The river had risen overnight.
By the time Nerin woke, half the mill path was underwater, and Edenrock's fishermen were already out with poles and ropes, trying to pull wayward crates from the current. It had rained lightly—but not enough for a flood. Not nearly.
Nerin stood by the windowsill in Dorrin's home, the journal open before him, its latest page still dark with ink. The drawing hadn't changed. Sela's face—framed by something thorny and unnatural—stared through the page like she was waiting for him to speak her name aloud. He hadn't. Not yet.
Downstairs, Dorrin was shouting at someone. Then came the slam of a door and a wet thud, like someone had dropped a sack of grain.
He snapped the journal shut, tucked it into the satchel, and descended.
In the kitchen, Dorrin and a soaked man from the southern woods stood facing each other. Between them lay a small wrapped bundle—fabric torn, the outline of a limb visible through it. A child's size.
Dorrin's voice was raw. "You found him where?"
The man wrung out his cloak. "Half-buried under the roots near the Willow Pit. Don't ask how I knew to look. I just—did." His voice cracked on the last word.
"Was he...?"
"Cold. But breathing. He said nothing. Didn't blink. Just stared."
Nerin moved closer. The bundle shifted—there was a child inside, alright, but the way it twitched made something twist in Nerin's gut.
Dorrin noticed. "Nerin. Come here. You know more about... odd things than most."
He didn't deny it.
Kneeling, he touched the edge of the blanket and slowly pulled it back.
A boy. Maybe eight. Pale, sunken cheeks, skin veined faintly blue like ice-water ran through him. His eyes—open—were completely white. Not blind. Just... emptied.
"He didn't drown," Nerin murmured.
"No," the woodsman agreed. "Didn't wet him either."
Nerin gently opened the boy's small hand.
In his palm was a scrap of woven thread—red and black. Nerin's breath caught.
The same pattern from the charm Leyra had found.
This wasn't an isolated incident.
It was happening again.
---
Later that afternoon, the village held an emergency meeting in the Assembly Barn. The entire hall reeked of damp wool, pipe smoke, and worry.
"The marsh is waking up," said old Grana, banging her cane on the planks. "You mark my words, it's the stone-eyed ones coming back."
"No one's seen a stone-eyed anything in generations," muttered Avern, the leatherworker, rubbing his temples.
Dorrin stepped forward. "What matters is what we have seen. Sela's death. This boy's state. And whatever's stirring near the ruins—it isn't finished."
The steward Borran had returned from Riverrest. He leaned against a post with arms folded, eyes narrowed. "We should close the road to the marsh and the ruins both. Send a signal down the coast for wardens. Seal the place. It's not our business anymore."
"That's the problem," Leyra said from the back of the room. "It's only our business. No one else will care."
Heads turned. She met Nerin's eyes once—briefly—and then looked away.
There was a pause. Then the door creaked open and someone stepped in, hunched, her hair braided with vine threads and dried seed pods.
Myla, the widow of the ferryman.
People went silent. Myla rarely left her cottage after dusk.
She said only one sentence:
"They left a hand on my doorstep."
Silence fell again.
Dorrin broke it. "A what?"
"A hand. Child-sized. Carved. Not bone. Not wood. Something soft. I touched it and it was warm."
Someone whispered a prayer.
Nerin felt the weight in his satchel—the journal humming faintly.
There was no vote. The hall emptied slowly, people moving like ghosts.
---
That evening, Leyra found Nerin near the edge of the river, where the water lapped high against the roots of the elder trees. She had a bundle over her shoulder and a half-burnt torch in her hand.
"I'm going back to the mural," she said.
Nerin didn't argue. "You shouldn't go alone."
"I figured you'd say that." She didn't smile. "So I waited here."
Together, they made their way along the high path—avoiding the Willow Pit. No one spoke as they walked, though the wind moved through the trees like murmurs between old friends.
At the edge of the ruin, they stopped.
Someone had erected a set of stone markers—rough, freshly stacked. On each one, carved hastily with a blade, was a name.
Dozens.
Sela.
Garin.
Lut's sister.
All dead in the past year.
"This isn't new," Leyra whispered. "We just stopped looking."
They moved deeper inside.
This time, Nerin brought something he hadn't before: a chalk stick carved from bone, etched with the sign of the listening ear. He made a small circle at the base of the mural and stepped back.
"What does it do?" Leyra asked.
"Reveals hidden speech."
"And if it reveals something we don't want to hear?"
"Then we don't listen."
He placed the fractured lens over the circle.
The mural flared—then shifted.
A new image overlayed the old: the blind queen weeping into a basin, her tears forming mouths—small, curled things that grew from the soil and sang.
Leyra stepped closer. "Those are…"
"Waking plants," Nerin whispered. "Grown from memory. Not seed."
Suddenly, the air snapped—a crack like breaking bone.
The stone at the center of the room shifted. A trapdoor.
Nerin didn't remember it being there before.
He approached, careful.
The slab bore no hinge, no handle. But when Leyra touched it, it opened without a sound.
Beneath was a stairway. Dry. Dustless.
They descended together, torches flickering.
The passage opened into a circular chamber lined with jars. Inside each—shards of mask-like faces, some made of porcelain, others of bark or dried wax.
Leyra reached toward one—her fingers brushing the glass—and it sang.
Not music.
A voice.
"She took the name you left behind."
Leyra pulled back, trembling.
"I know that voice," she said. "That's my mother's."
Nerin checked the others.
One voice whispered an old poem. Another counted down from fifty. Another screamed.
But one jar—near the center—was empty. No mask. Only a coil of ash.
And etched beneath it: Nerin.
He stepped back.
"I've never—" He faltered.
Leyra looked at him, suddenly very still.
"You lied."
He didn't answer.
Above them, something shifted—stone grinding against stone. Not from the ruin.
From outside.
They ran.
---
At the edge of the ruin, the river had split.
A channel had carved itself into the ground, weaving toward the marsh, its water stained dark red—not blood, but a pigment older than rust.
And in the distance, half-covered in reeds and flowers, the statue at the marsh's center had moved.
It now faced Edenrock.
Leyra dropped to her knees.
Nerin stood in silence.
The journal burned hot against his chest.
A new word had appeared on its cover. Not etched. Not inked.
Branded.
"Debt."