The knife didn't shake in his hand.
That was the first thing Izen noticed.
His breathing was shallow, but not quick. No tremor in his fingers. No surge of adrenaline. The storm outside the stone cottage rattled the shutters and sang through the warped windowpanes, but inside — it was quiet.
Too quiet.
She lay on the floor, curled toward the hearth.
One hand outstretched.
No fire in the grate. Just ash. Her fingers twitched once.
Then stopped.
He watched her chest. It didn't rise again.
His mother was dead.
And he had killed her.
The rain was heavier now, clinging to the slanted roof like it wanted in. Izen stood still, soaked through, eyes fixed on the narrow blade in his grip. It was a paring knife. Dull. From the kitchen. His hand burned where it had slipped and sliced him earlier — shallow, stupid, careless.
He dropped it.
It clattered once. Then silence.
He stepped back, slow, eyes not leaving the small, blood-slicked form on the floor. Her nightdress was torn at the shoulder. Her hair — which had once been golden, now matted dark — stuck to the wound at her neck. Blood had soaked into the floorboards. One of her slippers had fallen off.
Why did I…
He shut the thought down before it finished.
Not now. Not yet.
The house was old — stone and timber, built into the crook of a moss-covered hill far from the main roads. No other homes for miles. That had been the point, hadn't it? To hide. To disappear. To live like ghosts.
His mother had taught him that. Had made sure they lived quiet, away from cities, away from names. Even his own — Izen — he wasn't sure if it had been his from birth or something borrowed along the way.
"Names are just graves," she used to say. "Don't wear yours too tightly."
He remembered sitting by the hearth, younger, watching her mend old tunics with tiny, perfect stitches. Her hands had always been steady.
Until tonight.
Until she reached for the knife first.
The blood on his hands was sticky now. Drying. He moved to the sink and ran cold water, scrubbing hard, scraping at the nailbeds. It wasn't coming out.
He looked at his reflection in the windowpane. Dim, distorted. The boy staring back at him looked... dull. Hollow. Skin too pale. Eyes too calm.
His mother had once said he had an "old stare."
Now he understood what she meant.
He went to the cupboard, pulled out the wool blanket. Laid it over her. Not for warmth — just decency. Her hand was still visible, pale against the dark floor.
He couldn't look at it.
So he sat down on the far side of the room. Just sat. Knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them. He stayed there for a long time. Minutes. Hours. It was hard to tell.
The wind howled outside. Somewhere far off, an owl called once, then again.
The stillness began to whisper to him.
What did she mean, when she said "they'll take your mind before your name"?
What did she see when she looked at you tonight?
What did you see, when you looked back?
He clenched his eyes shut, but the whispers didn't stop. They weren't voices exactly — just frayed edges of memory. His mother's hands on his shoulders. Her eyes glassy with fear. Her telling him not to go to the cellar. Never the cellar. Not alone.
And earlier tonight… the look in her eyes when he came back up those stairs.
Something had happened down there.
He could feel it. Taste it, almost. Like metal in the back of his throat.
But the memory wouldn't come.
Just the echo of her voice — ragged, not angry, but desperate:
"You don't understand what you are."
Then the knife.
Then silence.
When the knock came, it was soft.
Three quick raps. Then nothing.
He froze.
Who would come this far, this late, in this weather?
He didn't move.
Another knock. This time slower. More deliberate.
Izen stood and stepped lightly toward the door, silent as he could. He pressed his back to the wall beside it. Reached toward the fireplace and gripped the iron poker — long, cold, stained with soot.
He waited.
A voice came through the wood. Calm. Female. Dry.
"Izen Marr."
He didn't answer.
"I know what you've done. I also know what's coming. Open the door, or they'll open it for you."
He looked toward the covered body. The blanket had shifted slightly in the draft.
His jaw tightened.
Then he unlocked the bolt and opened the door.
She was tall, wrapped in a dark traveling cloak. No hood. Her face was pale, eyes storm-grey. No warmth in them. But no cruelty either. Not yet.
She looked at him. At the blood on his shirt. Then at the house behind him.
"You're very calm."
"You're very late," he replied.
That earned her silence. Then a nod.
She stepped inside without invitation.
He didn't stop her.
She didn't look at the body. She didn't need to.
Instead, she crossed the room and set a small wooden box on the table. Unlatched it. Opened it toward him.
Inside was a blade. Not a weapon — not quite. A letterknife.
Polished handle. Black wood. Inlaid with a symbol he didn't recognize: a ring, incomplete, broken at the top.
The woman pushed it toward him.
"This belonged to your father."
"My father's dead."
"He was marked," she said.
Izen blinked.
A long moment passed.
"I don't know what that means."
She smiled faintly. "You will."
Then she looked at the fireless hearth.
"You'll want to burn the body soon. When the rains stop, their scouts will come. Your mother was right about that."
"You knew her."
"I knew of her," the woman corrected. "Enough to know that she died trying to stop something. That she failed."
Izen didn't speak.
He sat at the table, fingers tracing the knife.
It felt heavier than it should.
The woman pulled a second object from her cloak — a folded envelope, stained with wax.
No name on the front.
Just a line:
"When he stops dreaming."
She placed it beside the knife. Then she stood.
"You'll leave tomorrow," she said. "South trail. Half a day's walk. You'll find a tree with no leaves. Sit beneath it. Someone will come."
"Who?"
"Someone worse than me."
She paused in the doorway.
"You have two paths, Izen Marr. Hide in your guilt. Or wear it."
He stared at the knife.
His voice was very quiet.
"Was it real?"
"What?"
"What I did."
She looked at him — not unkindly. But with something colder than sympathy.
"It doesn't matter."
Then she was gone.
He didn't sleep that night.
He read the letter the next morning, after he stopped dreaming.
It had only one sentence:
"The first death frees you. The second defines you."