hold their tongues. No pens moved. Even breath seemed a little withheld.

  “We thank you, Hendel, and we are sorry. Blessed be your daughter.”

  Halvdan extended a hand—rare, but not misplaced. Hendel took it. And something in him broke. Not loudly. Not all at once. But enough. A low, shuddering breath escaped, then another. His shoulders rose, then sank. The shape of a man giving way to sadness the way a wall gives way to rot.

  “Please—go to your wife. Mourn her with dignity. We will set things right. This will not happen again.”

  As Halvdan said it, he glanced at me.

  Time to move.

  I nodded again in the courtesy of loss, and left the doorframe’s requiem.

  I looked up. High noon, and a strong one. The baking sun shone its full weight upon the plass.

  No need to ask Hendel where she had stood.

  A wooden horse, crudely carved, lay half-cocked in the grass beside a small ring of golden flowers—fresh enough to still hold color, but already wilting at the tips. Memory laid bare. And warning, too.

  I waved to the assistants—more puppeteered than present, necks craned, fingers limp with uncertainty—and they obeyed.

  “Sketch the site,” I said. “I want a full map of the gaardsplass. Scale it. Orientation northward. Detail the place where she fell.”

  One of them adjusted their pack with clumsy eagerness, already unfolding parchment against the breeze.

  I pointed toward the clearing just beyond the fence line, where grass gave way to a thin veil of mist.

  “One of you: look for broken branches, disturbed ground, or any marks left by malign or devilish presence. Feel the air. Note the wind. See if it obeys the common law.”

  Then I turned to the girl—the one who had spoken before. She straightened by instinct, though her face remained low.

  “None shall speak to anyone. None shall search, move, or so much as lean without my clearest approval. We are not here to chase shadows. We are here to record them.”

  Halvdan came up beside me, settling his tripointed hat back onto his crown with quiet finality.

  “They will mourn as we search,” he said, sighing. “This is not what I missed about field work.”

  “Your assistants are out of order. They should be disciplined.”

  “She is one of our newest,” he replied. “But also one of our most eager, Otto. Hilda. You will see her worth.”

  I didn’t truly listen. I had knelt beside the wooden horse, fingers brushing the grass. It was dry, sun-warmed. Undisturbed.

  “What do you see, Halvdan?”

  “I see nothing,” he said, crouching stiffly beside me. “The ground did not swallow her.”

  “No. It is plain. Sunburned. Well-trodden.” I let my hand rest flat against the earth. “I feel, or see, nothing. The force came from yonder.”

  Halvdan leaned closer, voice lowered, words wrapped in hesitance.

  “Is it possible this is merely medical? Could she have fallen from some malady of the mind, or body?”

  “You’re doubting this mission,” I said. “It is you who insisted on it, Halvdan.”

  “I am learned to look for all possibilities,” he replied, though less certain now. “And she is the only victim. Before and hence. The ground is clearly not anomalous.”

  “If you think you have failed already, Halvdan,” I said, eyes still on the dirt, “then I ask you to be silent.”

  This he gave no response to. He was better for it.

  I waved the sketcher of the plass toward me. He obeyed, handing over a crude drawing of our position—square-formed huts arranged in a box around an open center, with a small dot inked near the middle. The place where she fell.

  “Have you seen anything of note?”

  “No, master.”

  “Felt anything?”

  “The breeze is weak,” he said. “But directional. Calm. All is heated by the sun. Nothing too cold or hot.”

  I looked out toward the clearing again. Thin patches of birch and spruce wavered just past the byre, the pasture tapering off into shaded brush.

  “We will look past,” I said. “Towards the well.”

  A few paces from the scene of death revealed a low stone well, shaded by the lean of trees. Moss and bark littered the ground. Cool water glinted in the mouth of the stone.

  The reason a girl had died.

  “She never got this far,” I said, half to Halvdan, half to the air.

  “Ergo, it has nothing to do with her demise. Unless the anomaly had a long reach—and is movable,” Halvdan replied.

  “Plenty are. But they do not move far. They linger. Once an anomaly has set, it very seldom disappears. It haunts the place. Makes its presence known.”

  “Master,” came the girl’s voice again—Hilda. “What other forces could make death unseen, and unnoticed?”

  I looked her over. Young. Conservatively dressed. The headwrap marked her faith, the tone marked her curiosity.

  I remembered Renhard’s words.

  “The Dead Deer. Heard about it?”

  “I read the reports, master.”

  “In a clearing near the Eastern Road, there lies a deer carcass. Easily seen from the path. Sun shines on it nearly every day.”

  I looked down the well. Felt it again—that hum.

  “Mounds have been dug to disrupt the field of view. Even catching it in the periphery fills the body with a tingling, a lightness of the head. And a need to meet it.”

  The hum reached my teeth now. A slow vibration, bone-deep.

  “It beckons. The deer is surrounded by carcasses now. Those who looked too long. Who were drawn into its bosom. Lay there, and did not rise.”

  Hilda gave me a grim look.

  “Plenty of things can kill at distance,” I said. “If you meet their gaze.”

  The hum burned my gums now—no longer a vibration, but a heat. Not pain, not yet, but pressure on the cusp of revelation. I held my head, breath shallow, waiting—either for the sensation to break me or pass through.

  Then: footsteps from the clearing. Our third assistant returned.

  “There are signs of movement between the trees,” he said, breath quick. “Branches broken. Dirt scattered.”

  The hum vanished like breath into wind. Clarity returned in pieces, like glass resettling.

  “Any sign of what moved?” Halvdan asked.

  “None conclusive,” the assistant replied. “There are signs of four-legged beasts—probably sheep. And a two-legged gait.”

  I turned toward the treeline. The light between the trunks was thin, but clear. Birch and spruce leaned toward each other like listening men. Further beyond: open pasture, quiet and sunlit.

  “Inconclusive indeed,” Halvdan murmured. “Many walk by that clearing, I’m sure.”

  Halvdan pointed toward the obvious—the fenced pasture, not fifty yards off, where sheep bleated in a cadence just a tone or two above the hum that had haunted me.

  “Master,” came a different voice. Hilda.

  I turned. Her tone was wrong—breathy, unsure. She wasn’t asking. She was already certain.

  “There are marks.”

  I lowered my hand from my temple, blinked once, twice.

  All I saw was trees. Shade. Light.

  And then the light.

  Not golden. Not angled.

  But wrong.

  I turned in a slow arc. The moss and grass around us were painted in a cast of eastbound glow—too stark, too fixed. As if dawn had chosen a second rising, uninvited.

  But the sun was still at noon.

  I crouched. Touched the grass.

  It flaked. It crackled.

  Not light.

  Burned.

  I rose. Turned toward the gaard. The wall facing the clearing bore the same glow. A soft outline across the wood and lime. Like it had caught a sunbeam and never let it go.

  Also burned.

  "A second sun." I whispered.

  “Mark where the land has been touched,” I said, voice sharp. “Now.”

  Hilda was already half turned to run.

  “Fetch Renhard. Tell him to ready his men. The saints will have to be put on standby.”

  I looked once more at the clearing.

  “Something,” I said, “has put its gaze upon this village.”