Nuncio loved his village the most just before sunset. Cobbler’s Hold was a small town but when the streets emptied it made him feel like he was the only person there. It made the village feel like his. Nuncio Capello, the king of Cobbler’s Hold. It was one of the reasons he loved his piano lessons so much. He got to make his way home alone after they were over. The day mom had said he was old enough to walk home by himself had been one of the best of his life. It had made him feel like a man.

While skipping down the cobbled street, Nuncio started humming to himself.

He was an explorer. An adventurer. A hero. A king trying to find out why his village had turned into a ghost town. What evil force could have made in an entire village vanish? Just the thought was enough to make him laugh. Maybe it was something that lived deep underground and would only come out at night, forcing him to face it in the darkness.

A cold wind that blew through the town and cut through his jacket, straight into the bone, killed his laughter.

There was something… unnatural about the wind. It was too cold. Too sharp. Like a knife slipping between your ribs. It wasn’t just him who felt it. The nameless dread made every villager shut their doors and bar their windows. Even the stray cats had disappeared into the shadows. Away from whoever’s coming the cold wind foretold.

Suddenly the empty town wasn’t his playground anymore, but a labyrinth meant to trap him. His thoughts turned towards the maze that had been built to imprison the Minotaur and the idea of being caught inside with it made Nuncio break into a run. It was a fifteen-minute run home… and a five-minute run to his music teacher’s place. He decided to take his chances with his teacher. He no longer cared if mom got angry that he hadn’t come straight home… or deciding that he wasn’t old enough to walk home alone after all.

He didn’t make it to his music teacher’s home in five minutes.

It should have been impossible. He had lived here all his life and knew every turn and twist in Cobbler’s Hold… but somehow, he had gotten lost in his own village. Streets that should have taken him to safety ended in dead ends. Walls that hadn’t been there just a moment ago were rising all around him. Trapping him. His home had become a stranger to him.

That was when he heard the horse’s hoofs clacking against the cobbled street.

A rider emerged from the darkness. The man rode a horse as black as his clothes. His skin was pale as spoilt milk and his nails… No. His talons were even darker than his coat. His red lips stood against the bone-white skin and behind those lips were his fangs, but his eyes were even worse. No living thing should have had eyes like that. Two bloody wounds.

Nuncio tried to run. He tried to scream. He tried to do both, but his body betrayed him. The unnatural cold that followed this pale creature had frozen him in place. All he could do was stand there while the pale rider brought his steed up to him.

“Look at me.” The rider said.

There was a strange power in the rider’s voice that made Nuncio look into his crimson eyes… and then he saw a man. A normal man if far more handsome than most with thick brown hair, a heart-shaped mouth, and sharp dark eyes with a single mole under the right eye like a black tear. Features… much like his. Nuncio could have been looking into a mirror that cut through time.

“You lost, son?” The rider asked.

“… I…”

The rider smiled.

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“Tell you what? I’ll take you home… and maybe I’ll have a place to sleep there as well. I have come a long way and it doesn’t look like there are beds available here.”

Nuncio bit his lip. He wanted to tell the rider that he could get home just fine by himself, but his mouth betrayed him.

“… sure.”

The man reached down and with no visible effort pulled him up on his horse with just one hand. Nuncio felt like an egg in his hands. Something fragile the rider could break at any time if he so chose. The rider gave his horse a kick and it started moving. The rider kept him close… and he was so cold.

“Just tell me when to turn left or right.” The rider said.

“… sure.” Nuncio said.

The rider chuckled.

“Nervous, are we? What’s your name, son?”

“… Nuncio.”

“Nuncio, huh? That was my father’s name. How old are you, Nuncio?”

“… eight.”

Hearing that gave the rider pause and he bit his lip.

“Eight? Has it been that long already? Tell me… how is your mother doing?”

“… she… she has to work a lot to feed me and my sister.”

The rider growled hearing this. Like some deformed animal.

“Sister? There’s a new man?”

“… twin… my twin sister… our father… died during the Twelve-Year-War.”

The rider calmed down hearing this.

“A twin? Is she named after her grandmother?”

“… yeah… Elysa.”

“Excellent. Most excellent.”

All these news made the rider hum to himself, and Nuncio found himself able to think more clearly. Whatever spell he was under, it required a constant effort from the rider. He was so cold like the last breath of a corpse.

“… I can walk… the rest of the way.” Nuncio whispered.

Suddenly he was fully under the rider’s thrall again.

“Nonsense. We have come this far together. We will go all the way.” The rider said.

It didn’t matter how much he struggled; he couldn’t stop the rider from finding his home. Even staying silent didn’t help. It was like rider could pluck the route straight from his mind.

“This is it.” The rider said when they made it to Nuncio’s home.

It wasn’t a question. Just a simple statement of fact. A small wooden house with two floors and a carpenter’s workshop on a hill they had inherited from his grandfather.

“… thank you, mister.” Nuncio said.

“My pleasure, son.” The rider said and lifted him off the saddle and placed him on the ground. Gently. Like you would do with an egg.

With stiff legs he started walking to the porch and he could feel the rider’s eyes on him.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” The rider asked.

When Nuncio got up to the steps of the porch, he could see his reflection in the large windows… but not the rider’s. In the window’s reflection, the black horse had no rider.

“… no… I won’t.” Nuncio said.

He didn’t hear the rider dismount but suddenly his cold fingers were on his shoulders. Their touch was so cold it burned.

“Son, look at me.”

It was impossible to resist the voice and Nuncio turned to look at the rider. Now he could see the red eyes and white skin under the glamour.

“Invite me in. I insist.” The rider said.

“… no.”

He had heard... the stories. The myths. The warnings. Of dead things rising from their graves. Thirsting blood of the living. But... they could not enter the homes of the living unless they were invited. Evil only had power over you if you let it in.

All the friendliness has left the rider’s voice and now his tone was as cold as his skin.

“That’s an order.”

“No!”

Floorboards creaked when someone moved inside the house.

“Nuncio?!” Mom called.

The door opened and mom stomped to the porch looking furious.

“Where have you been? I…?”

Mom fell silent when she saw the rider and she covered her mouth like she was trying to catch a scream. Tears started filling her brown eyes.

“… Pietro?” Mom whispered.

The rider… that Nuncio now feared was his father, let go of him and when he spoke, he sounded almost human.

“Danielle… I am so sorry.”

Nuncio tried to scream for mom to flee. Go inside and lock the doors but some invisible force had sewn his mouth shut and he could only watch, a prisoner of his own body, while mom jumped into the rider’s cold arms. His touch made her reel back and for a moment Nuncio prayed she could see through the creature’s magic.

“… you’re so cold.”

“I have traveled far. Can I come in?” The rider said.

“Of course.” Mom said and took the rider’s hand: “Let’s get you warmed up… And then you can tell me where you have been.”

The rider let mom pull him in… and he turned to look at Nuncio. There was a flash of red in his sharp eyes and petty triumph. That look was almost enough to break the rider’s hold on him but then Nuncio followed them inside like a slave with no will of its own.

Mom sat the rider in front of the fireplace, and he made a show of warming his hands by the flames. Nuncio sat down by the dinner table and had to watch this terrible play acted before him.

“… they… told me you were dead.” Mom said.

The rider bit his lip.

“I thought so too. I was… wounded in the last battle and… it took me a long time to remember who I was. My way home was darker than I ever thought it would be.” The rider said and reached inside his pocket: “But on the way here… I found all this.”

Mom covered her mouth again when she saw the rider holding gold coins and precious stones in his hand.

“Danielle… I am sorry but… I am home now, and I promise you will not miss for anything ever again.”

Mom fell on the bench next to the rider, too shocked to talk or even think.

“Now… Nuncio said I have a daughter too.”

“Yes. Elysa. She’s asleep but…” Mom said.

“No. Let her sleep.” The rider said and looked at Nuncio: “You should sleep too. Me and your mother need to talk… and I am hungry.”