Long before he ever heard her name, Devin Knight had begun to feel the stir.
It wasn't loud. It wasn't even sharp. It was just a sense—deep in the pit of his stomach—that the world around him was humming a note he couldn't hear fully. Not yet. Not until she arrived.
But he didn't know that. Not then.
Back then, life was routine. Coldly polished. Perfectly sharp. Just like the Knight family expected.
He woke every morning at six. Jogged the perimeter of the estate grounds before breakfast. He trained with Russell three times a week—sword forms, meditation, family history.
Then came school. Smile. Walk like you belong. Speak when spoken to. Represent the legacy.
Devin was good at it. Almost too good. Because no one asked what he wanted. They only asked if he was ready for more responsibility. More weight. More Knight.
But beneath the polished surface, something had always felt off. Wrong. Not broken—just... misaligned.
The estate was beautiful. Too beautiful. Pristine halls, stained glass crests, old portraits staring down at him like ghosts in silk and armor. But the air was always cold. Always watching. Like the house itself remembered every betrayal, every oath broken in candlelight.
Especially in the west wing.
Devin never went there unless ordered.
That's where the archive was. Where the walls whispered if you stood too still. Where he once saw his mother's frost-kissed portrait hanging between two figures whose names were never spoken.
He wasn't supposed to ask questions about her.
He asked anyway.
Russell's answer had been short.
"She was frost-born. But she chose the Knight name. That's what matters."
But it wasn't enough.
Devin remembered her voice too clearly to let her become history.
He remembered her humming.
He remembered the day she screamed.
No one talked about that day.
He sat in the Knight family council room one evening, Russell across from him, a map of Hawthorne unrolled between them. His father stood at the window, hands behind his back, staring out toward the distant shadow of the Hawthorne Tree.
"The roots shift again," Russell muttered, tapping the map. "They've grown restless this season. The barrier spells around the town perimeter weakened last month."
"And nothing's triggered the Watchers?" Devin asked.
"Not yet."
Their father spoke without turning. "Because the Watchers no longer answer. Whatever balance once existed is fracturing. The Tree no longer sleeps."
Devin's spine prickled.
He'd heard that before.
He just didn't know what it meant.
"We've made contact with the Barnes," Russell added. "Silva's in line to anchor a social alliance with our line. It's politically sound. Publicly strategic."
Devin stiffened. "I'm not interested in Silva."
Russell arched a brow. "You don't have to be. You just have to maintain appearances."
Devin stood. "Then find someone else to do it."
His father turned, finally. "You are a Knight, Devin. Legacy outweighs preference."
Devin met his gaze and held it. "I didn't ask for this legacy."
"And yet you wear it."
He left the council room that night burning inside.
He walked to the edge of the estate. To the western woods. Past the gate that no one else used.
And there—he felt it again.
That hum.
That thrum of something ancient beneath his feet.
It wasn't evil.
It wasn't kind.
It was waiting.
Just like him.
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The days grew stranger.
It started with the wind.
At first, nothing unusual—just a shift in the air. But Devin had trained in the old ways. Wind, to the Knights, was more than weather. It was direction. Omen. Echo.
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One morning he stood in the old training circle behind the estate, blade in hand, mid-form, when the breeze cut sideways—fast, cold—and left the scent of iron and wild roses.
He froze.
The scent shouldn't have meant anything.
But it did.
It reminded him of something.
Or someone.
The feeling only deepened as the week went on. The usual town rhythms—the artificial smiles, the whispers about Silva's latest tantrum, the hollow school assemblies—felt more fragile than ever. Beneath them, something pulsed.
Something… returning.
It reached him strongest when he passed by the fence near the school woods. A throb under his ribs. Like being watched by the ground itself.
He tried to tell Russell.
They were in the study again. Scrolls laid out. Rune etchings Devin could translate backward and forward. He didn't care anymore. Not that day.
"Something's changing," he said. "I can feel it in the roots. It's like they're... aware."
Russell didn't look up. "The roots are always aware. You just weren't listening before."
"No. It's not like before. It's not just Hawthorne. It's… someone."
That made Russell pause.
He looked up sharply. "What do you mean someone?"
"It's like the land's reacting to a presence. One I don't know yet."
Russell narrowed his eyes. "Stay away from it."
"I haven't even found it yet."
"That's exactly why you should stay away."
Devin didn't answer.
Later that night, when the estate was asleep, Devin slipped from his room and crossed the house in silence.
He moved like shadow.
No creaking boards. No flickering lamps.
Only breath.
Only the pull.
He found himself standing again in the west wing.
The one no one spoke of. The one his father kept locked most of the year.
But tonight, the door wasn't locked.
And when he entered, the air was thick with frost.
His mother's portrait stared down at him from the far wall. Her expression was always softer than the rest. Her eyes brighter. Lonelier.
Frost-blood, Russell had said.
Devin had never really understood what that meant.
But lately, in mirrors, in dreams, he thought he saw ice behind his own eyes too.
It happened the next morning.
She arrived.
He didn't know her name yet.
But he felt her before she crossed the threshold.
A ripple in the hallway air. A hush in the root beneath his feet. A breath that wasn't wind.
He turned his head in time to catch a glimpse of her from across the hall.
Black hair like ink. Emerald eyes searching the floor. And something—something in her presence—felt wrong.
No, not wrong.
Unsettling.
Like an echo of something he should remember—but had never seen.
He didn't speak to her.
Not yet.
He just watched.
And the longer he watched, the more the pull sharpened.