Tarren never feared the world.
He feared what it would do to his child.
---
The child was sleeping. Finally. After three hours of cooing and bouncing and murmured lullabies in the cracked, smoky voice passed down through his family like a legacy no one wanted. Kael lay curled in a handwoven nest of blankets, one foot poking free like always—defiant even in dreams.
Tarren watched them breathe, slow and shallow, then turned away before the sight did what it always did: broke him open.
The home was small. Earth-packed stone and driftwood walls, etched with runes and symbols few knew how to read anymore. The central hearth smoldered low, casting long shadows that swayed with the silence. His wife, Mira, was out gathering herbs. Or pretending to. She hated how quiet he became when the fire burned low and Kael slept too soundly.
He hated it too.
---
He reached under the cot and drew out the old bundle: a cloth-wrapped journal, three cracked crystal shards, and the rust-bitten dagger he'd sworn never to use again.
He turned the dagger over in his hands. The metal still hummed softly with old magic, long since dulled. Its hilt was wrapped in a strip of faded red—his brother's scarf.
He didn't know why he'd kept it. Maybe to remember. Maybe to remind.
The door creaked open behind him.
Mira stepped in, hair wind-wild, arms full of dried sprigs. She looked at the dagger, then at him.
"You're holding ghosts again."
Tarren slid it back under the cot.
"They visit whether I welcome them or not."
---
Mira lowered herself onto the floor beside him, her knees cracking softly. She placed a hand on his.
"They're not coming for Kael. Not yet."
"They don't need to," Tarren said, voice quiet. "The curse draws them."
Mira's eyes flicked toward the bundle of blankets. "No one knows what they are. Not really."
"No one sees what they are," he corrected. "That's the difference. That's the danger."
He paused. Then added, almost in a whisper, "Not even us."
---
It was true. Even they—Kael's parents—couldn't see the child's true form, even with a mirror. And the reflection only showed it to Kael.
What everyone else saw, even them, was what they wanted most.
Tarren had asked Mira once, early on, when the child was barely days old:
"What do they look like to you?"
Mira had looked away and said, "Like the version of myself I wish I could've been."
Tarren had seen a warrior—not just strong, but proud, unbroken, unafraid to walk the world uncovered. Someone who could look others in the eye without flinching.
And neither of them had dared to say what that meant.
---
Kael made people uncomfortable. Not in the usual way. Not like most Noc'thera children, who learned early to be small and silent and still. Kael giggled too loudly. Wandered too far. Asked too many questions in a voice that slipped past every guard.
They weren't just a child.
They were a story waiting to happen.
And stories, in this world, were dangerous things.
---
Later that night, after Mira had fallen asleep beside the hearth, Tarren stood by the window. The stars were hidden behind a curtain of clouds, thick and low. Rain threatened, but never came.
He felt it in his blood. The shift.
Not magic. Not quite.
It was the weight of something watching. Something old. And cruel. And patient.
He looked down at Kael, who stirred gently in their sleep, brow furrowed as if dreaming of something too big to hold.
"You don't know what's waiting for you," he whispered.
He wished they never would.
---
But wishes were weak currency.
So instead, he began to plan.
---
The next morning, Tarren took Kael to the market.
Mira protested, as she always did. "Let me take them next time. You know how people stare."
"I can handle stares," he said.
She didn't answer, just pressed a kiss to Kael's head and whispered a protection charm in old Noc'theran—words that no longer lit the air, but still held shape in the heart.
Tarren walked with Kael wrapped in a sling across his chest, the way Mira had taught him—close enough to feel the child breathe, but angled to let them see the world. Kael liked that. Always watching. Always absorbing.
Their village, Aestrith's Bend, was the kind of place that existed mostly to be ignored. One of the hundred small settlements dotting the outer cliffs of a poor nation ruled by nobles too obsessed with appearance to notice they'd starved half their population.
The market stood on uneven stones, half-covered by weatherworn awnings, smells of cured meat and stale bread swirling together with hints of rust and magic residue.
Tarren kept his hood low.
He didn't need to hear words to know what the townsfolk thought.
They didn't trust his kind.
Not because he was Noc'thera.
Because he was free.
---
"Morning, Tarren," called a voice like gravel. Old Brell, the blacksmith, was one of the few who didn't spit after greeting him.
Tarren offered a nod. "Blades holding up?"
"Better than my knees." Brell chuckled, then looked at Kael and paused. "Still haven't figured out what they are, have you?"
Tarren's eyes didn't flinch. "They're my child."
"That wasn't the question."
Tarren said nothing.
Brell gave a slow, uncomfortable laugh. "Just sayin'. Never seen a kid that… consistent at being inconsistent."
Kael turned at the sound of Brell's voice, meeting the old man's gaze with a look far too calm for a child their age.
Brell blinked.
For a heartbeat, something changed in his eyes. Awe? Fear? Longing?
Then it passed.
Tarren kept walking.
---
Two stalls later, it happened again.
A merchant woman bent forward to offer Kael a small carved toy—just a gesture, a bit of theater to make a sale.
Then she looked up. Saw Kael's face.
And dropped the toy like it had stung her.
Tarren didn't speak. Just picked it up, nodded politely, and left.
By the fifth stall, Kael was humming quietly against his chest, unfazed.
Tarren's hands were trembling.
Not from fear.
From the confirmation.
The curse wasn't fading.
---
Later, at home, he sat by the hearth again, Kael asleep beside him, Mira boiling dried lentils in a shallow pot. Her hands moved automatically, but her eyes were on him.
"You're thinking again," she said.
"I'm always thinking."
"You're worrying again."
He didn't deny it.
She stirred the pot twice, then sat. "Who noticed today?"
He recited the names. Five total. All locals.
Mira sighed. "That's more than last week."
He nodded.
She leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. "We need to prepare."
"For what?"
"For the first time someone dangerous sees them."
---
Kael's curse was no longer a strange effect they hoped would fade. It had rooted itself in every part of daily life. No two people saw the same child. No one remembered Kael the same way from week to week. Some claimed the child was a boy. Some swore a girl. Others described traits that made no biological sense.
And yet, to each of them, it all seemed perfectly normal—until the moment passed.
The only ones who remembered the inconsistencies were Kael's parents.
And even they couldn't see the truth.
Not even in mirrors.
---
Three nights later, the knock came.
Not the hard fist-bang of a soldier. Not the desperate rattle of a beggar.
A polite knock. Twice. Then silence.
Tarren answered, knife tucked in his sleeve.
The man outside wore an academic's robe, pressed and clean. Pale skin. Thin spectacles. A polite smile.
"Forgive the late hour," he said. "I'm looking for someone with a particularly... gifted child."
Tarren didn't blink. "Lots of gifted children around here."
"Not like this one."
The man stepped back slightly, a deliberate motion to show his hands. "I'm not a threat. I represent an organization interested in sponsoring rare talent."
Tarren's breath slowed. "And what organization is that?"
"A non-public one."
That was all he needed to hear.
The knife was at the man's throat before the next heartbeat.
---
"I suggest," Tarren said, "you choose your next words very carefully."
The man didn't flinch. But something changed behind his eyes. A calculation. A confirmation.
"So the rumors were true," he murmured. "Interesting."
He vanished.
Not with a puff of smoke or a flash of light—just folded into the air like he had never been there.
Tarren stood still for a long time after.
Then bolted the door. Twice.
---
The next morning, they packed.
Mira didn't ask questions. She just moved—methodically, with practiced hands.
Kael sat on a stool chewing dried fruit, legs too short to reach the floor, watching them.
"We have to move again," Tarren said gently.
Kael nodded like it meant nothing.
Maybe it didn't.
Maybe they'd never known stability long enough to miss it.
Maybe that was the worst part.
---
They reached Kevarith without another incident.
Tarren kept his eyes forward, one hand always near his hidden blade, the other guiding the small bundle of limbs and oversized cloak that was Kael. Mira handled all the talking when they passed through the checkpoint. Tarren just watched for threats. The guards barely glanced at Kael—though one did stare a second too long before shaking his head, confused.
They found a flat above a tannery. The air smelled like rotting bark and salt, but it was private and cheap, and the locks were sturdy.
That night, Kael climbed up on the windowsill and watched the lanterns flicker like trapped fireflies.
Tarren sat nearby, sharpening an old hunting knife.
"Crowded," Kael murmured.
Tarren raised an eyebrow. "You don't like cities?"
Kael shrugged. "I like watching them."
The words were calm. Controlled. Almost too grown.
Tarren noticed. Again.
He didn't ask. Again.
Kael just kept watching, eyes following the blurred silhouettes of people below.
"Do you want to be seen?" Tarren asked eventually.
Kael was quiet a long time.
Then said, "I want to be seen by the right person."
There was no confusion in the words.
Only certainty.
Tarren didn't ask what they meant. He told himself they were just repeating something they'd heard.
He didn't believe it.
---
Later, when the house was still, Tarren pulled out the worn journal again.
He didn't write much. Just a note.
> "They know more than they should.
Not guessing. Knowing.
Mira suspects nothing. That's good.
But the child's eyes don't look like a child's.
Watching. Waiting. Measuring.
I will keep watch.
And pray I'm wrong."
He closed the book.
Slid it beneath the floorboard.
And sat in silence until morning.