Ethan burst from the forest into the cottage's warm circle of light, his breath coming in ragged gasps. Tears streaked his face, and his small body shook with terror that no eight-year-old should ever feel.
Lila was tending her drying herbs on the porch when she heard his footsteps. She turned with a welcoming smile that died the instant her eyes found him.
Her gaze locked onto his left hand—bare, pale, and deadly in the moonlight.
"Ethan, stop!" The words exploded from her lips with such force that he stumbled to a halt several paces away. "Don't move! Don't you dare move another step!"
He stood frozen where she'd commanded, his whole body trembling like a leaf in a storm. The sight of his mother's face—white with shock, eyes wide with the kind of fear he'd never seen there before—broke something inside him.
"Ma," he sobbed, "I didn't mean to—"
"The glove," Lila whispered, her voice barely audible. Her hands pressed against her heart as if trying to keep it from bursting. "Where is the glove?"
His right hand fumbled at his pocket, pulling out the crumpled black leather. The moment she saw it, relief and fury warred across her face in equal measure.
"You removed it," she breathed, then louder, anger crackling in her voice: "You didn't listen to us! How could you—"
Her words cut off as a new realization struck her. If the glove was in his pocket, and he'd been running through the forest with his bare hand...
"MARLIN!" she screamed toward the lake, her voice carrying desperate urgency across the evening air. "MARLIN, COME NOW!"
The sound of splashing water came immediately, followed by heavy footsteps crashing through the undergrowth. Within moments, Marlin Gust appeared at the forest's edge, his hunting clothes dripping lake water, his eyes scanning for danger.
When he saw Ethan standing motionless in the yard—small, terrified, and holding his cursed hand away from his body like a poisonous snake—Marlin's expression shifted into something Ethan had never seen before. Not anger, not fear, but a deep, ancient sadness.
"Son," Marlin said quietly, approaching with the careful steps of a man approaching a wounded animal. "Tell me what happened."
The gentleness in his father's voice broke the dam holding back Ethan's words. They poured out in a flood of guilt and terror:
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to! I only wanted to know. It looked normal—just a hand! I touched the tree and it died, Da. It died! Then the rabbit—it stopped breathing. I killed it! I don't know why, I don't know what's wrong with me!"
"Easy, lad. Easy." Marlin knelt before him, close enough to touch but not quite reaching. "Breathe with me. In… and out. There."
"But I killed them," Ethan whispered, fresh tears streaming down his cheeks. "I'm a monster."
Marlin reached into Ethan's pocket and withdrew the glove. As he moved to take Ethan's bare left hand, the boy yanked it back against his chest.
"No!" Ethan cried. "Don't touch it! It's cursed! I'll kill you too!"
For a moment that stretched like eternity, Marlin studied his son's terrified face. Then, with deliberate slowness, he reached out and grasped Ethan's left hand in his own weathered palm.
Nothing happened.
Marlin's skin remained warm and living. His eyes stayed bright. His pulse continued steady and strong where Ethan could feel it through his fingers.
"See?" Marlin said softly. "Nothing happened to me. You're not cursed, son. You're just... different. Special. And special things need special care."
With gentle efficiency, he worked the glove back onto Ethan's hand, sealing it at the wrist with practiced motions. The familiar weight of the leather felt like absolution.
"Did anyone see you?" Marlin asked, his tone carefully neutral.
Ethan shook his head. "No. I was alone in the forest."
"Good." Relief flickered in Marlin's eyes. "Listen to me carefully, Ethan. That glove must never come off again. Never. Think of it as part of you, like your horn. It's not punishment—it's protection. For you and for everyone else. Do you understand?"
Before Ethan could answer, Lila was there, falling to her knees and pulling him into a fierce embrace that smelled of herbs and desperate love.
"Why did you do that?" she whispered against his hair. "Do you know what would have happened if someone had seen you? If they knew what you could—" Her voice broke, and she held him tighter. "Promise me, Ethan. Promise me you'll never remove it again."
"I promise," he choked out, meaning it with every fiber of his being. "I promise, Ma. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
She rocked him as she had when he was small, murmuring comfort in the old tongue of Kyros until his sobs quieted to shuddering breaths. When he finally grew still in her arms, she lifted him—still so small, despite everything—and carried him inside.
His bed felt like a sanctuary. Lila tucked the blankets around him with infinite care, smoothing his hair away from his horn and pressing a kiss to his forehead.
"Sleep now, little bird," she whispered. "Tomorrow we'll... tomorrow will be better."
But they both knew that wasn't true. Tomorrow would bring the same fear, the same secrets, the same careful distance from a world that could never know what he really was.
When Ethan's breathing finally deepened into exhausted sleep, Lila slipped from his room to find Marlin sitting heavily at their kitchen table. His hands rested flat on the worn wood, and she could see the faint tremor in his fingers—the only sign of what touching Ethan's cursed flesh had cost him.
"Are you all right?" she asked, settling into the chair beside him. Her healer's instincts made her reach for his hands, checking for signs of damage. "Do you need healing magic?"
Marlin looked up at her, and for a moment his careful mask slipped. She saw the weight he carried, the knowledge that pressed on him like stones.
"I'm fine, love," he said softly. "It would take more than a child's power to harm me."