The boy's physical recovery was rapid to the point of miraculous. By week's end, his underfed body had filled out to that of a healthy twelve-year-old's. Another week after that, he'd grown three inches. One afternoon halfway through the third week, Jana had returned from a fruitless three-day hunt and frozen in shock at the young stranger sitting in their home, intently watching Alvir grind dried herbs into powder.

"That's not him, is it?" she'd stammered, pointing at their unrecognizable guest.

Alvir had been unable to restrain his amusement at the rare sight of his wife caught genuinely off-guard.

And for all his preparations, the boy had only truly needed nourishment, as he grew stronger and more vital with each passing day. But despite his heartening appearance, the boy's inner workings did not mend nearly as easily.

The first time Alvir had been awoken by faint cries and whimpers, he'd found the boy ensnared in some nameless nightmare, trembling like a windblown leaf as tears trickled from his tightly-shut eyes. Alvir had held his shoulder and softly sung an Aborasian lullaby from his own childhood, whose melody seemed to reach the boy through his troubled dreams. His brow had relaxed, as had his quivering body.

Other nights, he screamed. Wordless pleas and cries would tear through the serene darkness of the cottage, startling Jana and Alvir into consciousness. On those occasions, they were forced to wake him. The boy's eyes would snap open, feral and uncomprehending, and he'd scramble back against the wall like a cornered rabbit. Only Alvir's steady coaxing could eventually draw him out of his nightmare-addled state.

He spent his waking days in silence, either unwilling or unable to utter a word. About a month after the boy had first begun his recovery, Alvir voiced this concern aloud as he and Jana peeled a small basket of shriveled potatoes. The boy was currently tending to Clover, which he'd begun to do more frequently as his fear of the bright outdoors faded.

"Does it matter?" she said. "He understands us perfectly. You taught him how to prepare your cough remedy yesterday."

"There's so much we don't yet know. What does he remember of his parents? Does he feel grief, anger, sorrow for what he's suffered? Does he… even know what he is?"

Jana's eyes narrowed briefly as her knife carved a perfect spiral around her potato.

"He is not some stray for you to take in as your own. After you work your persuasive ways on Candra, his fate will be out of our hands."

Her response was unsurprising, but nonetheless stung.

"You feel nothing for him?" he asked, a little bitterly.

"I wish for him to cure you."

They peeled quietly for a few minutes.

"He is as fit as he'll ever be," she said. "The longer he remains in one place, the more likely the Crimson Blade will find him."

"He may be fit in body, but not in mind. Even in the safety of our home, his night terrors still torment him."

Jana leaned in. "And what about you?"

"A little worse," he admitted. "I can no longer look at the daytime sky."

Jana's brow twitched, her trademark sign of irritation. "So, what is it, precisely, that we're waiting for?"

"Assurance that the boy is entirely sound, as well as his knowing agreement to our request."

"Or…" she said measuredly. "You'd rather continue indulging in your little fatherhood fantasy here."

Alvir's hands shook so badly that he dropped the half-peeled potato. He leapt to his feet as Jana met his gaze in calm silence. He stalked out of the house and slammed the door behind him.

*

Jana finished the last of the potatoes and dropped them into the iron pot, which she filled with water and hung over the cook fire. She then stepped outside through the back door.

The boy was in the pen with Clover, feeding her grain from his hand. He laughed as the mare's soft mouth brushed against his palm, but his mirth faded upon Jana's approach. He cast his eyes down.

Though the boy had initially appeared more comfortable around Jana, he'd withdrawn from her just as she'd withdrawn from him over the past few weeks. Alvir's tender and patient constitution, so removed from her brusque aloofness, had indirectly taught the boy to be wary of her.

She rested her elbows on the wooden fencing. "Enjoying yourself?"

He did not respond.

"Come. I talk, you listen."

The boy swung the gate closed behind him. Clover whinnied in protest, already missing his company.

The top of his head now reached Jana's shoulder. Though he wasn't as tall as his age might befit, he was as vital and healthy as a pampered young lord. No one could have imagined that this boy and the shrunken, half-starved creature of a month ago were one and the same.

They settled beneath the nearby oak tree, whose shade was a welcome respite from the smoldering day. The boy's eyes remained downcast on his nervously twisting fingers.

"I'm not the honorable sort," Jana said.

At this, he couldn't resist a surprised glance.

"I did not rescue you for your own sake. Do you know what you are?"

The boy shook his head.

"You're Rava, the Divine Heir of Darkness. A Blessed One." She scoffed. "Whatever the blast that even means."

His expression didn't change. Such titles meant even less to him than they did to her.

"Back at the prison, when Marcus showed you the stone, you felt something, didn't you?"

He nodded.

"That was a black diamond. You command power, the kind that only three others in the kingdom can wield. Your rightful place is far above folk like us, so they say."

A warm breeze ruffled their hair, and the leaves of the oak tree above them rustled gently against each other.

Jana sighed. "A blinding brightness is steadily overtaking my husband's sight. I've heard of similar cases in towns and villages across the kingdom. Folk call it the Blight, and Alvir has found nothing to treat or hinder its advance." She swallowed hard. "If anyone could heal my husband, a Blessed One could. That is the sole reason I came for you. As for Alvir… he was simply glad to have someone to take care of."

She looked out at the rolling hills of wild grass that stretched into the horizon. They sat together in silence for a long stretch of time.

"Cedric," said a small, husky voice, as brittle as dry leaves. "My name… is Cedric."

*

The blinding daylight forced Alvir's eyes into slits, but he forged his determinedly aimless path regardless. And gradually, as the cottage shrank into the distance behind him, so too did his anger.

Jana was right, and his response had confirmed it so. He did want the boy to stay, and he couldn't think of anything he wanted more.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

For whatever reason ordained by the Mother, Jana and Alvir had never managed to conceive. And though he'd rather die than admit it to her, their failure had steadily chipped away at his heart with every passing year. He'd poured that helpless longing into his work, into keeping the people of Methodosia as healthy and happy as he was able, and most days that was enough.

But the arrival of the strange, miraculous boy had richly, generously filled this aching culvert of his soul to the brim. Increasingly over the past month, Alvir had caught himself daydreaming of what he knew could never be--teaching the boy all he knew of his craft, guiding and supporting him in building his own family, talking as equals about children and grandchildren seated before a crackling fire on a chilly winter's night. Fanciful ruminations of an alternate world in which the boy was no more or less than an ordinary youth, with no pursuers to evade and no inescapably heavy birthright tethered forever around his neck. Jana was right; Alvir was only indulging himself.

Twilight had crept in, allowing Alvir a better grasp his surroundings. He'd somehow wandered off the main path that led into town, and was now standing among waist-high fields of wild grass. He whipped around, alarmed, and was relieved to see the dark speck of the cottage in the distance. A delicate tendril of smoke curled up from its tiny chimney. Jana was boiling the potatoes.

Suddenly seized by a powerful urge to be back home, Alvir happily submitted to it.

*

A dish of potatoes and beans greeted him at the table. Night had fallen, and a lantern was placed beside his meal. The boy was already asleep beside the fireplace, breathing deeply and evenly. Alvir hoped, as always, that his dreams would be kind to him.

He ate quietly so as not to rouse the boy, then brought the lantern with him upstairs.

Jana lay on her side with her back to him. Alvir undressed and lay beside her, then looped an arm around her waist and kissed her shoulder.

"I regret my words to you earlier," Jana murmured. She turned to face him. "I told him the truth. I don't yet know what he'll do."

"You were right," he said. "I do want him to stay, to raise him as a father would."

She caressed his cheek with a callused palm. "I wish I could have given that to you."

"We must accept whatever the Mother wills. And She brought this boy into our lives, after all."

Jana smiled. "His name is Cedric," she said.

*

Cedric began to speak gradually, haltingly. Alvir suspected that the boy's quietness was somewhat inherent to his natural disposition, but could not deny the gladness in his heart at the sound of his voice. On the occasions that the boy did choose to speak, they were invariably questions. What was this herb or that flower used for? How did one bake bread? How was a fire kindled?

And naturally, his inquiries often concerned his unlikely rescuers.

"I came to these parts many years ago," Alvir said one morning as they chopped dried herbs side-by-side at the work station. "The Mother's bounties are richer and more varied here than in my homeland. I sell my medicines to the townsfolk, Jana hunts, and we get by all right." His mouth quirked. "The first year was difficult. I was the sand-nose, you see, the outsider with the lilting accent in a town of Nordans. It took time for the folk of Methodosia to trust me, let alone my craft."

Cedric always listened closely, absorbing every word like he was starved of them. His half-chopped sage lay forgotten. "Why?" he asked. "Why not trust you?"

"People tend to be wary of the unfamiliar."

"Because you're not Nordan?"

Alvir nodded.

Cedric cocked his head, and his long, silken hair--whose cropping he'd vehemently refused--fell to one side in a glossy gold curtain. His striking dark eyes were his only features to have remained unchanged in their time together. "Was… Jana afraid of you?"

He smiled. "No, she was worldly and well-travelled long before we'd crossed paths."

"When did you meet?"

Alvir told Cedric of his and Jana's first encounter on a cool twilight evening ten years ago. He'd been gathering herbs and roots in the gentle hills around the cottage when a towering woman on horseback had approached him, then collapsed to the ground with a deep, bloody gash in her side. For three days he'd tended to her, squeezing drops of water from a dampened cloth into her mouth, stealing scraps of sleep from his rocking chair while a rare thunderstorm raged outside. On the fourth day, both the Mother's fury and Jana's sickness had subsided, and her first words to her future husband had been a cold, suspicious "Where's my horse?"

And thus blossomed their great romance.

"You'll no doubt experience such wonders for yourself," Alvir said. "There is much to see in this world, and you'll have more time than most."

Cedric returned to his sage, and a minute of contemplative chopping later, he seemed to arrive at some resolve. "Then I wish to go to town," he said in a rush.

Alvir quelled his surprise at Cedric's very first demand. "We can't risk you being seen," he said after a pause. "Gossip travels fast and far, especially among small settlements."

Cedric's brow arched. "I look different than before, right?"

"And I'd prefer for all my hard work in restoring you to actually last. It won't be long before the Crimson Blade comes to Methodosia, and an offhand comment from some careless townsman about the 'strange new boy' would be the end of everything."

Cedric chewed his lip, his eyes fixed on the sage. "I cannot leave the cottage."

"I'm afraid not."

"Is this a prison, too?"

Alvir's knife halted mid-chop. A flush warmed his throat. "Surely you see the difference," he said quietly.

Cedric did not reply.

This was the boy's first expression of any sort of belligerence or resentment, but Alvir should have anticipated it. Cedric wouldn't have remained docile forever; the fires of youth burned brighter than most things under the Mother's eye.

The cottage's drapes had been drawn shut, but Alvir still squinted at his work. To him, the darkened interior of his home seemed awash with blinding sunlight. The chopped milkweed in front of him periodically shifted out of focus.

Cedric glanced up. "Your eyes, how are they?"

"They… have good days and bad days."

"When am I to help you?"

"When I see that you've fully recovered."

"And right now, I am not?"

He sighed. "Look, Cedric--"

There was a faint knock at the door. They both jumped.

"Upstairs," Alvir said, and the boy complied with incredible speed, flying up the steps three at a time with barely a sound.

Alvir wiped his hands across his apron and went to open the door, but froze with his hand on the latch. What if a Blade stood on the other side? Could they already be in Methodosia?

"Who is it?" Alvir called. An agonizing three seconds passed.

"It's Grace, sir."

Of course. It was the right day, after all. Alvir let out the breath he'd been holding and opened the door.

Searing daylight flooded into his eyes, and he briefly thought in terror that he'd finally gone blind. But blurred shapes slowly emerged from the featureless expanse of white, taking on the form of a young girl standing at the threshold.

"Please come in, Grace," Alvir said, squinting hard. She obliged, and he quickly closed the door behind her.

Grace was a delicate girl of fifteen, the daughter of a nearby farmer who always gave Alvir a good price on milk and eggs. Her round, freckled face was more kind than fair, though her large hazel eyes were as clear and lovely as those of any great beauty's.

She held a small wicker basket in her hands, which she offered to Alvir. Nested in a bed of straw were five small brown eggs.

"My father begs your forgiveness for not bringing more. The chickens have been oddly reticent of late… as have the cows."

Alvir accepted the basket. "Thank you, as always. How fares your father?"

She fidgeted with her fingers and lowered her gaze. "We're not much in the way of money at the moment, though he'd never tell you of it, but for his sake I must ask…"

"What does he need?"

"His bones ache and flare, especially at the hips and knees. He refused to insult your craft by proposing the eggs as payment, but I can't bear to watch him in pain. Could we repay you over the following weeks?"

"Five eggs will do fine. I have something for what ails him, already prepared." Alvir crossed to the back of the cottage to a shelf that held more than a hundred of his most oft-requested medicines. He took a vial of yellow paste from the collection, briefly popped the cork to sniff it, then handed it to Grace. "Your father should apply this over his most painful areas, once a day, before he retires for the night. Return to me when it runs out."

"May the Goddess… er, Mother bless you," Grace said, accepting the vial and holding it tightly to her heart.

Her bright hazel eyes were drawn upwards, past Alvir's shoulder, and her expression froze. Alvir followed her gaze.

Cedric stood halfway down the staircase, meeting Grace's eyes with his own piercing dark ones. The boy's curiosity, and the clear absence of danger, must have drawn him out of hiding. A twinge of frustration pulsed at Alvir's left temple.

"Grace," he said, taking a forcibly light tone. "This is Cedric. He's…" Alvir floundered briefly, "... a newcomer to town. I've offered him lodging until he finds a plot to call his own."

Grace finally remembered to close her mouth, which had dropped slightly open. "Oh, Cedric, a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I'd like to be the first to extend you a warm welcome to Methodosia. Well, I suppose I wouldn't be the first, as Alvir has no doubt already…"

She abruptly fell silent to still her babbling.

"I... thank you," Cedric said. He'd only recently begun adopting Alvir's teachings on common courtesy, and the expression came out oddly stilted.

Alvir cleared his throat. "Anything else on your mind, Grace?"

She tore her eyes away from Cedric. "No, but many thanks, again. I'll see if my father can persuade the chickens to express his gratitude next week."

She then lit up with an idea, and looked back at Cedric. "Would you like for me to show you around? I'd be glad to introduce you to the town and surrounding lands, if Alvir hasn't already."

Cedric's face lit up as well, radiant with the beauty of youthful delight. "Could we… not go into town?" he offered with an appeasing look at Alvir. "Just see the places around it? I'm… not ready to meet others yet."

Alvir resisted the impulse to object; he couldn't invoke parental authority in front of Grace, not with the story he'd fed her. Besides, making a friend would do the boy good, and perhaps his time outside the confines of the cottage would help with the night terrors that still tormented his dreams like clockwork. Grace was also not the kind to frivolously gossip.

She nodded happily. "Certainly. When shall I come to call?"

"Let's go, right now." He eagerly descended the last few steps and approached her.

She blushed a vivid pink as he loomed from a mere six inches away. Her gaze averted, unable to equal the earnest intensity of his. Alvir resolved to teach Cedric about personal boundaries when the next opportunity arose.

"Of… course," Grace stammered.

"Be back in time for supper, all right?" Alvir said to Cedric, who nodded happily. The boy would've agreed to anything in that moment.

The two youths left, and the clack of the door was sharp in the abruptly lonely space.