Down the road, Dara was coming toward them with a basket in her hands. Behind them, the tavern thudded dully, like an empty jug set down on a table. On the threshold, a dark stain of spilled beer was already drying in the sun. A moment more and it would be gone. But what they’d heard inside—and what had cracked in Algar when it came to Roch—would not dry so quickly.

  Algar stopped beside Dara. The cloth over her basket smelled faintly of baked apples, warm and steady. All around them, the village changed its breathing. Hens startled and settled; dogs shifted to short, uneasy barks. From far off drifted the thin, urgent whinny of horses.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said. They turned onto a narrow side path, where years of footsteps had pressed the earth smooth. The oaks fell away, the tavern dimmed behind them and the light softened. Warm bands floated above the grain along the boundary, rising and falling like slow breaths. The wind lifted and dropped. From the forest came a woodpecker’s tapping that faded into the rustle of wheat heads leaning together.

  Dara adjusted her headscarf. One bright strand escaped and hung against her cheek. She didn’t brush it back. She shifted the basket to her other hand. They walked step for step, eyes forward, not on each other.

  “It was louder than usual today,” she said. “Gern brought a wolf’s fang. Blackened and harder than it should’ve been—like it wasn’t bone.” “I saw it. He showed my father. My father told him to hold his tongue. In vain, apparently.” She frowned.

  “People like something they can talk about out loud. My father says you should fear hunger and wicked men, not tales and legends.”

  “And you like to fight.” She wiped a thin line of blood from his lip with her thumb.

  “I didn’t start it.”

  “You never start. You always finish. Is that what the axe is for?” Her voice dropped low.

  “It’s more complicated.”

  They cut across beside a fence of thin poles. Beyond it lay the great stump of an old spruce lightning had gutted in spring. Children touched it on their way back from the fields, believing it brought luck. No one sat there today. Only a lizard darted across and vanished into a seam of wood.

  “I had a dream.”

  She stopped. The word hung between them like a ribbon released from a hand—uncertain whether the wind would lift it or let it fall.

  “Not the usual kind,” she said. “The kind that doesn’t leave. As if it had really happened.”

  “What kind?” He already knew the feeling.

  “A forest. But not ours. Dark, grim. Trees scattered thick, the ground covered in long grass. And him—an old man. A white cloak to the ground, white hair, but not like our elders—more like fresh milk. A beard the same color, all the way to his belly. He stood straight. He watched me. I felt he saw everything—maybe even inside me. His voice was gentle, but firm and unyielding. He told me to live. At any cost.”

  She fell quiet, though the image still held its place in her mind. Algar pictured it easily. The air seemed to cool for a heartbeat. He felt the small tendon at the back of his neck tighten—the one that pulled taut when too many memories surfaced at once.

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  “A dream’s just a phantom,” he said.

  “I know what a dream is. This one was different.”

  “Maybe it gathered up the village chatter and shaped itself from that.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe not.”

  His own vision rose again: black steel, runes glowing red as blood, a voice from another world, and that black fire in the eyes. I will free you from your weaknesses. The phrase lived in him like an old scar. He said nothing of it to her.

  They walked on until the path slipped like a tongue between the fields. Grain brushed their elbows as they eased it aside. On the boundary ridge lay an old sickle someone had forgotten; its metal had dulled and rust crept in from the teeth.

  “If it’s a sign,” she said, “then from whom?”

  “Certainly not the gods. They have other matters. Harvest will be over soon. Maybe we’ll go up to Lord Leon’s castle?”

  “That’s a wonderful idea.” She knew he was changing the subject, but she had been hoping for the invitation. At the castle she might buy something: sandals, a dress. She wanted roast with mushrooms, too. Besides, there was something in Algar that set him apart from the boys in the village. She was curious. And she wanted more time with him.

  He stayed quiet a moment longer than usual. His words gathered like sheaves that sometimes refused the cord. Then he lifted his chin. He never promised what he wasn’t sure of.

  They stopped where the path forked. The straight one past the orchards—where the apple trees remembered summer even in winter—led to Dara’s house. To reach Algar’s, you turned toward the fences.

  “I’ll drop this with the neighbor,” she said.

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “I can manage. Go talk with your brother. I saw his face when you two parted.”

  “I know.”

  “And don’t go looking for Roch today.”

  “I’m not looking. But it needs finishing.”

  “You never look. Things find you.”

  This time she truly smiled. The basket rose and fell with her breath. His gaze lingered on her hand—on the thin white scars the working folk wore like marks of duty.

  A figure appeared at the edge of the orchard—a stable lad carrying buckets, humming under his breath. As he passed, he tossed them a brief glance and kept on.

  “Go on now. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She gave him a quick kiss.

  “Tomorrow.”

  She took the path that had memorized her steps over the years. As she passed the first apple tree, the basket swung harder. She glanced back once. Then the green washed over her, and through the leaves only a slip of her headscarf remained.

  Algar stayed where he stood. He heard the grain’s whisper more clearly now—steady, like his own pulse, which had begun to calm. On the boundary, a few paces off, stood a crooked stake someone had once driven carelessly. He thought he’d straighten it tomorrow, though no one had asked.

  The dogs by the pens fell silent for a heartbeat, as if listening for the wind’s direction.

  Tomorrow, after the harvest, they would meet by the great birch. A plan as simple as bread and water. He held it inside himself so it wouldn’t spill like seed from a sack. And he held something else—heavier, shapeless. He didn’t name it. It was enough to know it was there. With his right hand he touched his left—the one with the thin line from the burr. The skin had knit, but it remembered the sting. The body remembers what the head forgets.

  Behind him, the tavern boomed with laughter again. A raven lifted from a beam and skimmed the road, as though showing the path by which night would come to the village.

  The axe lay behind the byre, slid between split logs and wrapped in rags. Iron cool and slick with old oil. Algar slid his fingers under the haft and lifted it slowly. The weight pulled his wrist downward, as if the tool meant to choose its own direction. He took his stance at the back of the yard, where the ground was packed smooth. He didn’t want to be visible from the cottage. Over the roof, the last light seeped through the crossbeams; insects drifted low; from the meadow came the faintest croak of frogs.