Her name was Seren.

  It was an ordinary name, the kind no bard ever bothers to learn.

  Seren woke up because her youngest was crying.

  Not screaming. Crying. The soft, confused sound children make when the world feels wrong but hasn’t shattered yet.

  “Shh,” she whispered, already sitting up. Her hair was tangled, sleep heavy in her eyes. “I’m here.”

  The house smelled wrong.

  Not smoke. Not yet.

  Something sour. Like rain soaked into old iron.

  She swung her feet onto the floor and froze.

  The silence outside was too complete.

  No dogs. No carts. No wind.

  Her oldest, Tarin, stood in the doorway clutching the wooden sword his father had carved last winter. His knuckles were white.

  “Ma,” he said. His voice cracked on the word. “There’s people.”

  Seren moved before fear finished forming.

  She crossed the room, pulling her youngest to her chest, guiding Tarin behind her. The floor was cold. Her heart was loud. Too loud.

  Outside, the village well had collapsed inward like it had been punched by the sky.

  Men stood near it. Not shouting. Not laughing.

  Waiting.

  They wore no colors Seren recognized. Their armor was dull, like it had never known pride. One of them lifted his head slowly, as if he had been listening to something far away and it had just ended.

  Seren backed away.

  “Inside,” she whispered.

  The door exploded inward.

  Wood splintered. Tarin screamed. The sound cut off too fast.

  Seren turned.

  A hand caught her arm. Strong. Unkind.

  Her youngest wailed, fists beating uselessly against her chest.

  “Please,” Seren said. She didn’t know who she was begging. “They’re just children.”

  The soldier didn’t answer.

  Behind him, the air twisted.

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  A man with pale markings on his face lifted two fingers.

  The crying stopped.

  Not faded. Stopped.

  Seren felt it before she understood it. The sudden weightlessness in her arms. The wrongness of it.

  She looked down.

  Her child was still there.

  But not breathing.

  Her mouth opened. No sound came out.

  The soldier released her. She fell to her knees on the dirt floor, clutching a body that had gone strangely light, as if something essential had been taken away.

  Outside, someone laughed. Not loudly. Casually.

  Seren crawled toward Tarin.

  He lay near the door, wooden sword snapped in half beside him. His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling like he was still waiting for permission to move.

  “Tarin,” she whispered.

  Her voice shook him once. Twice.

  Nothing.

  Footsteps moved through the house.

  A boot nudged her shoulder, not hard. Almost gentle.

  “Leave the woman,” someone said. “She’s already broken.”

  Seren rocked back and forth on the floor, arms wrapped around nothing now, breath hitching in ugly, animal sounds she didn’t recognize as her own.

  Through the shattered doorway, she saw fire begin to take hold at the edge of the village.

  Not raging.

  Controlled.

  As if someone wanted it remembered exactly like this.

  Hours later, when Valcaryn’s scouts arrived, they found Seren still there.

  Alive.

  Eyes open.

  Holding air.

  She didn’t scream when they touched her.

  She didn’t speak.

  She just stared past them, toward a future that would never include wooden swords or crying children or quiet mornings.

  That night, when the screams finally reached Valcaryn in the form of messengers and ash-stained survivors, the Stone did not glow.

  And far away, a young king sat awake in the dark, feeling something crack that no one could see yet.