Victor opened his eyes to the quiet chant of a morning monk.
A psalm, whispered low, all breath and hush, filtering through the broken stained glass. The sound clung to the stone, echoing without quite echoing-like a thread of wool unspooling into the cold air.
Emma was still asleep, her forehead resting against her arm, a lock of red hair draped across her cheek. Her breathing was slow, steady. One hand had slipped from beneath the blanket, palm open, fingers relaxed. Her face was turned slightly toward him, mouth slightly parted. A faint sigh escaped her-barely audible.
He watched her for a while, unmoving. Just feeling the quiet warmth of her presence, the soft weight of her body against his. Grounded. Alive.
At last, he got up-reluctantly, like someone stepping out of an unfinished dream.
He pulled his shirt on slowly, shoulders still heavy with sleep. Fastened the leather of his eyepatch. The motion had become mechanical by now, but still, that subtle stiffness in his wrist remained. A tension in the fingers. As if, each morning, he had to relearn how to live with the absence.
He buckled his belt, laced his boots in silence, and stepped outside.
The camp was stirring.
The sky above was milky grey, streaked with the faintest traces of blue.
The air still bit at the skin, but not like it had during those first brutal days.
The monks were already at work, brown-robed and quiet, moving back and forth in rhythms as steady as a ritual. Their feet glided over the damp stone, soft and constant.
The campfire had almost gone out, replaced by a blackened iron kettle suspended between three soot-dark stones. The water inside was simmering, sending up a thin veil of steam into the tempered morning air.
A raven let out a single sharp cry from the abbey roof, then took off into the sky.
Adam was already there, crouched near Rufus.
The boy, balancing on one foot, was struggling-without much success-to get his boots on the right feet. He muttered under his breath, chewing his lower lip, eyebrows drawn in fierce concentration.
Adam, seated behind him with exaggerated seriousness, was telling a story-something ridiculous and utterly implausible-his voice deadpan, like reciting a psalm.
- ...and I swear to you, he had it tied to his belt. The fish. Alive. A monster, with bulging eyes and gills flapping. He called it "his secret weapon." I thought he was gonna knock me out with it. I ducked behind a barrel, screaming. The old fishmonger turned and shouted, "Careful, it bites!" You can imagine the chaos.
Rufus looked up, skeptical. Just for a second.
Then a small, crooked smile tugged at his lips-thin, subtle, but real.
He bent to tackle his second boot, but the smile lingered.
- You scared of fish?
Adam nodded gravely.
- I was a kid. Anything slippery with sideways eyes? That's survival lesson one.
Victor approached quietly, a faint smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
He sat on a stump a little off to the side, resting his elbows on his knees, just watching them. There was something soothing in the scene. A kind of simplicity he thought he'd lost.
Rufus, crouched down, tongue poking out in concentration, was now tightening his laces with a determined frown.
Adam, behind him, absentmindedly played with a twig, breaking it between his fingers without looking.
Victor finally spoke, voice low:
- You do this every morning?
Adam shrugged, rolled his neck.
- The kid follows me like a shadow. Gotta earn that blind loyalty somehow.
Rufus didn't even glance up.
He mumbled between two knots:
- I'm not blind. I saw you fall off the ladder yesterday.
Adam froze for half a second. Then burst out laughing-a real laugh, rough around the edges, warming the air like a well-fed fire.
- And I saw that peg you hammered in sideways. I didn't say anything. Out of loyalty. But now that you're snitching...
Rufus looked up, half-ashamed, half-amused.
- It wasn't a peg, it was a dowel. Not the same.
- Worse! Adam retorted, already reaching out to ruffle his hair.
Rufus tried to dodge, laughing, curling up defensively under his skinny arms.
Victor watched them a moment longer, a little apart.
He didn't speak, but something inside him settled.
There was nothing grand in the moment. But it mattered.
This was how the world stitched itself back together-one half-contained laugh, one hand in the hair, one teasing word with no sting.
The slow return of a stolen childhood.
Adam, without being asked, had taken Rufus under his wing.
And the boy, against all odds, had nestled there.
Victor looked down, hands clasped.
For the first time in a long while, he felt something hold.
Not like a promise-more like an anchor.
A single true note in the noise of the world.
And for this morning, that was enough.
---
Later that day, after the usual tasks given by the monks-moving stones, sorting wood, fixing a broken tool wheel-Victor found Édric behind the collapsed cloister.
It had become their spot.
Sheltered from the wind, from watchful eyes, from the weight of everything else.
A pocket of silence between the stones, where the sun still filtered in, softened by the shattered arches.
The grass grew tall here, but the flagstones remained clear.
Two training swords leaned against a mossy wall, waiting.
Victor took off his jacket and laid it on a flat stone.
Édric, already warming up his wrists, watched him approach without a word.
They started slow.
An opening move. A parry. A sidestep.
The dull wood of their swords met with a dry snap.
The rhythm settled-familiar now. Fluid. Measured.
A dance.
Victor had learned to read Édric's movements by now.
He anticipated. He adjusted. He didn't get overwhelmed anymore.
Édric, on his side, said little.
He corrected with a glance, a frown, a nod.
He didn't go easy on Victor-not out of harshness, but because he believed high standards were a form of respect.
And Victor held his ground.
He held it well.
Their breaths grew heavier.
Their blows faster.
Their shadows danced on the wall, warped by the light.
Then Édric broke the rhythm, stepping back, blade lowered.
- You want to talk about what you found? Or not yet?
Victor stilled.
He stayed there a few seconds, catching his breath, hands on his knees, eyes on the ground.
Then he stood, wiped his brow with a sleeve. His eyepatch had slipped slightly along his temple. He adjusted it without thinking.
- Just a name. Scribbled in the margin of an old letter. Half-faded. But legible.
He looked up at Édric.
- Néri.
Édric didn't answer right away.
He blinked slowly, then let his sword fall against his thigh.
His face gave nothing away, but a tension hung between them-tight, invisible.
- Your father.
It wasn't a question.
It was a deduction. A check.
Victor shrugged.
Not carelessly-uncertainly.
- Maybe. I don't know. Just the name. Scribbled next to a passage about the disappearances in the north, twenty years ago. That's it. No details. No further mention. Nothing that proves anything. It's a name that means a lot of things, in a lot of languages.
He paused, looking down at the sword still in his hand.
His fingers tightened around it.
- And I don't want to throw myself into this just to... fill in the blanks. I want to be sure. I don't want to be dragged into something murky. Not again.
Silence again.
Only the wind in the grass.
The faint scrape of a quill on parchment, somewhere nearby.
Then Édric nodded, slow.
- You're right, he murmured. The past is a swamp. Don't think you can wade in and come out clean.
He stepped closer, gripped his sword with both hands, though he didn't raise it yet.
- It pulls you under quick. Quicker than you think. And the more you struggle, the more you drag things down with you. Memories. Names. Rage. You don't just lose your boots if you're not careful.
Victor stood still. Watching him.
There was something in his voice. Something lived. Something heavy.
- But if you dig, Édric added after a pause, do it right.
And don't do it alone.
Victor tilted his head, thoughtful.
Then a faint smile touched his lips.
- You volunteering?
Édric chuckled in his beard. Looked up at the sky.
- Tss. I'm not letting you out of my sight, you little brat.
He raised his sword just in time to block the quick feint Victor aimed at him, smiling. The blades clashed again.
- Too slow, old wolf, Victor teased.
- Screw you, Édric shot back. But good to see you've still got fire in you.
- You lit it.
They resumed their dance.
Bodies, blades, breath.
And that phrase, barely said, lingered in the air like a promise:
I'm not letting you go.
Victor thought about it for a long time after.
Later in the day, when doubt crept back in, when that scribbled name began to haunt him again.
It wasn't much.
But it was there.
Steady. Alive.
Someone.
---
It was in the afternoon that Victor tried a different approach.
The sun, veiled behind a layer of dense clouds, dragged behind the abbey rooftops.
The air had grown heavy, almost still-like before rain, but without threat. Just that strange sense of suspension, a fullness too calm, like the world was holding its breath.
He wandered the stone corridors for a while, walked along a quiet gallery, hands in his pockets.
His footsteps echoed dully on the uneven slabs.
The scent of warm wax and damp parchment lingered in the air.
He found him in the bookbinding workshop-a quiet monk, thirty perhaps, with a smooth, gentle face and ink-stained hands.
He was bent over a strip of leather, rubbing it with aromatic resin.
Each movement was precise, careful, respectful.
Victor stood there for a moment, watching him-reluctantly drawn in by the calm radiating from this man, from his focus, his almost sacred stillness-in the truest sense of the word.
Then he made up his mind.
- I've heard a name, a few times, during our travels. Néri.
Have you heard of it?
The monk lifted his head slowly, brows lightly furrowed. He examined Victor-not with suspicion, but with quiet curiosity.
His face looked surprisingly young beneath the rough linen hood.
His eyes were a pale brown, almost amber, as if washed by time.
He gently set the leather down, wiped his fingers on a folded cloth.
- Néri, he repeated, thoughtful. Yes. The name's been around. A long time, actually. But...
He trailed off, searching for words. Then he shrugged slightly.
- It has no fixed form. That's what makes it so slippery.
Some say it was a man. Others, a family. A clan.
There are even stories where it refers to an order. A secret society.
A mask worn by many, one after another.
Victor stayed silent.
He wasn't asking.
He was letting it come.
The monk went on, voice lower now-like reciting something heard too often, chewed over a hundred times.
- The name disappeared. And with it, its use. Its meaning.
So we embroidered around it. It became something else.
A shadow. A fable.
You know how it is... when words leave before the facts do. What's left is the echo. The ghost.
And emptiness draws stories to it.
He looked back at Victor. This time, his gaze held more weight.
- It got tied to fears. To disappearances. Tragedies no one could explain.
That name became a vanishing point.
But... we never knew. Nothing certain.
Victor drew in a slow breath.
- And here? At the abbey?
The monk shook his head.
- Here... we've heard the rumors. Not the proof.
Whispers in the common hall, between two vespers.
A forgotten page in the archives. A name scribbled in the margin.
Travelers asking questions, like you.
But nothing clear.
Nothing solid.
A trail. Not a face.
Victor lowered his eyes, nodded quietly.
He thanked him, simply, and stepped out without a sound.
The corridor seemed longer than before.
The silence heavier.
He walked with no real destination, hands deep in his pockets, shoulders low.
He felt something vague and shifting inside him.
Not fear. Not yet.
But a slow tension.
Like a river forming underground.
The name.
Always that name.
Returning. Then slipping away.
Something existed.
But what?
---
By evening, when Victor returned to camp, the fire had already been lit.
The light was soft, almost amber, as if filtered through aged oil.
It licked the stones of the courtyard, the tired silhouettes, the tools hastily stored away.
The abbey seemed suspended-caught between two breaths.
The sky in the west had turned copper.
The air, warmer than usual, carried the smell of ash and damp wood.
Emma was seated near the fire, knees tucked to her chest, a piece of canvas in her hands.
She was stitching in small, steady movements, brow furrowed in concentration.
Her fingers were blackened with soot, her nails caught with thread.
A few strands of hair had slipped from her braid, catching the firelight.
She had that look she got when focused-almost fierce, and yet peaceful.
Grounded. Present.
Victor slowed when he saw her.
He stepped closer and laid a light hand on her shoulder.
She turned her head, looked up at him.
He leaned down and kissed her, softly.
It was a gesture that had become familiar-but never routine.
There was something held back in it, something full.
Not proof.
Just an invisible thread saying I'm here.
She gave a faint smile and returned to her stitching without a word.
He sat beside her, close to the fire.
Not far off, Adam leaned against a tree trunk, one leg stretched out, the other bent.
He looked comfortable, but tired.
His eyes wandered from face to face, calm.
Rufus was asleep against him, head tucked into Adam's jacket.
One arm folded under him, the other hooked around Adam's belt like an anchor.
He still looked too thin, but not as fragile as before.
He slept like someone who wouldn't be woken to run.
Édric had returned just before nightfall.
He was sitting with them, legs crossed, back resting against an old block of stone.
He was chewing a twig, eyes lost in the firelight.
Next to him, Aldous sipped from a flask he was holding with two fingers, as if it burned.
His weathered face looked calm. Almost gentle, tonight.
The voices were low, but alive.
- If we stay here another week, we could build a second floor, Aldous grumbled. Or rebuild the nave. Or become monks, while we're at it.
Adam raised an eyebrow without turning his head.
- You'd look good in brown robes. Scare off every demon in a ten-mile radius with that grumpy face of yours.
- I'd scare them off with your soup, Aldous muttered.
Rufus stirred slightly in his sleep, mumbled something incoherent.
Adam calmed him with a hand on his back, a slow, steady gesture.
The boy settled again immediately.
- He talks in his sleep sometimes, Adam said softly. Not real words yet. But almost.
Emma looked up.
- So he dreams.
- Maybe for the first time in a long while.
Édric exhaled, tossed his twig into the fire.
- He's a tough kid. If he makes it, it won't be because he forgot. It'll be because he held on.
Victor looked around him.
The fire crackled softly.
Faces were easing.
Even Aldous, despite his grumbles, seemed more rested.
Emma had set her stitching aside. She was listening, one hand resting lightly on her ankle.
Adam, still quiet in the background, was watching over Rufus like a brother.
Or a father.
Or something else.
Someone steady. Simply that.
Victor drew a deep breath.
There was something right here.
Something simple.
A rough kind of tenderness, unspoken, but strong.
Emma, repairing the torn things.
Adam, not moving so as not to disturb a fragile sleep.
And Rufus-small. Alive.
He let his head fall back against the stone, closed his eyes for a moment.
The voices drifted, softened by the fire.
And deep inside, that name still pulsed.
That scribbled word.
That vertigo.
He knew he'd return to it.
That he couldn't ignore it.
But not tonight.
Tonight, he'd found something.
A hearth, maybe.
A fire to sit by without looking over your shoulder.
It wouldn't last. He knew that.
But it was here.
And sometimes, that was enough.